This tutorial shows how to quickly create a points expiration reminder campaign.
What - Definition & concept
Non-qualifying (NQ) points expire, which is necessary, but you want the program members to spend them before then. This means that you need a campaign which encourages program members to spend their points.
If your loyalty program uses cascading, there is one more reason to send reminders: to encourage your members to make new purchases, which will prolong the life of their points.
In order to create a points expiration reminder campaign you need to have the following:
- A loyalty program
- Program members who have earned qualifying (Q) or non-qualifying (NQ) points
You have a live loyalty program called "Mega Sales". According to the program settings, all NQ points are set to expire after 6 months. This means they have to exchange these points for rewards before then.
We will explain in three steps, how this can be done.
How to - Steps
Step 1: Creating the contact filter
Firstly, you will need to create your new filter using the "new" button, select the "contacts" scope and name your filter, e.g., Mega Sales 30 days to NQ expiration.
Go to the "conditions" tab and open the "loyalty" group in the conditions list. Add the "member of a loyalty program" and "NQ points expiration date" as in the image below.
Example of the loyalty expiration point filter
The "NQ points expiration date" condition was set to match all contacts with points expiring in less than 31 days. This period should always be adjusted to the time between iterations of the campaign, as you want to both address all owners of expiring points and avoid sending them the same message twice.
The "member of a loyalty program" condition limits the filter to members of the "Mega Sales" program.
Remove this condition if you want a reminder campaign that sends mails to members of all programs in your universe.
Tip on your filter date range
The filter in the above picture matches contacts over a long period of time. Therefore, some of your contacts will have a month to spend their points, some will have a day or two. This was done for the sake of simplicity. One way to fix it might be to create a filter matching contacts by NQ points expiration date, where the expiration dates differ by 7 days:
You could then program the campaign to be sent once a week (say, every Monday) and have another campaign targeting owners of points expiring between 17 and 24 days.
The contact filter based on NQ points expiration date of contacts who did not add the Pass (optional)
An email is not enough to remind your customers that they need to use their points. In fact, nothing works better than a digital loyalty card in their mobile device.
Tell them to hurry and add the Pass so they can have access to tips, news and pick up wonderful rewards directly in store.
If you want to have more information on the Mobile Wallet, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Step 2: adding variables to your design
We strongly suggest that you use the Message Builder to create your design.
Example of two variables which can be used to insert NQ points-related information from your universe's database.
- $loyalty.expiring_nqpoints$ displays the points that are going to expire.
- $loyalty.expiration_date_nqpoints$ inserts the date when the points are going to expire.
You can find both these tags under "functions" in the text edit options
Save your design when ready.
Step 3: The campaign creation
Use the "new" button and select "new campaign". Name it and give it a category (it is always a good practice to categorize your scenarios, which is particularly important for trigger campaigns as you need categories to be able to send follow-up campaigns).
Go to the "campaign scenario" tab and click "select starting channel and population.
This campaign has to be an automatic, recurrent campaign, so select the "create" button under "automatic campaigns".
Find and add the filter you created for this campaign from the filter populations:
Click the green "validate" button when ready.
In the scenario layout, click "add schedule" and set a fixed recurring date for sending. Make sure the "periodic date" option is chosen.
Always remember to set up the sending time according to the needs of your program. If NQ points expire a week after creation, the best time for emailing may be somewhere between 24 and 48 hour before expiration.
Click "validate" then add the design you created earlier for the campaign. Save your draft scenario.
The campaign is ready to go, just click on the "launch campaign" button to start it!
We only use automatic recurring campaign for this use case because trigger campaigns only ever work once for every item entering the filter. (Among other things, this helps avoid sending the same message to the same person more than once). Automatic campaigns do not have that protection: you are responsible for sending the right messages to the right contacts. Therefore, because you need to use "contacts" filters (this is where the point expiration condition is), you have to program automatic campaigns.
When - Our tips to time your campaign well
The data import frequency to consider:
- Through SFTP/Data Hub: you will hit your customers the day after. We would recommend scheduling your campaign to start early in the morning (as soon as your customer checks their phone or just after breakfast. 8.00 – 9.30 AM): keep in mind that the start date of your campaigns shall be always after the data has been synced in Splio.
- Through API: for now, this campaign can’t work in real-time.
Different strategies:
The different one:
- Encouraging customers to re-engage with bonus points campaigns.
- Celebrating your customers with birthday rewards emails.
- Creating “moments of delight”, such as the brand’s anniversary.
The organized one:
- Creating an event specifically designed to thank customers is guaranteed to make them feel extra special.
- Boosting exclusivity by sending a tier status achievement email.
The standard one:
- Reminding customers of the number of points they have with points balance emails.
- Point expiry: when your customers feel like they’re about to lose something of value, they’ll be more likely to do whatever it takes to retain it, prompting them to spend their points as soon as possible.
- Routine statements: points' balance reminder.