As technology continues to advance, with convenience at the forefront of all decisions, it’s a wonder the digital wallet took as long as it did to gain traction. As consumers continue to grow more reliant on their smartphones to enable their behaviour patterns, the development of a digital wallet has given industries a new channel for sales, marketing and more importantly, relationship-building.
McKinsey stated that while consumers aren’t leaving physical wallets at home just yet, they’re still excited about the new expansions within this field. As a marketer or a company, taking advantage of the opportunities a digital wallet opens up for you is essential to stay relevant amongst your competition.
If you’re confused about what exactly a digital wallet is; it’s essentially an online version of your regular ol’ wallet. Think of Apple Pay or Google Pay — they’ve got your bank cards in one place and even some brand loyalty cards.
Google Pay went a step ahead and added in Public Transport cards for Android phones in Melbourne, allowing citizens to tap on to public transport with their phones instead of fumbling around in their pockets, looking for their card. PayPal is perhaps the biggest and most common example of a digital wallet, being one of the first.
With 93% of the Australian population owning a smartphone, if you haven’t jumped on to the tech bandwagon yet, you’re going to fall far behind when it comes to building customer loyalty. As mentioned earlier, digital wallets can help majorly with three things:
1. Sales
We can’t say this enough — convenience sells. The easier you make a process, the more likely it is for a consumer to buy from you. With more businesses being pushed to go online due to coronavirus, being able to assure consumers that your online sales channel is secure and easy to use is a guaranteed way to make them happy…and open up those wallets.
Pick popular digital wallets to collaborate with. Do your research and find out what wallet is most popular within your customer demographic. If you’re unsure, pick a few popular options and track which one is working best for your consumers and why. Always de-silo your data, it’ll help you understand your consumers in surprising ways.
2. Marketing
Most do not directly make a connection to marketing when it comes to a digital wallet, and thus it remains an untapped channel. However, much like online coupons or codes, digital wallets offer marketers an opportunity to start popping up to customers with customised text depending on where they are in their customer lifetime journey. For example, the messaging for a potential marketing message for a new customer would look very different from that of an old customer — you would choose to offer an old customer a discount code or a quick last minute deal on a product you know is an assured purchase while a future customer would be offered a look at a range of goods with a potential offer to discount a purchase.
3. Relationship Building
For each business, building customer loyalty is an integral part of the marketing process. Digital wallets help make this a little easier — studies have shown how consumers appreciate perceived benefits like loyalty points and coupon codes. If an online version of a loyalty card is created, consumers are more likely to become frequent users of said card. For example, Woolworths has made their Loyalty Card digital, allowing customers who use Google Pay to redeem their points or collect them, without needing to pull out a physical card.
Special offers can be customised to each digital wallet, allowing one to build better customer relationships. Considering how quickly technology is moving to adapt to consumer needs and influence consumer behaviour, learning the ropes of the digital wallet is essential if you’re looking to stay relevant.
How do you get started?
Setting up your digital wallet involves prior research — customers know loyalty programs get them to spend more so why would they want to sign up to yours? Creating that need or answering it, is how you garner more users. Look up how different rewards would ultimately affect your business as well as your consumer’s purchase behaviour; you want to be able to offer more than just one form of benefit.
In most cases, building an app can make this process more streamlined. Gamifying this process or brand collaborations that make the process even more rewarding for consumers is a great way to gain traction.
If you’re looking for a solid first step into the world of digital wallet development, reach out to us at [email protected] for advice. Having launched several apps as well as websites for our clients, we know a thing or two about developing loyalty programs into a digital wallet.