How to build and execute a loyalty program for WooCommerce without breaking a sweat – Part II

In the first article from this series, we covered the theoretical ground about customer loyalty programs, its benefits and different types. In this article, we‘ll create an actual customer loyalty program in WooCommerce using Growmatik.

Read Part 1

1- What will our customer loyalty program in WooCommerce be?

In this article, we’re going to create a progress-based customer loyalty program in WooCommerce with a combined rewarding basis. Our loyalty program will reward customers in three tiers – the Bronze, Silver and Gold tiers – by unlocking coupons with a 20%, 25% and 30% discount when each respective tier is unlocked. The rewarding basis will be as follows:

	Bronze	Silver	Gold
Total order value of	$1000	$2000	$5000
and
Total count of purchased items	10	15	25
or Total count of orders	5	10	20
will unlock discount of	%20	%25	%30

As seen in the table, the eligibility criteria for each tier is a combination of the total order value plus the total count of purchased items OR the total count of orders.

We’ll first send a motivating notification email when the customer is close to reaching each tier, as well as one when they reach a milestone. That email will include the unlocked coupon and the next milestone to reach. 

We’ll also display personalized homepage content or popups in the same 6 key points as well, meaning the customer will see a personalized version of your homepage upon making progress in the program for a more seamless and motivating experience.

	Email	Website
Approaching the Bronze milestone	‘You’re very close to unlocking the  Bronze milestone!’	Personalized popup
Bronze milestone reached	‘Congrats, you’ve just unlocked the Bronze milestone!’	Personalized greeting in the hero section
Approaching the Silver milestone	‘You’re very close to unlocking the  Silver milestone’	Personalized popup
Silver milestone reached	‘Congrats, you’ve just unlocked the Silver milestone!’	Personalized greeting in the hero section
Approaching the Gold milestone	‘You’re very close to unlocking the Gold milestone’	Personalized popup
Gold milestone reached	‘Congrats, you’ve just unlocked the Gold milestone!’	Personalized greeting in the hero section and popup

In Growmatik, we need to create 6 segments of customers for the 6 key points, then we’ll create marketing material for each segment (email, website personalization and popup) and finally create automations to execute the respective marketing material for each segment when it’s timed accordingly. Let’s get started with creating the segments.

1- Create loyalty tiers segmentation

We should define two groups of segments: 3 for main milestones and 3 for approaching milestones.

In order to create the 3 main milestone segments in Growmatik: 

• Go to the People section in the sidebar.
• Choose All Customers from the dropdown and then click on the + Add Filter button to define filters for your segment. 
• Find Shopping Activity, select the total order value as your filter and enter 1000 as the filter value.
• Click on the + Add Filter button to define the second part of the filtering (which is either Total count of purchased items or Total count of orders). From the Shopping Activity category, select Total count of purchased items and enter 10.
• Click on the + button, which is right next to the current filter (not the + Add Filter button), and from the Shopping Activity category, select Total count of orders and set the value as 5.
• Now click on the connecting button between two filters and choose ‘or’. This way, we define the second filtering can be either of Total count of purchased or Total count of orders.
• Click on Save and name your segment as Bronze.
• Repeat the same process for Silver and Gold keypoint segments, entering the respective numbers and save them with their respective names.

In order to create the 3 approaching milestone segments in Growmatik:

Approaching segments are those that are close to achieving a main milestone. For example:

	Total order value	Total count of purchased items	or Total count of orders
Bronze main milestone	$1000	10	5
Bronze approaching milestone	$800	7	2
Silver main milestone	$2000	15	10
Silver approaching milestone	$1700	12	7
Gold main milestone	$5000	25	20
Gold approaching milestone	$4500	20	15

Repeat the steps of the previous section with the approaching milestones, enter the respective numbers and save each segment respectively (Gold Approaching, Silver Approaching,…)

2- Create marketing material (website, emails and popups) for each loyalty segment

Now that we have created our 6 main segments for our loyalty program in WooCommerce, we should create the marketing material for each. By obtaining a multi-channel approach that notifies and engages the customers via interactive emails and website content, we distinguish them as special users by providing personalized content based on their activity in our store and seamlessly engage them at different touchpoints.

In total, we need the following material to cover our 6 main key points:

Emails	Website	Popup
Approaching Bronze
1-1 ‘You’re very close to unlocking the Bronze milestone!’		1-2 Personalized popup when approaching Bronze
Bronze achieved
2-1 ‘Congrats, you’ve just unlocked the Bronze milestone!’	2-2 Homepage personalized  when Bronze reached
Approaching Silver
3-1 ‘You’re very close to unlocking the Silver milestone’		3-2 Personalized popup when approaching Silver
Silver achieved
4-1 ‘Congrats, you’ve just unlocked the Silver milestone!’	4-2 Homepage personalized  greeting when Silver reached
Approaching Gold
5-1 ‘You’re very close to unlocking the Gold milestone’		5-2 Personalized popup when approaching Gold
Gold achieved
6-1 ‘Congrats, you’ve just unlocked the Gold milestone!’	6-2 Homepage personalized greeting when Gold reached

In general, we have two types of templates: one for when a user is approaching a milestone and one for when the milestone is reached. We use Growmatik’s email and popup builders as well as the webpage personalizer to create these marketing materials.

Create email templates

Let’s begin by creating the template 1-1, which is for when a user is approaching the Bronze milestone. In Growmatik:

• Find Workshop in the sidebar and click on Emails. Click on the Create Email button.
• Choose a template that best suits your preference. The Dear loyal customer, Christmas and Event templates may be a good template to begin with, but you’ll be able to fully customize the template inside the Growmatik builder. Give it a name like Approaching Bronze and click Create Template.
• Next up, you can create the content of the emails as you wish.
• Use dynamic elements such as the customer’s name to personalize the content as much as possible. Your copy should also have an exciting tone announcing the news that a customer is about to reach a milestone in order to motivate them even further.
• Include the numbers of Total order value, Total count of purchased items and Total count of orders by finding the dynamic keywords available for each of these in the text element setting.
• Add funny elements such as GIFs, emojis and nice colors to turn this not just into a notification email but also an exciting experience for the customer who is about to hit the milestone.
• Give your template a name such as Approaching Bronze email template and save it by clicking the Save & Exit button.

Repeat the same steps for other ‘approaching’ segments email templates 3-1 and 5-1. You should add the relevant content according to each approaching tier. The person who approaches the gold milestone has accomplished a lot and could be encouraged by reading a particularly motivating message. Just an example!

You should also follow the same steps to create campaigns for the ‘achieved’ segments (2-1, 4-1, 6-1). Just for these segments make sure to include the discount coupon you promised by using the coupon element in the email builder to place the coupon related to the unlocked discount reward.

Create popup templates

We intend to show 3 popups to 3 approaching segments. Let’s create the template 3-2, which is for when a user is approaching the Silver milestone. In Growmatik:

• Find Workshop in the sidebar and click on Emails. Click on the Create Popup button. 
• Choose a template that suits best to your preference. Any of the Coupon Discount templates may be a good template to begin with, but you will be able to fully customize the template inside the Growmatik builder. Give it a name like Approaching Bronze and click Create Template.
• Next up, you can create the content of the popup the way you like.
• Make use of dynamic elements such as the customer’s name to customize the content as much as you can. Your message notifying the user that they are about to reach the Silver milestone should also convey an enthusiastic tone to encourage them to continue.
• Include the numbers of Total order value, Total count of purchased items and Total count of orders by finding the dynamic keywords available for each of these in the text element setting.
• Use entertaining elements such as GIFs, emojis and nice colors.
• Give your template a name such as Approaching Bronze email template and save it by clicking the Save & Exit button.
• Repeat this step to create email templates for every other Approaching Bronze (1-2) and Approaching Gold (5-2) segments and include the respective content with dynamic keywords for each.

Create website content personalization

Your website content is (and should!) be visited by customers as many times as possible. This is the goal of every online business especially stores and is one of the key metrics to show the stickiness of your customers to your brand. By personalizing the content of your website based on the milestones of your customers, we’ve completed the multi-channel experience for our loyal customers.

For example, we can show a personalized greeting to our customers including the news about the milestone they just met on the homepage. In total you should create 3 website personalizations for the segments Bronze Achieved, Silver Achieved and Gold Achieved. Let’s follow the below steps to make a personalized greeting for those who just achieved the Gold milestone (item 6-2 in the table).

In Growmatik: 

• Find Workshop in the sidebar, and click on Personalizations. Click on the Create Personalization button.
• Choose homepage from the menu and you will be taken to the webpage personalizer workspace.
• Next up, personalize the content of the hero section (above the fold) of your page the way you like.
• You can use dynamic elements such as the customer’s name to personalize the greeting. You can also use the time of the day dynamic keyword to create greetings such as Good Afternoon!, Good Evening! And so forth. Our goal is to excite a customer who just hit the biggest milestone a customer can meet. So be creative!
• Right below the top greeting, you can include the related info about the Gold milestone they have unlocked by including numbers of Total order value, Total count of purchased items and Total count of orders. Finding the dynamic keywords available for each of these in the text element setting.
• Give your personalization a name, such as Gold Achieved, and save it by clicking the Save & Exit button.
• Repeat this step to create email templates for Bronze Achieved (2-2) and Silver Achieved (4-2) segments and include the respective content with dynamic keywords for each.

Needless to say, you can personalize your landing page by showing personalized products as well.

3- Create automations to execute marketing material for each loyalty segment

Now that we have created our marketing material for each segment, the only thing remaining is creating automations to serve each material to their respective segments. Let’s do this: 

• In Growmatik, go to WorkShop and find one of the templates we created in the previous step (email, popup or page personalization)
• Click on the three-dots button in the lower right corner of template thumbnail > Automate > For customers.
• You will be taken to Automation Dashboard with the email template set as the action.
• For the condition, select one of the 6 segments we created in step 1.
• For example, for campaign 1-1, we select the Approaching Bronze segments and its relevant email template.
• Click on the Create Rule button.
• Repeat the same process for every other segment and template. In total, you should create 12 automations to cover all the campaigns listed on Table 4.

And that’s it. We just created 12 automations for our 6 segments. Now once a milestone is reached by the customer they will be served the relevant personalization based on the table 4.

You can get back to the automation dashboard and check the performance of automation (e.g.  open and click rate, view counts, conversions caused by the automation, etc.) by clicking on any of the automation and clicking on the Report button.

Takeaways

One thing to keep in mind: your products or services need to provide real value for a loyalty program to work. It’s also important to note that loyalty programs should not be used to trick customers, which would then tarnish your reputation and prove ineffective in the long-term. Instead, loyalty and reward programs should be used in tandem with other marketing efforts to boost customer engagement and stickiness. 

Through this two-part series, we discussed the theoretical ground related to loyalty programs, its different types and also practiced creating an actual loyalty program in WooCommerce using Growmatik. Thanks to Growmatik, we were able to track customer activity and achievements, create segments for each and then serve automated content for each segment when it’s time in different channels, including website homepage, popups and email campaigns. In other words, there are no extra third parties needed as everything is included with Growmatik.