AARP Q&A: Designing a Loyalty Program to Advance a Social Mission

AARP Engagement Expo SessionAARP is continually improving the customer experience it offers to more than 37 million members. Its mission is to help adults aged 50 years and older make better decisions and live better lives. AARP accomplishes this goal through a variety of educational and customer engagement efforts that focus on financial management, retirement planning, healthcare, and more.

To further strengthen the member relationships it has built, AARP recently launched a very successful loyalty program called “Rewards for Good,” which rewards people for becoming better educated and better prepared. Rewards for Good allows members and non-members to earn points for exploring aarp.org, and for signing up for newsletters, playing brain health games, taking quizzes, using retirement and savings calculators, and more.

Recently, Loyalty360 spoke with Nataki Edwards, AARP VP of Digital Strategy & Operations, about the genesis of the program. Edwards, who will speak during an upcoming session at the 2015 Engagement and Experience Expo this fall, also talked about how AARP successfully engages such a large segment of the population.

How has Rewards for Good been working over the past year?

Edwards: It’s doing really well. We now have over 5 million people earning points, which is fantastic, and we also have almost 1.1 million people who are actively looking to redeem points, so they’re shopping and browsing the catalog and coming back often. In the year and a half since it's launched, it's been one of the most successful programs at AARP.

In terms of satisfaction, we also see that users who participate are highly satisfied.  They are more satisfied than users who don’t know about the program, and those who were not using it. And users who engage with the program are more likely to say that they will renew with AARP. So we are seeing a lot of really positive results.

What was the hope you had when you created the program? To create a community of people to advocate for the brand?AARP Loyalty Program

Edwards: The genesis of the loyalty program was definitely around supporting our social mission. AARP is dedicated to helping people live the best life as they age, but specifically around their health, finances, and personal fulfillment. That’s the core of AARP.

Additionally, it’s been hard for us to actually measure our social impact online because the efforts are around educating or informing. It’s not necessarily tied to conversions. There’s no “did you join, or did you sign up for newsletter?” It’s, “do you know more about Social Security today than you did yesterday?” “Are you better prepared for retirement now than you were before?” And those are sometimes hard to get at. So this loyalty program was designed to reward users, who become more educated and knowledgeable about those subjects. Because some of these topics are really serious weighty stuff, and we want to make sure people are engaged with this content and think getting incentives for that education is a great thing.

Do you believe that those who have a defined and measureable engagement with that mission, due to the emotion connection, are more loyal?

Edwards: Yes. They are staying on the site longer. Their repeat visits are through the roof. You have to log-in to see your points balance or use your points, so you log onto the site when you visit. Because login is not a general requirement of AARP.org, this program has really helped us to get more people to log in. And then we are able to provide a more personalized experience, even beyond just this program.

Does social media help in this regard? Is that a customer engagement strategy that you leverage?

Edwards: Social is a big part of our marketing and communications mix. In the past, it was used more as a way to field and understand sentiment. Now our social teams are a lot more sophisticated than they were even a year ago. We now see social as one of the best channels that we have for conversions to membership because of the targeting capabilities there. Social has the opportunity to play just as broad of a role in our ecosystem as the website does.

Is it a challenge to get your audience to use social?

Edwards: Oh no, it is not a challenge. They are using social! Our Facebook page has over a million likes, and we have a healthy Twitter audience. Our members are definitely using social, but they also like an 800 number. And since we serve such a large audience, some people on the younger end are very comfortable on social and digital. But you have others that still want to use an 800 number.

Is there an engagement channel that is more prevalent than others, or is there a social media channel of choice for your members?

Edwards: It varies. We are definitely engaged with our members through all of our social media channels. But, quite frankly, the majority of our engagement comes through email, and in our ability to personalize every email that we send. We can tell each member, or non-member, how many points they have, and how they can earn more by taking certain quizzes or suggested ways to use points. That kind of personalization has really been working well for us.

About the Author: Mark Johnson

Mark is CEO & CMO of Loyalty360. He has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs.

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