Consider this situation: You walk into the biggest mall in the city with hundreds of brands and every customer that enters the space is greeted with the same greeting, offered the same discount and given the same product recommendation. It doesn’t matter if you are a first-time buyer or a loyalist, everyone is treated the same. Sounds impersonal, doesn’t it?
Now, shift this scenario in the B2B landscape where the businesses thrive on the contributions of their channel partners and last-mile advocates. If you don’t treat these crucial partners with personalisation, their motivation will dwindle and their engagement will drop.
This is where a comprehensive loyalty management program like 1Channel’s does the trick. But, exactly how does an LMS or loyalty management software contribute to personalised marketing strategies? Let us break them down for you.
1. Understand Your Channel Partners Like Never Before
As a business dealing with products or services, you will have a range of channel partners. Some of them might be aggressively promoting and selling your products while a few others might not be pushing your products to the end customers as much.
With a loyalty management tool, businesses can track the channel partner behaviour in real-time. A well-integrated LMS will track every interaction, sale and engagement and provide you a 360-degree view of:
- Which partners are most active
- Who prefers which product category
- How frequently they engage with your incentives
- Their preferred mode of communication
This data allows you to personalise your marketing strategies, loyalty programs and the incentives and rewards that fit each partner’s unique interests. In fact, the metrics and data also allow you to break out of the one-size fits all approach and provide product-specific bonuses and exclusive deals that the channel partners actually redeem and use.
Here’s an example, if you are a luxury watch brand that relies on distributors and retailers to sell their products, you can incentivise them with training sessions on how to upsell high-end models, which drives better sales for them (and your business too).
2. Hyper-Personalised Rewards and Incentives
Roughly 73% of the channel partners express dissatisfaction with their current rewards from businesses. That is a pretty large number, if you come to think of it.
This is where leveraging the best loyalty management software can turn things around for your business (and your channel partner loyalty). In B2B landscape, generic incentives don’t work.
For example, a retailer that’s selling smartphones might not be as excited as getting an extra across-the-board 5% discount but might be thrilled when they get to sell exclusive new models in their shop. With an advanced LMS, businesses can focus on hyperpersonalising the loyalty programs for their channel partners.
Usually, the personalisation is achieved by keeping track of:
- Sales performance
- Product categories sold
- Engagement with training programs
- Brand advocacy efforts, etc.
The right loyalty management tool like 1Channel’s will ensure that every channel partner gets the reward that actually drive their behaviour.
3. Anticipating Partner Needs Before They Even Ask
One of the key features of any good loyalty program is predictive analytics, which allows the businesses to predict what the channel partner needs even before they realise it.
In most cases, advanced loyalty management platforms analyse past behaviour and forecast future trends, further helping businesses to craft proactive marketing strategies.
For example, let’s say you sell industrial equipment, and your channel partners typically order in large quantities before government project deadlines. Instead of waiting for them to place orders, your LMS can pre-emptively offer bulk purchase discounts tailored to their buying patterns—boosting sales and strengthening relationships.
4. Gamification That Makes Loyalty Fun and Addictive
One of the biggest turn offs in any loyalty program is a boring interface with little to no interactivity. If you want to offer a personalised marketing strategy, you need to prioritise an LMS that puts gamification at the forefront.
1Channel’s LMS solutions incorporate gamification to make the loyalty programs exciting, competitive and rewarding too, not to mention, the healthy competition it fosters. Gamification taps into basic human psychology: People love challenges, achievements, and rewards.
Some of the main components of a gamified loyalty program are leaderboards, tier-based achievements, and milestone rewards. Access to these often push the channel partners to push themselves harder.
You can also approach your channel partners with personalised marketing strategies where you offer them exclusive challenges that rewards them for every milestone they hit.
5. Omni-Channel Engagement
Your channel partners are not limited to one interface. For example, a major mistake several businesses make in the B2B landscape when hailing a loyalty rewards management system is sticking to one platform, aka the web version. What businesses fail to realise is that channel partners aren’t stuck to their laptops 24/7.
Channel partners engage across multiple platforms—WhatsApp, mobile apps, web dashboards, in-person trade events, and more.
So, a good loyalty management platform will integrate all these touchpoints ensuring the following:
- Ensure that the channel partners receive real-time updates on promotions and rewards.
- Ensure last mile advocates can track and communicate personalised incentives seamlessly.
- Ensure that the channel partners can redeem their rewards instantly through mobile-first interfaces.
6. Strengthening Brand Loyalty Among Channel Partners
The most effective way through which loyalty management contributes to personalised marketing strategies is by turning the channel partners into brand voices.
As a business that wants to grow and thrive, you need to focus on partner loyalty as much as you do on customer loyalty. With the right pointers in place, a holistic LMS helps the businesses foster long-term relationships with their channel partners by:
Making them feel valued.
Offering exclusive and tailored rewards.
Providing dedicated training and resources.
This guarantees that the channel partners will not just to the competitors for slightly better profit margins and stay committed to you because they feel invested in your brand’s success.
Personalised and Data-Driven Channel Loyalty with 1Channel
Personalised marketing isn’t just about sending the right email or offering an occasional discount. For businesses that depend on channel partners, distributors, and last-mile advocates, personalization means understanding the channel partners at a granular level and tailor the rewards and incentives based on their behaviour.
With 1Channel’s loyalty management platform, you get to transform the way channel partners interact with your brand, turning them from passive partners to active brand advocates with personalised marketing.
If you are ready to boost your channel loyalty, schedule a free demo with us today!
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)