A new joint study from BIA/Kelsey and Manta illustrates a surprisingly refreshing trend among small businesses: they are finally focusing on repeat customers over new customers. As recently as 2012, BIA/Kelsey reported that small business owners prioritized acquiring new customers over customer retention at a ratio of 7 to 1. This new trend makes a lot more sense, with data showing that a repeat customer spends 67% more than a new customer generally will. Why wouldn’t a business spend the majority of their time and efforts focusing on the repeat customer?

But even as small business owners have shifted their focus to their best and most loyal customers, most still are not doing everything they can to reward those customers and give them a reason to come back. Only 34% of small businesses have a loyalty program, and of those with a loyalty program less than 50% are digital loyalty programs. Any loyalty program is better than no loyalty program, but if you think about how powerful sharing rewards and checking in on social media has become, it’s easy to understand why it’s become so important to have a digital loyalty platform for your business.

Jed Williams, BIA/Kelsey’s VP of Strategic Consulting feels strongly that loyalty programs will only become more popular in the coming months and years: “This finding aligns with BIA/Kelsey’s analysis that over half of small businesses will launch customer loyalty programs by the end of 2014 to help their businesses become more competitive.”

Do yourself and your business a favor this year: start rewarding your customers. Give them a reason to come back. Separate your business from the competition, and get started with the best loyalty rewards program, period: Huzzah Loyalty Rewards

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[Source] Achieving Big Customer Loyalty in a Small Business World