Viralogy

When you have a lot of competitors, you need to build brand loyalty to ensure that your customers stay with you. With social commerce making the relationship between stores and customers more personal, it is time for retailers to take advantage of their existing resources.

Paul Marsden over at Social Commerce Today pointed out a brilliant move made by Starbucks that we just have to share with you. Recently, the international coffee chain partnered up with Gilt Groupe, a members-only retailer for luxury bounty hunters, to offer to Starbucks loyalty card holders early access to their limited-edition luxury coffee. Basically, MyStarbucksRewards holders received a VIP access email to a private sale of  a luxury coffee item (San Cristóbal coffee from the Gálapagos islands). This private sale was a day before Gilt members themselves got access, and weeks before the general public received the good. There are two main reasons why we think this was a great idea:

What Starbucks did right (Why Starbucks is amazing)

Reason number 1: it targeted people who already regularly buy their brand and rewarded them for being existing customers. It maintained its reputation as a ‘luxury’ coffeehouse by finding and offering ‘Special Reserve’ coffee, and boosted customer loyalty by offering the products first only to people who already love Starbucks.

Reason number 2: it utilized an existing social commerce platform to its own advantage with possible little or no extra cost to themselves. Not only that, but it utilized an existing platform that is known for being a luxury brand retailer, so in doing this, it also boosted their own ‘luxurious’ image.

What You Can Take From This

Build customer loyalty with deals and promotions for those who already shop with you. According to Forbes, the “additional conversion-boosting element” in online shopping is “fun,” which is built off of techniques such as “limited time or limited quantity offers, brand or product discovery, and product “story-telling.”" When you give customers incentive to return to your store, you build trust and loyalty, which in turn could create good in-bound marketing for you.

Use existing social media platforms to engage your customers. Personalize your store’s shopping experience and utilize social networks to offer deals. Customers like interaction, and are more likely to relate to your store if they see that they can log into your site using Facebook or another platform that they recognize (ecommercetimes).