In April this year Direct Golf launched their loyalty card program to foster repeated purcheses and to make golf more affordable. The loyalty program's mechanism is quite simple the more you buy, the more you points you get that you can redeem your points for money. Purchase spend is converted into points with every 250 worth £1.
It is powered by rewards4golf.com which awards points for purchases made with 1,000s of major brands – points which customers have been using to redeem online for the last couple of years, but can now be redeemed in any Direct Golf store. Those who sign-up for the Direct Golf loyalty card will become a rewards4golf member for free.
Since April more than 10,000 golfers have joined the new, free Direct Golf loyalty card within weeks of its launch. And almost 1,000 more have signed up to be a VIP member, at a cost of just £10, which entitles them to more than £150-worth of extra golf benefits, including a free round of golf.
I found that American Golf also has a similar loyalty card program. Both retailers' loyalty card offer some similar membership benefits:
- free golf insurance for 3 months;
- £50 Your Golf Travel voucher (American Golf is in partnership with Golfbreaks.com);
At first glance you might say American Golf loyalty card program is more generous by providing PGA pro lesson, free annual golf club MOT, guranteed buy back (they use the PGA Guide price as a benchmark –> it is quite tricky), 10! off tee times etc.
However I have not found any reason why would an American Golf loyalty card member use frequently his card and return to the shop. In addition to this I think these discounts are symbolic.
What makes Direct Golf loyalty card program more successful?
- It is focusing on customer loyalty by rewarding customers for actions;
- when members spend money, they are rewarded by points that they can turn around and use like money, which incentivizes future purchases for happy shoppers to spend — you guessed it — more money.