👋 Welcome!

The Stack digest is a weekly newsletter about loyalty programs, points, and roundup on all things Stack enjoyed in 5 mins or less.

What's covered 👇

🥋 Earn your stripes - a story on martial arts and the power of perceived value and gamification in loyalty

🚢 Product updates - we just released permissionless rewards, a new feature

📰 Points must-reads - Blackbird released Pay with Fly, Orangetheory is trendsetting loyalty in fitness, and the future of loyalty is onchain according to the Boston Consulting Group

🥋 Earn your stripes

This week, I earned my first stripe in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ). Two months ago, I took my first steps onto the mat, completely new to the sport. Dozens of classes and many physical humblings later, I achieved my first milestone.

As my instructor wrapped a piece of white tape around my belt, he dropped a truth bomb,

"Just so you know, these stripes are just a marketing tool to make you feel like you're progressing. The real milestones are the belts, and it takes years to move from a white belt to a blue belt."

Despite learning the stripe wasn't "real", the sense of accomplishment and perceived value it brought certainly was. It represented the hard work and dedication of the past few months and fed a surge of motivation and pride in me to continue.

Perceived value and gamification are powerful principles of loyalty programs. Even something as simple as a piece of tape can create a strong sense of achievement and drive loyalty. Best of all - the cost to provide it is usually low. People want to earn their stripes, let them.

@bradorbradley.eth

🚢 Product updates

We just released Permissionless Rewards, a new feature that enables anyone to create a claimable ERC20 token reward directly from a leaderboard on Stack. They help streamline partnerships between token-based apps/ecosystems and point programs.

Permissionless rewards help establish an emotional connection w/ a potential new user through a memorable, branded experience. Coupling a surprise-and-delight reward w/ an immediate post-claim CTA helps increase the likelihood a user will choose to take a desired action organically.

Read the announcement blog or learn how to make a permissionless reward to get started!

📰 Loyalty must-reads

Here's what the Stack team read this week 👇

🍽 Blackbird, a blockchain-enabled restaurant loyalty app, just released Pay with Fly, enabling users to spend USDC in any restaurant that accepts Blackbird Pay

Orangetheory Fitness is setting the standard for loyalty in the fitness industry and helping redefine exercise as a feel-good, social, and positive lifestyle-related activity.

🔍 Web3 opens new paths for customer loyalty, as this industry report from Boston Consulting Group lays out with great detail and analysis