This is the first in a series of blog posts on leveraging Salesforce for B2B loyalty programs. Readers will gain insights into why B2B loyalty programs matter, how to set them up for success, and what steps need to be taken to engage and evolve along the way.
Digital transformation continues to accelerate across all businesses. Today, customers have higher expectations than ever before for speed, personalization, and exceptional experiences. What were once merely nice-to-haves in the sales process are now no-holds-barred requirements. And if you can’t deliver, your buyers will go elsewhere.
One way to keep buyers in your corner? Setting your business apart from competitors with a robust and strategic B2B loyalty program. Loyalty programs have traditionally thrived in the B2C marketplace, with the average buyer belonging to about 16 of them. But because of widespread digital disruption and eCommerce’s influence on B2B buying, loyalty programs have now become more mainstream in the B2B marketing mix.
And for good reason. Well-executed B2B loyalty programs that engage and retain customers along their buying journey can have significant business benefits. Harvard Business Review has reported that companies with top loyalty programs grow revenue nearly 2.5 times as fast as their peers.
Once you’ve decided a loyalty program will be an asset to your organization, it’s important to be aware of the stumbling blocks. We’ve found there are usually two types of hurdles organizations need to overcome to successfully implement a B2B loyalty program.
First are entry barriers that stand in the way of launching a loyalty program, and then there are growth inhibitors that stand in the way of successfully evolving it.
We recognize the importance of strategizing around both types of hurdles when implementing a highly effective loyalty program, but this blog focuses on the first two challenges under entry barriers:
The good news is you can overcome these hurdles with a strategy that identifies the data you need, defines processes for unifying and standardizing that data, and aligns stakeholders. For many of our clients, Salesforce technology plays a significant part in this methodology and enablement. Its robust products like Data Cloud, Sales Cloud, and Marketing Cloud Personalization help optimize data and align your organization to drive a successful loyalty program with a strong data foundation. Let’s further explore these challenges and the ways in which Salesforce can help.
Data silos are a big challenge to building loyalty programs, especially for B2B organizations. For starters, you need a variety of data, including customer demographics, customer purchase history, engagement history, and possibly even third-party data. As your loyalty program grows, you need additional data that reflects loyalty program activity and customer feedback.
When this data is dispersed throughout different departments and systems, it’s difficult to get a meaningful understanding of customer behaviors and preferences. In this case, how will you create personalized experiences, measure program performance, and make data-driven decisions? Without a unified data strategy, you’ll be hard-pressed to create compelling connections with customers and generate loyalty.
Successfully managing and connecting the various types of data needed for a customer loyalty program requires alignment of cross-functional departments and stakeholders. That includes teams across functions like marketing, sales, customer service, operations, and IT, to name a few. This alignment ensures customer data is accurately collected, integrated, and analyzed to deliver a complete view of each customer. By breaking down these organizational walls and ensuring all teams are on the same page, businesses can leverage data-driven insights to create personalized, relevant, and engaging loyalty programs.
For example, service agents can incorporate a customer’s loyalty status to bring cases to resolution faster; sales teams can prioritize leads based on email and site engagement; and loyalty managers can create new journeys to delight the customer in new ways.
It all matters because when departments collaborate seamlessly on a loyalty initiative, it ensures every touchpoint - from initial contact to after-sales support - reinforces the loyalty program’s value proposition. When done well, the program becomes a highly effective sales tool that is constantly and proactively working at increasing customer retention, thus increasing customer lifetime value (CLV) too.
Salesforce has a variety of products that integrate natively with each other and seamlessly with other products in your MarTech stack to fuel customer loyalty programs. Data Cloud offers powerful data management capabilities to harmonize, unify, and make data actionable at scale - all in real time.
Marketing Cloud, with Marketing Cloud Personalization, helps deliver highly personalized customer experiences in real time. By leveraging customer data and behavioral insights, Marketing Cloud can be used to customize interactions across channels such as email, web, mobile, and social media to ensure customers receive relevant, engaging content and offers. Together with Data Cloud and Sales Cloud, it enables you to create comprehensive customer profiles, leverage AI to segment customers based on past behavior, and track leads through the entire sales cycle to optimize process and increase conversions.
Personalization is a key success factor of loyalty programs. According to DemandGen, 76% of B2B buyers expect more personalized attention from marketers and salespeople.
One benefit of Salesforce is that it can help you start with a small and focused program, then grow at your own pace. The steps often look something like this:
In the rapidly evolving B2B landscape, investing in data management and organizational alignment is not just beneficial—it’s essential for staying competitive and delivering exceptional customer experiences.
Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day. Your B2B loyalty program doesn't have to be implemented all at once. Start with a pilot and test, then inject iterations to evolve at your team’s optimal pace. These strategies will get the ball rolling – and Salesforce will help ensure your teams are rolling the ball in the same direction to achieve a collaborative end.
What lies ahead for your B2B loyalty program after your data and organization are set up and aligned? Be sure to catch Steve and Adam’s next Salesforce-powered blog.