How loyalty actually works in practice.

Six guides on the things a small business owner has to decide before running a loyalty programme: how many stamps a card should take, what the reward should be, whether paper is really cheaper, and how to do any of it without asking customers to install an app.

• Digital stamp cards · 6 min readDigital stamp cards: how they work and how to set one upA digital stamp card is a punch card that lives on the customer's phone instead of in their wallet: the customer scans a QR code at the till, a staff member approves the stamp, and a full card unlocks a reward the business chose.
• Digital loyalty cards · 6 min readDigital loyalty cards for small businessesA digital loyalty card is a customer's membership and reward balance stored on their phone, replacing the plastic card or paper punch card a business would otherwise print, and letting the business see which customers actually return.
• Customer retention · 7 min readCustomer retention programmes for local businessesA customer retention programme is a deliberate, repeatable reason for an existing customer to come back — most commonly a loyalty card, a reward for a set number of visits, or a members-only offer — and for a local business it is usually cheaper than buying the same revenue through new-customer advertising.
• Reward programmes · 6 min readHow to choose the reward for your loyalty programmeThe best loyalty reward has a high perceived value and a low marginal cost to the business — typically a free item with good margin, such as a coffee, a starter or an add-on service — rather than a percentage discount, which costs real margin and feels routine.
• Paper vs digital · 5 min readPaper stamp cards vs digital: which is actually cheaper?Paper stamp cards are cheaper to start and need no setup, while digital stamp cards cannot be lost or copied and are the only version that tells the business whether the programme is working — which is why paper suits a short trial and digital suits anything you intend to keep running.
• No app required · 5 min readRunning a loyalty programme without making customers install an appA loyalty programme can run entirely in the phone's web browser: the customer opens a link or scans a QR code, their card appears, and they can add it to their home screen so it behaves like an app without ever visiting an app store.