Loyalty platform ShopSocially earned a big partnership recently, with the announcement that sports nutrition company Predator Nutrition selected the company to design and execute its loyalty program. The program encourages not only transactional engagement, but also social recommendations, offering points for things like social media engagement and writing reviews.
Loyalty360 spoke with Jai Rawat, CEO & Founder of ShopSocially, about what sets the program apart from competitors.
What advantages does social media hold compared to other channels of brand communication?
Rawat: Social Media has truly democratized marketing by providing a platform where every customer can be a potential marketer. We know that word-of-mouth has always been the most powerful and trusted medium. In fact, research has shown that it is seven times more powerful than any type of ad. With the advent of social media, brands now have an opportunity to truly tap into this channel in a way that is highly scalable and can move the needle for their business.
How can anyone afford to ignore a channel that is an order of magnitude more effective than any other marketing strategy?
What makes ShopSocially different from other loyalty solutions?
Rawat: Traditional loyalty solutions simply reward users for purchases. However, modern consumers don’t just buy from businesses – they also share their opinions on Facebook, tweet about their experiences, share pictures on Instagram, write reviews, ask/answer questions, recommend products to their friends, and more.
ShopSocially has created an omnichannel loyalty solution that reflects this interaction paradigm of today’s shoppers. It enables brands to reward users not only for purchases, but also for any other desirable engagement. It creates an all-around, 360-degree engagement with consumers and keeps them connected to the brand, even in between their purchase transactions.
What kind of unique challenges and benefits did you observe working with a fitness/nutrition company? Is your approach to customer loyalty impacted by the client’s industry, or is your solution universal?
Rawat: I don’t think there were any challenges that were specific to a fitness/nutrition company. Our solution is fairly universal and can be used for any industry. The configuration is of course industry-specific. We have to do the research to understand the current consumer behavior, which actions we should encourage, how to assign value/loyalty points to each action, come up with the write creative and messaging, and figure out the promotion strategy. All of these factors need to be customized for a given brand.