6 Tips to Branding Your Loyalty Program


Loyalty programs help businesses retain current customers and attract new ones. Branding your loyalty program takes you a step further by making it all about your customer.

By using a branded loyalty program, you embed your customer at the heart of your program, which elevates your brand value altogether. Your end goal is to hook your customers on your loyalty program to keep them coming back for more rewards and of course products and services. 

Did you know that it’s 5x easier to retain a customer than acquiring a new one? (Forbes)

Regardless of what your product or service is, loyalty programs will boost your brand and its image.

What Is a Branded Loyalty Program?

Branding your loyalty program is glamming your rewards program to give your customers a more intuitive look into the incentives you are offering.

Let’s look at it the other way. Not branding your program is as if you’re giving someone an unwrapped gift.

Instead, wrap your gift and give it a game-like feel for your customers. This will make it more appealing, exciting, and above all desirable.

So by branding your loyalty program, you are offering your customers an integrated customer experience from sales to rewards. 

Follow these steps to brand your loyalty and rewards program:

  • Name your loyalty program
  • Develop a logo for your loyalty program
  • Create a loyalty currency unique to your brand
  • Name your levels relevant to your loyalty program
  • Ensure a unified look and feel to your brand 
  • Create an explanatory

So let’s take a look at how you can brand your loyalty program through Gameball.

How to Brand Your Program through Gameball

By using Gameball, you can design a loyalty program that will resonate with customers and increase retention rates for your store or business.

Gameball will give you highly customizable options to create a unique yet blended feel of your brand and the loyalty program. 

At every touchpoint, deliver who you are as a brand through your rewards program. Some of these touchpoints are with the use of language, tone, and emotional connection. 

Let’s go into detail.

1. Name Your Loyalty Program

Rest assured that if you create a name that triggers your customer’s curiosity, they’ll sign up to see what will unfold for them in terms of perks and rewards. Naming your customer loyalty program is a charm for your brand. 

The name will become a social club that your customers will want to belong to.

A well-thought of name will reflect on your brand equity and identity.

One of our favorite names for loyalty programs is Smiles.

Smiles is a loyalty program for Etisalat, the largest telecommunication corporation in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The name is unique because it reflects the brand’s vision: amazing deals to make you smile. The name is the brand’s value and it reflects on what’s to be offered in the program. Smiles offers you rewards that will make you smile. They promise to offer points, cashback, luxury perks, and more. 

Etisalat UAE rewards program, smiles.

Another great brand example is Arnotts, a department store in the high streets of Ireland.

Arnotts chose to name their rewards program Wonder. The name gives the impression to wonder, and that’s the whole point. Name your program in a provoking manner, to stimulate your customers’ interest in the program. In Arnott’s explanatory page, they used their brand name to attract customers to their rewards program. They asked, Wondering how it works? 

Wonder Card, Arnotts Department Store rewards program.

Gameball will give you the ability to show your customers the loyalty program name on different ways. You can add the name inside Gameball widget and on the launcher button as well.

Example of Gameball widget on a website using the name “Plus Rewards” as a loyalty program name.

2. Design a Logo for Your Loyalty Program 

As part of your marketing strategy, develop a logo for your loyalty program.

As you develop the logo, think of it as a separate entity that wants to brand itself independently from your original brand. Develop a brand logo that you will use to push notifications to your customers, send emails, and reflect your program.

So, you want to emphasize the loyalty program logo over your brand name. 

Marriott and Marriott Bonvoy are two separate brands that coexist. This is one way to market your rewards program and elevate the perks. It also shows that once you join the program, you automatically get treated to rewards.  Bonvoy stands for ‘Bon voyage’ which is French for wishing someone a good trip.

The name is significant to branding your rewards program. The brand values are reflected in the name, as the name makes customers look forward to their upcoming great holiday.

Here are more examples of loyalty program logos created by top brands around the world.

Marriott Bonvoy Rewards from Marriott
360 Rewards from Standard Chartered
Qitaf Rewards from stc
Timberland Rewards from Timberland
AAdvatange Rewards from American Airlines
Walmart Rewards from Walmart

3. Create a Loyalty Currency Unique to Your Brand

Branding your loyalty program is like creating a little utopia. Rename everything you can to personalize your program and make it unique.

Naming your points is like creating a new currency unique to your brand. Some examples of names are coin, credit, points, etc.

Let’s take a look at an example of a currency from a great rewards program. 

Our customer, Cherry Credit, is a gaming and eCard collection website. This brand opted to name their points Cherries. So when customers buy credit from Cherry Credit they get rewards as cherries. So Cherry Credit awards you in Cherry points making their currency unique to their loyalty program.

By using Gameball, you are able to choose different icons for your loyalty currency from the shown icon set below.

Gameball icon set for score/points.

4. Name Your Levels Relevant to Your Loyalty Program

Using levels in your program is essential to the success of your program.

Leveling means creating tiers that differentiate your customers in what you reward them with. In other words, you divide your rewards into categories to make them more desirable.

Learn more about loyalty program tiers in Tiering in Loyalty Programs: What It Is and How to Use It

To brand your loyalty program more effectively, choose a suitable tiering scheme. Then choose unique and relevant names to the levels you have created.

For example, if you created three tiers in your program, you may name them Basic, Extra, and Extravaganza. 

Of course, the names need to reflect what each level will offer. Or you could choose to go with the classic Silver, Gold, and Platinum.

Let’s take a look at Sephora’s Beauty Insider, one of the world’s best loyalty programs.

Sephora names their levels Insider, VIB, and Rouge. The names suggest elevation in level as you rise in the tiers. You move from being an insider to becoming a VIB, or the most sought, the Rouge.

Another great example of naming levels is American retailer Nordstrom. Their loyalty program is called The Nordy Club.

Let’s take a look at their choice of naming their levels. They have four tiers. The first one is free to join for all members, called Member. Then, Nordstrom adds more value and more specialty to the other tiers, which come with better perks.

Depending on how much customers spend, The Nordy Club’s tiers start at Member and end at Ambassador. As customers rise in tiers so do their tier names and their benefits.

In other words, the names hold more value and meaning. 

5. Ensure a Unified Look and Feel to Your Brand

Brand your Gameball launcher button

The smallest details can make the biggest difference in the overall look and feel of your program. Choose a suitable icon for the launcher button. 

Then, pick a suitable color that coordinates with your website seamlessly offering a unified user experience that also matches your brand style and feel.

Let’s say your brand is a flower shop. You can make your launcher button to be softer, you can round the edges of the button. You can also to rename the launcher buttons to match your program’s name, like below. 

Different style and shape for Gameball widget launcher button on a website

Choose colors that will reflect your brand theme

Here are top tips on how to let your colors pop with Gameball loyalty and rewards app:

  • Upgrade your color scheme by using a primary color. 
  • Choose a color to match your brand style. Once you do that, Gameball will automatically unify the widget colors. 
  • Don’t forget to match the color of the icons as well to ensure a flawless finish. 

Use relevant levels icons

Exceed your consumer’s expectations by adding a surprise element to your program. Keep your icons interesting and relevant to your rewards. Meaning, if you are a plant shop offering rewards for your customers, the level icons can represent a growing plant or tree. 

With Gameball, you can choose already existing icon option or design your own and upload them into the widget. While you can use our already existing icons, it is best if you design your own to better fit your brand style. Remember, it’s best if they match your level names.

Design cool and meaningful challenge badges

Since Gameball is a unique loyalty app that offers you a gamified experience, don’t forget to incorporate a very important feature of Gameball in to your program: those are your badges.

Design relevant badges to suit your product. Use your brand colors for the badges you will create for the program. 

The more relevant your badges are, the more incorporated they will be, making customers feel like it is a reward to get a hold of.

Write in-app notification scripts matching your brand tone of voice

According to research conducted by Accenture, users are more likely to purchase from brands that personalize their messages.

With Gameball, you will get that amazing feature with our customizable emails. You can choose many variables to personalize emails.

Like the image below, you can choose to personalize with first name, last name, or other details. These notifications can be in real-time, which is great for most effective communication.

Customized messages and features are a great way to brand your loyalty program, create a unique customer experience, and increase retention through personalization.

Keep in mind that if you regularly communicate with your customers, your notification script can be celebrative too. So, send a ‘hoorah’ email if you use casual language. Otherwise, communicate formally with something like “Congratulations, you have now achieved [level name]!”

So take into account the brand’s tone and maintain it in your script.

Brand your emails

With Gameball, you can send push notifications in the form of an email to notify your customers to check what rewards they’ve earned or what’s in it for them in your loyalty program. 

It’s super simple to generate these emails with Gameball. You can send customers emails to notify them of new badges earned, levels achieved, upon referrals, or when challenges are achieved. 

By the way, Gameball challenges are a great way to boost revenues and engage customers.

In addition to notification script and maintaining your tone of voice through these scripts, upload relevant imagery to match the email template when sending your emails.  It’s a powerful tool to highlight your message through relevant imagery.

Now that you have taken care of the tone of voice and the relevancy of your email image, don’t forget to personalize emails to elevate their effectiveness.

Personalized emails are targeted and feel personal to consumers. You can send emails out with first names or last names using Gameball’s email templates

6. Build an Explanatory Page

Building a good loyalty program explanatory page is essential to deliver the importance of the brand you built. Keep it simple and straight to the point. Don’t forget to add visuals.

Consider your explanatory page as the user’s guide or manual to the program you built. 

A tip is to replicate examples from your program to clarify its benefits and to showcase what your program has to offer on this page.

You’ll need to explain how your loyalty program works, what your currency is and how customers can use it.   

It is important to keep the explanatory page within reach for your customers. Make sure it’s accessible at all times.


Branding your loyalty program will create a blended experience with your online store to hook your customers and keep them coming back for of your products and more rewards.

For you as a store and business owner, this means more sales!

If you still need help, our customer support team is available round the clock and we’ve got a help center with all loyalty tips and tricks.

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