The value of loyal customers is precious: they account for the majority of your revenue and drive the stability of your growth. Since they are returning to your store, you’re not spending extra on acquiring or reactivating those customers, and since they like your products, you’re likely to get more orders from their friends and followers. 

With all that in mind, you need to be in contact with your loyal customers, expressing your gratitude, surprising them with rewards, and showing them an exclusive level of customer care. 

Before we go into the details of rewarding your loyal customers, let’s see how to distinguish them.

How to identify your most loyal customers?

You can distinguish your loyal customers by looking at their purchase history. If they consistently make purchases from your company and their orders usually exceed your average order value—these are all signs of a loyal customer. 

Or, you can consider the customer lifetime value (CLTV). This is the projected amount of money that a customer will spend on the brand over their lifetime. A higher CLTV can indicate that a shopper is more loyal to the brand and is likely to make more purchases in the future.

Another way to identify loyal customers is to look at their engagement with your brand. If they follow your social media accounts and engage with your posts, sign up for your newsletters and open your emails, or leave product reviews—these are also indications of loyalty.

Distinguishing loyal customers based on RFM

Even though there are different approaches to defining loyal customers, we recommend using specific, quantifiable metrics—such as recency, frequency, and value of purchases (RFM method).

Our app Loyal will divide your customer base into 6 segments. One of the segments is called Loyal and consists of those customers who have made the most orders and/or the most valuable orders in a given period of time. 

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❗ Certainly, some consumers will be loyal to your store based on the emotional connection—they might not make many orders or buy the most expensive items but they’ll talk about your products, increasing brand awareness. The problem is that they are not that easily identified as loyal, which is why we recommend focusing on RFM segmentation. 

How to measure your loyal customer base?

You can get an idea of your loyal customer base by looking at retention rates. This is the percentage of customers who make repeat purchases. Knowing this percentage, you’ll know what part of your overall audience is loyal to your brand. 

Your goal is to continuously improve your retention rates, making more of your shoppers loyal and satisfied with the experience.

How to keep your customers loyal to your store?

To show loyal shoppers that you care about them, you need to take into account their particular interests and make them feel special. You can get very creative with ideas for rewarding loyal customers, but we’ll cover the basics that you can start from. 

Let’s see some of the most simple and effective email messages you can adapt to your store and audience to keep your loyal customers engaged. 

Note that if you’re using the Loyal app, you can integrate it into Klaviyo and automate your email campaigns. 

1. Provide exclusive access to new products and services

When people know that they are a part of a high-status group, they can feel encouraged to return to your store. Whenever you have a new product launch, reach out to your loyal customer base first to gather their feedback. 

You can also offer them exclusive access to brand-to-brand promotions, events where your brand is presented, etc.—whatever works for your business. 

Here’s an email template for loyal customers with an exclusive offer to try out newly launched products:

Possible subject line: Exclusive gift inside!

Hi [customer name],
We want to thank you for being our loyal customer and send you some samples from our new product line that are not yet available to the general public.
[details about new products]

You’ll be among the first to try them out! We value your opinion and would love to hear your thoughts.

For the shipping process to go smoothly, let us know if your address or preferred delivery method has changed. 

All the best,
[Customer team member name]

2. Encourage them to create content with your products

User-generated content increases trust and impacts purchasing decisions. You should monitor your brand mentions on popular social media platforms to be able to react to shared photos and videos, as well as repost the most interesting ones.

Thank all customers that create content using your products, and also give a nudge to those who might be interested in sharing some content but haven’t done so already. If you give them an additional reason—say, a personal discount or an exclusive gift in return—they’ll probably feel motivated to share their experience of using your products. 

Here’s an email template for a loyal customer to share their content:

Possible subject line: Become [brand name] brand ambassador!

Hi [customer name],
We appreciate your continued interest in our products and want to offer you the opportunity to be featured on our website and social media.

Not only you’ll get featured on our channels—you’ll also get a unique 10% discount code that you can share with your friends and followers. 

Have you made a photo or video of [product name] in action? We would just love to share it with our audience. 

We’re looking for high-resolution images with a 1:1 aspect ratio (for our Insta) and vertical videos (for our TikTok).

Send your content in the reply to this email, and we’ll be happy to include it here: [links to website pages and social media]

Thank you for choosing our store. We can’t wait to see your pictures and videos!
Talk to you soon,
[Customer team member name]

3. Remind them of loyalty perks

If you have a loyalty program in place, it makes sense to remind all groups of customers about its benefits. Since your most loyal shoppers already know what your loyalty program is about, you shouldn’t send them generic emails. 

Instead, adapt the message to each particular customer: for instance, if you have a multi-tier program, you can explain what is needed to move to the highest tier (if they haven’t already), and if you have a point-based system, you can remind customers to exchange their collected points for gifts or other perks. 

Here’s an email template send to a loyal customer to accentuate the value of a loyalty program:

Possible subject line: You have XX points exchangeable for [brand name] goodies!

Hi [customer name],
We want to say thank you for shopping with [brand name]. Let us remind you that you have XX points collected within our loyalty program, and there are several ways you can use them:
- get a YEAR-LONG FREE SHIPPING (worth X points)
- choose a FREE PRODUCT from the [category name] category (worth X points)

Use your points by the end of this month—and you’ll have the chance to win one of the [name of the product and details about it]

Here’s to more points and rewards,
[Customer team member name]

4. Offer personalized deals on special occasions

Birthday messages outperform many other promotional emails by generating 3 times more revenue. Don’t miss an opportunity to congratulate your customers and motivate them to make an order.

Here’s an email template for loyal customers with a birthday promotion:

Possible subject line: A little something for your birthday from [brand name]

Hi [customer name],
We hear it’s your birthday! Treat yourself to some of your favorites—or try something new. 

‍Choose any of the following products and add it to your order for free with your gift code [unique code]. Free shipping is also on us.
[products with photos and links to their pages]

Use your code until [week/month/etc. after the birthday date]

Best wishes!
[Customer team member name]

The joy of rewarding loyal customers

By keeping your loyal customers engaged and showing them your appreciation, you can increase your store’s AOV and average CLTV. Quantitative metrics aside, you’re getting a base of brand advocates who will talk about your products and promote your brand. It’s vital to build personalized communication with each customer group, but loyal ones should be your first priority as they will bring you the most long-lasting, sustainable results.

For more tips on building relationships with different types of shoppers, check out our guide to retention strategies based on Loyal app’s 6 segments.