According to eMarketer, the  new report, “Social Loyalty: From Rewards to a Rewarding Customer Experience,” analyzes findings from dozens of third-party research providers and interviews with industry executives.  Here are some of the best practices for improving social  loyalty.

Why? Because many traditional loyalty programs are not highly effective, eMarketer notes. While loyalty programs have been popular in the US for years—with the average American consumer belonging to 18 loyalty programs according to loyalty marketing publisher COLLOQUY—it is not clear how many of these consumers are actually active.

eMarketer further notes that points, coupons and freebies are great for grabbing initial attention.  But in the long run these promotions can’t make up for a lackluster customer experience. However, through the use of social media, retailers and brands can identify and interact with the most profitable internet users.  And for the first time ever, social networks such as Facebook makes it easier for businesses to acquire new customers through social loyalty programs.  Why?  Loyalty can be won through encouraging word-of-mouth and creating advocates or evangelists, by raising a user’s social status, by surprising and entertaining shoppers in unexpected ways and also by listening to customers’ needs and suggestions and responding in a mutually beneficial fashion.  Brands that most often succeed typically encourage sharing, raise customers’ social status, develop highly entertaining loyalty programs, and listen and respond to feedback quickly.  Social loyalty programs provide brands with an unprecedented amount of customer data, both online and offline.

Though leads follow up may sometimes look daunting, successfully following up on a lead and starting the process that will take it to a sale doesn't have to be a trying and disappointing process.

Here are seven tips for following up on leads effectively.

1. Strike while the iron is hot.

In many cases, a lead is an asset that depreciates in value very, very quickly. Thus, it's worth trying to respond to qualified leads as soon as humanly possible.  This is because your response time will often determine whether you close a sale or lose a sale you could have easily closed.

2. Read the lead.

COMMON SENSE: it's important to read a lead so that you know who you're dealing with and what your opportunity may be.  But the FACT: this doesn't always happen.

To avoid looking unprepared or taking things for granted, it is a tremendous help to create a checklist that your inbound marketers should use as part of the lead follow-up process.

3. Have the right (and preferably same) person respond and follow through from the get go to establish rapport.

To make the most of a lead, ensure that the person best capable of following up on it is the same person who responds. While new prospects may necessarily have to deal with several people throughout the sales cycle, it is often desirable to ensure that their first point of contact is someone they can start to build a rapport, if not a relationship, with.

4. Don't be afraid to pick up the phone

Thanks to technology, phone calls are more and more infrequent for many individuals, especially to younger members of the workforce. However, the phone is still a powerful sales tool and,  if your lead contains a phone number, make a habit of picking up the phone and dialing it.

5. Get on the same page

When speaking with a prospect, walk before you run. Even if your lead came with a lot of detail, it's important to confirm that you have a good understanding of what the prospect needs and haven't made any assumptions that could unnecessarily limit your opportunity, or ruin it altogether.

6. Set expectations and timeframes

In every aspect of sales and business cycles, expectations are everything and it's never too early to set them. If an initial conversation with a lead confirms that there's an opportunity, take control. Once you're on the same page with the customer and understand his/her needs, you should at a minimum lay out what you think the sales cycle will look like. This includes proposing dates for key milestones.

7. Always respond

Not all leads are created equal. Some, unfortunately, are less-than-desirable for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, assuming that the individual who submitted the lead is a real person, a response should always be provided no matter what. Not only can this help maintain your reputation in the marketplace, it also ensures that you will be remembered  for future opportunities that may be a better fit.

1. Attract  your be st suspects (potential clients)…

Research shows that nowadays especially because of social media, customer relies heavily on information from peers, rather than traditional media sources or from the brand or seller, itself. This means that in order to attract quality suspects, you, as the business owner, must find ways to spread positive word-of-mouth through existing customers and supporters and turn them into advocates or evangelists of your products.  Three key elements drive this process: simple ideas, word-of-mouth friendliness, and tools that facilitate online customer conversations such as social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
2. Convert your prospects…
A key challenge facing any business owner is how to find high-value prospects and nurture them into customers. Lowering sales costs and increasing closing rates are paramount to winning the loyalty game. However, to weed out high-potential prospects from so-so suspects, it is critical that a company’s online search campaign be as spot-on as possible in addressing three areas: who to target, how to position products and services, and how to effectively qualify prospects.  An excellent way is to do landing pages.  There are some helpful sites that facilitate the creation of landing pages.  One of them is unbounce.com – a landing page platform.
3. Perform well for first-time customers…
Loyalty research has consistently confirmed the importance of a seller’s accuracy, reliability and responsiveness in transacting with first time customers.  This is important because first time customers are “trying” out a new product and their perception of the value they receive from  their first purchase will drive their repeat purchase decisions.  And with the ubiquitousness of social media, customer feedback ( be it positive and/or negative) is a sure way to get the message out there instantly.   However, as much as possible, you would not want negative feedback/problems to be ahead of you.  The payoffs for damage control can be too high.
4. Anchor your repeat customers…
Repeat customers expect to be known and their preferences remembered. Truly empowering the front line with this capability is an often arduous, on-going challenge in many businesses.  So digital social loyalty could serve as a very helpful and advantageous tool to create a “wow” customer experience and make repeat customers happy and loyal.
5. Maximise your existing clients…
Clients are buyers who feel a real commitment to buy from you and proves it by buying every product or service of yours they can reasonably use. If a customer is buying something from a competitor that they could be buying from you, consider that buyer a repeat customer rather than a client. So how can you consistently earn maximum share of wallet and turn a repeat customer into a client? One way is to continually educate your clients about your full breadth of products and services and convert them into your evangelists.  That is one of the most effective strategies of a successful digital social loyalty program.
6. Make good use of your advocates/evangelists…
There’s an important difference between a client and an advocate.  In simple terms, advocates do more than simply buy from you. Advocates are engaged customers who demonstrate their vendor loyalty through such activities as spreading positive word-of- mouth, recruiting new potential clients/customers and helping their vendors improve. So, how can a business build stronger advocacy today? One very effective way is to create a secure environment in which customers can be listened to and engaged over a finite period of time. And by far, the digital social loyalty program is the best and most cost effective strategy and tool to listen, engage, and give  your customers a very satisfying and WOW experience.