Page 152 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

72 PICK A CARD

Encouraging people to shop in the same stores regularly has a
long history, going back to the trading stamps of the 1950s and
1960s. Trading stamps could be collected from retailers and saved
in special booklets, which could in turn be swapped for goods.
In Britain, the Green Shield Stamps scheme was at one time the
biggest outlet for bathroom scales in the country, since bathroom
scales required the lowest number of books of stamps. (Incidentally,
Green Shield eventually grew into Argos, the biggest consumer
durables retailer in Britain.)

In the digital age, loyalty cards have become ubiquitous. Almost
everybody who deals with the public offers some kind of scheme
to encourage them to return and buy again—some schemes work
extremely well, others simply seem to act as a giveaway. Making the
scheme work well for the company can be a challenge, especially
since most people carry several loyalty cards and cannot really be
said to be loyal at all.

Loyalty schemes, all too often, become a glorified sales promotion
in which regular purchases build up to a discount off the next
purchase. A well-run scheme, though, presents a great many
more possibilities.

The idea

One of the earliest loyalty schemes in Britain was the Tesco Clubcard
scheme. Holders of Clubcards hand the card to the cashier on each
trip, and are credited with points that can be redeemed periodically
against purchases.

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