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Category Archives: Mobile

Not Your Mother’s Holiday Shopping

November 29, 2012

Last week, Michael Greenberg, Loyalty Lab’s director of global solution strategy, penned an article in DM News about the holiday season. A veritable Superbowl for loyalty marketers, the holidays are, as Michael puts it, the time to “roll up our sleeves, cross our fingers, and set our plans in motion.”

Well, the dust has settled following Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. But the madness is far from over now that the holiday season is in full swing. Titled “Not Your Mother’s Holiday Shopping,” the piece details the ways in which loyalty marketers should be reassessing their strategies in order to stay ahead of the game —  specifically by putting a major emphasis on mobile, which has become a huge force in the commerce game over the past couple of years.

And, looking back on the opening shot of 2012 holiday shopping, it’s clear that Michael’s assertions about mobile are right on track. According to IBM, mobile traffic was up 28.5%, while overall online sales were up 20.7% from 2011. Mobile accounted for 16.3% of all online sales, with a 58.6%-41.4% split between mobile phones and tablets.

Convinced, yet? While 2012 may be rolling already, Michael’s top 5 tips for bulking up your mobile marketing strategy will have you well on your way to a killer season in 2013. His main points:

1. Don’t skimp on mobile development.

2. Stand out from the noise (and from the glut of mobile apps already out there).

3. Take an offensive and defensive position — protect your best customers while successfully going after your competitors’.

4. Ask your customers for feedback.

5. Start planning for 2013, on December 26.

Read about all of these in more detail over on DM News, and get geared up for next year! Pay extra attention to how your initiatives perform this year, and to what your competitors are up to. What does your holiday game plan look like? Tell us in the comments!

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The Power of Analytics to Drive Loyalty – Part 3: Offers Looking for People, and People Looking for Offers

November 19, 2012

In our third segment looking at David Rosen’s webinar, The Power of Analytics to Drive Loyalty, we’re exploring Rosen’s, and Loyalty Lab’s, move away from some of the more traditional approaches to loyalty marketing initiatives.

“The right offer to the right person at the right time,” as Rosen puts it, was a great CRM buzz phrase, but we’re beyond it now. What we like to focus on now is a mutual approach, between merchant-driven and marketing-driven goals and initiatives.

Merchant-driven organizations use their loyalty programs to drive demand, and drive movement of a specific product or top-line revenue. Rosen refers to these types of initiatives as “offers looking for people.” When creating these programs, key considerations are:

  • What specifically do we want to sell, do, or promote?
  • Who is the best candidate to convert without sacrificing profitability?

Let’s say you want to sell more Greek yogurt, or frozen treats. You want to both a) find the people who have the greatest propensity to purchase these items and b) come up with an incentive offer directed at people who might not automatically purchase your focus item. So, a Greek yogurt purchase might allow a customer to earn more points, while buying three frozen treats can get you one free.

Ultimately, you want to eliminate gross margin bleed by not giving offers away to people when you don’t have to.

Marketer and marketing-focused organizations take a more consumer-centric view, which aspires to manage the lifecycle of your customers, both new and returning. You may likely have new customers – customers who have just had a baby, customers with large circles of friends with whom they interact online, and you want to figure out specifically what the right offers are for each one of them. Rosen refers to this differing approach as “people looking for offers.”

Our main considerations here are:

  • What do we want to do when we want to change the behavior of specific members?
  • What is the best offer to most effectively motivate that action?

In contrast to merchant-driven programs, here, we want to create a very explicit and customized new customer experience. A good, simple example that Rosen provides is wanting to wish your customers a happy birthday – how can we celebrate that, and make our customers feel good about it?

Generally, organizations tend to be one or the other — merchant or marketing-focused. The best strategy is to be both. At Loyalty Lab, we can help you find a detailed, analytic path to get you there, while providing you with the playbook to help you execute these strategies.

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Top 10 Coolest Things Going On In Loyalty

October 24, 2012

By Mark Goldstein

Loyalty programs are changing faster than ever. Here are my top 10 cool things you need to think about in 2013 when putting together a loyalty program:

10. Big is Good…Bigger is Better

mobile apps

If you are going to launch a loyalty program, go for the gusto or don’t go at all. Firms putting in less than 1% of their marketing budget and who don’t have 100% C-level buy-in will not succeed.

Winning example: McDonald’s Play At McD

9. You Aren’t Alone

There are now 8000+ national loyalty programs. Most of your customers are members of at least 50; it used to be maybe five. Now you join a loyalty program or two every time you go to a local farmer’s market and pay with Square.

Example: Jay’s Cheesesteaks

8. Awesomeness Is Expected

The storytelling, loyalty rules (tiers, thresholds, award types), and functionality of loyalty programs are increasingly available out of the box. Services like PunchTab.com allow any merchant to look and perform like a mature million dollar program.

Examples: Starwood Hotels and PunchTab


7. APIs and Easy Connections

There are no loyalty islands. Not deeply integrating and connecting through Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Janrain, Shopkick and, perhaps most importantly, Apple Passbook, is loyalty suicide! It’s not just about you and your program, it’s about what you are connected to.

6. Find Your Signature Insight

What do you bring to the market that’s truly different?  Focus on your unique attributes and build from there. Are your members bald, Yankee Fans, or super cheap? Make your program standout for them first and foremost.

5. Game Mechanics

Game mechanics are today’s rocket fuel of loyalty programs. You want LTVs and more revs? Think gamification. It used to be social, but social is now an assumed ingredient.

Examples: Badgeville.com client implementations by TaskRabbit, Prosper Loans and ActiveTrainer.

4. Payments Are the New PLCC (Private Label Credit Card)

The days of the PLCC are over — today is all about ACH. Don’t be seduced to tying your program to a PLCC, unless your target customer is in their late 50s.

Examples: Starbucks’ mobile apps, the Square Wallet, LevelUp, PayPal wallet, Google Wallet, and increasingly features inside Apple’s Passbook.

3. POS is Dead: Long Live the New ‘Invisible Payments’

Hello, cloud-based computing. Previously, 90% of your time designing a loyalty program was around the closed POS in-store. Now, you put 90% into designing, building, and iterating your loyalty program that runs across all your consumer touch points.

2. Be Ready to Move Fast

In a day where celebrities can acquire a million Twitter followers in a day, you need to be ready to reward and monetize out of the gate. Now, the lifespan of a loyalty program member is maybe 20% of what it was 5 years ago. You have less time to fully execute and need to be ready to crank it 24×7 out the gate.

1. Traffic Is Everywhere

Find the consumer Internet play that most closely aligns to your business. The band Green Day found make-your-own music powerhouse SoundCloud.  SoundCloud’s million of registered uniques powered Green Days’ Numero ¡Uno! Fan program to incredible heights.

00. Real-time is the real deal.

There is an event-based transformation going on in loyalty. Members expect to be rewarded in real-time, anytime anywhere. It’s called sense and respond, not campaign marketing, and it means you need to reward and provide real-time surprise, real-time magic. Vivek Ranadive’s book The Power of Now details how companies are changing it up and providing incentives to engage all the time. Read it!

Executing in loyalty today means you need to conduct an orchestra, but it doesn’t mean you need to buy a concert hall, pay 75 full-time musicians and instruments and negotiate with a union. It’s more like electronic music where you need to be Deadmaus5, have your headphones on and an iMac in hand. Yes, you need to get CRM, coupons, samples, third party site integration, gamification, email, POS and mobile all working really well together, but the Internet makes it both harder and easier to execute. You simply need to collaborate with all the amazing tools, sites and connected possibilities you can, and be ready on day one to wholly execute on an incredible scale. It’s a great day to be alive in loyaltyland—and it’s a whole new world.

 

Mark Goldstein founded and was CEO of Loyalty Lab, now a part of TIBCO Software, the technology provider behind many of the nation’s biggest loyalty programs. He has had his hand in launching over 100 national loyalty programs. Mark got involved in the loyalty world in 1999 when he Co-Founded and was CEO of Bluelight.com, a business formed by Kmart and investors to find multi-channel customers nationwide. Follow him on Twitter: @markgee.

Download the full version of Mark’s Top 10 Coolest Things Going on in Loyalty.

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Social Loyalty: How To Do It Right

October 18, 2012

“Going social” no longer seems like an optional component of the loyalty marketer’s arsenal. Whether you’re engaging with your customers on Facebook, Tweeting out exclusive offers to your followers, or simply promoting campaigns, sales, and products via an opt-in email list, the social realm of loyalty marketing is steadily growing, and continually proving its worth with excellent results.

It’s clear that social is here to stay, and if you haven’t jumped on board, now, more than ever is the time. But the need to implement social in your loyalty program doesn’t mean you should take a one-size-fits-all approach. The ins and outs of social marketing are as delicate and subtle as any other branch of a finely tuned loyalty program — it’s more than email blasting at will, or signing up for a Facebook page and going after as many followers as possible.

We addressed this issue at length in a recent whitepaper with the aim of showcasing the best ways to address your social loyalty needs. In addition to addressing the overridingwhy (traditional media is in a tailspin of a decline, while web, mobile, and social are on a fast-moving upward trajectory), we spotlighted ways to move beyond the obvious means of interacting with your customers across social networks.

Facebook may be one of the most powerful tools to consider when implementing a social side to your loyalty program. The go to approach is to get customers to like a brand, like a campaign, or like a product. But one of the best things about Facebook and loyalty is the ample room it leaves to get creative. We’ve created Facebook campaigns for clients like Nine West with the base strategy of getting customers to like a page or fill out a short questionnaire with points, but further built this out by encouraging customers to really interact on Facebook, fostering a sense of community.

Another valuable Facebook tactic is building a brand program around an app that allows customers to interact with their friends and families while simultaneously promoting the brand, like Kraft’s Mac N Cheese app. By having an opt-in request come from someone you know, you not only build the connection to existing customers, you reach a whole new group of potential buyers.

While Twitter is a giant in the social sphere, and one that should not be ignored, the limited scope of its content makes it less of a fit than Facebook for really exercising creativity in your social loyalty. Still, it’s an important tool for alerting customers of flash sales, presenting exclusive deals and offers, and fostering a casual, back-and-forth level of engagement around certain products, keywords, or events.

Curious to learn more about the TIBCO Loyalty Lab approach to social? Read more about our thoughts and examples of some of our great clients at www.loyaltylab.com/clients. 

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Financial Services Rewards Programs – Considering the Possibilities

October 10, 2012

We’ve spent time illustrating various industries that have capitalized on, or would do well to explore, the possibilities of loyalty. From airlines to education, the benefits of a strategic rewards program leveraging innovative technology are evident. Now, we’d like to turn our attention to financial services and the many possibilities that could transpire from the right loyalty offering.

By utilizing the rich data available to them, financial service institutions have the ability to create highly relevant customer rewards programs – perhaps significantly more customized than any other industry. By effectively combining this data in conjunction with the online, mobile, and in-branch customer experiences, banks and card issuers can send a consistent, streamlined, and unique, message across all of these platforms.

Consider the speed at which rewards technology is advancing (and the recent economic pressures on financial industries), now is the time to optimize your programs. With the growth in card-linked offer capabilities, anticipated adoption of digital wallets and new point redemption schemes, the types of loyalty and rewards program differentiation that banks and issuers can provide has grown exponentially. As a bank, In addition to the more traditional types of loyalty messaging (points earned, access to points), you can now offer your customers rewards based entirely on their location — the point-of-sale perk. Making customers aware of the possibility for deals when they are actually in the process of purchasing will make your loyalty program more appealing and will help retain your customers in new, multi-faceted ways.

This seems like a no-brainer to us. But by making sure that the rewards program is actively exercising this kind of intelligent design you will be able to maximize each customer engagement opportunity. In addition to creating a more appealing program, it should allow you to better understand what kinds of rewards your customers prefer. Would they rather acquire points to be used at a later date? Do they want cash back or valuable merchant discounts? The more you know about each individual customer’s preferences, the better you can tailor their rewards program to their needs. What’s more, the customer should be able to access all of his or her customized banking and rewards content with one login (for web and mobile), as well as in-person at a bank branch or ATM.

Loyalty Lab has developed technology specifically to work with rich data of this nature, and make sure that it’s used most effectively. Imagine if a customer’s card revealed more than their account number and balance — if properly handled, you could know what they want, when they want it, and how to give it to them. That is a rewards program worth belonging to, and worth having.

We’ll be looking more closely at the digital wallet, social loyalty, and the best way to present offers to customers. Will you take a tip from financial services and the channel of conversions to better integrate communication for your loyal members?

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When the Big Event Isn’t a Sale

October 5, 2012

by Chris Taylor

We’re heading into Columbus Day Weekend in the U.S., giving us a great chance to look at the fundamental changes that technology is bringing to retail. The new game is event-based marketing.

Big Sale!

A quick look at the LA Times shows who’s in the old game. The pages are full of merchants using discounting as impersonal enticements to come out shopping. The merchants want to move overstocked merchandise, maybe, but more likely are hoping people will buy non-sale items while in the store.

But this isn’t an efficient model. The stores have to re-compete each time for the same customer using ever louder advertisements on the web, emails, print and broadcast media. This is a dead-end game and a broken process but the standard model for those who haven’t invested in loyalty programs. And as a recent article pointed out, loyalty programs are about much more than discounts.

Loyalty’s real purpose

Preceding event-based marketing was trigger-based marketing, and it would be worthwhile to look at what that means: Rather than choose a date like Columbus Day and discount of x%, trigger-based marketing involves really knowing and understanding the actual customer, not just their demographic group. Knowledge of the individual allows key events in the customer and business lifecycle to combine with measurable changes in customer behavior, ‘pulling the trigger’ on specific marketing activities.

Types of triggers include transactional (a purchase or question), recurring (birthdays and other life events), behavioral (initiating new accounts, changes in spending levels), and threshold (amount spent, limits exceeded). Each of these has implications for retention, up-sell and cross-sell that drive profitability.

These triggers are monitored in technology systems that continuously watch for predetermined patterns and enable delivery of marketing activities with the best timing and highest relevancy. Getting those two things right involves doing things, not after the ideal moment has passed. It means reacting to the customer when their actions and business conditions indicate, not before and not after.

But we can do even better.

Anywhere, everywhere

We’re in an omni-channel world…social, , mobile, web, physical location (0nline, in or near store) and already moving beyond trigger-based marketing to event-based. Real-time, mobile and event processing technology takes the trigger idea much further. For example, a customer visits a website, puts things in their shopping cart but then abandons it. If they are within a distance of a local store, they receive an offer delivered to their phone for the things left in the cart. As you can imagine, the response rates are much higher when the system works one-to-one and not one-to-many.

While these sophisticated systems have a cost, it involves up front investment that has recurring return, unlike the traditional advertising model. Where graphic art and a holiday once dominated, information flow, predictive analytics, cross-channel integration and process automation are the new tools of effective retail. Where we once shouted, we now understand, anticipate and act.

Find more by Chris Taylor at his blog, www.successfulworkplace.com and @successfulwork.

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How Can Schools Raise Student Engagement? By Using Loyalty Tactics.

September 19, 2012

Last week, we looked at ways that college students can benefit from a number of excellent loyalty programs as they make their way back to hallowed university halls for the start of the school year. Furthermore, we highlighted why college students are an ideal demographic for brand marketers.

This week, we’re turning our back-to-school thinking around, on the universities themselves. While there’s plenty to be learned at these fine institutions, we believe that colleges could take a lesson from loyalty programs when it comes to engaging their students.

The thing is, higher education has been making attempts to better connect with their students over Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets. But according to a recent article from Inside Higher Ed, schools aren’t making progress when it comes to measuring success. What’s more, they don’t seem sure of what they’re looking for.

We think that we have some answers for them. Imagine if universities were not only to increase student followers, but also actively increased their participation in on-campus activities, bettered their study habits, and made them an even more loyal, active, and dedicated members of the university community?

Go Mobile

Mobile is clearly at the forefront of effective loyalty practices these days, something that Loyalty Lab has embraced wholeheartedly as of late. And no one is more attached to their mobile phones than students. Universities should take advantage of  location-based technology by offering students deals when they are near on-campus dining locations, campus bookstores, and even the library.

College football fansBy encouraging check-ins in class, at extracurricular clubs and activities, and again, at that often avoided library, students could earn points to receive free cups of coffee, discounts on textbooks, or University-branded swag.

Get Spirited

When you start talking about encouraging ‘loyalty’ among students, it begins to sound a whole lot like encouraging school spirit. Getting students excited about and involved in school events, performances, and athletics will not only enrich their college experience, it increases the likelihood that they’ll be loyal alums post-graduation.

Tweeting at dedicated hashtags, checking in at games, and showing serious spirit could allow universities to reward students for their involvement. Imagine discounts on season tickets for basketball, great perks at on-campus restaurants and coffee shops — real, tangible rewards for students who show that they are dedicated members of the community.

Ask for Feedback

Sure, kids may head to college to learn a thing or two, but often, they’re savvier than we are. Especially when it comes to the kinds of rewards they want, and the kind of engagement they’re willing to participate in. So, ask them! Similar to our great loyalty programs that request customer feedback, universities should find out from their students just what it is they’re looking to gain. And make these inquiries worth their time, too — allow them to benefit from promotions or be entered into contests for answering your questions and bettering your understanding of how to best engage.

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A Look at Mobile — Why Don’t More Carriers Have Loyalty Programs?

August 23, 2012

Loyalty programs are nothing new. If anything we are approaching an era where loyalty stretches far beyond traditional rewards and offers. We have seen the new and innovative ways companies like Virgin America are rewarding customers with Elevate, and even Thrivent Financial has found its own unique niche through its service-minded Thrivent Choice.

Why, then, with all of the information and positive examples out there, have some industries been slow to jump on the loyalty bandwagon?

With the exception of U.S. Cellular, the first wireless company to offer a loyalty program, wireless is one industry that has been hesitant to take advantage of the benefits of loyalty. This is counterintuitive, considering the makeup of wireless companies screams loyalty.

The way that contracts are structured, upgrades are offered, and overages are charged has a history of frustrating customers to the point of no return. Switching providers is a fairly straightforward process, making it easy for customers to flip-flop from one provider to the next when dissatisfied. All of this combined makes for one unstable customer base. But what if a loyalty plan could turn these traditional wireless experiences around? Well it can, and it has — for U.S. Celluar at least.

U.S. Cellular’s Belief Project has been able to achieve what other wireless providers struggle to grasp — satisfied, happy customers who feel appreciated. Not being forced to sign another contract after the first two years doesn’t hurt things, either.

Other wireless providers are starting to take the hint from U.S. Cellular and are considering integrating loyalty into their programs. It’s about time! According to a recent Pricewaterhouse Coopers survey, the average length of postpaid customer relationships has declined to 48 months, down from 59 months in 2010.  Customer retention is flailing and AT&T is a provider that has decided to take action by testing a new AT&T ‘Plus’ loyalty program. This is one in what will hopefully become a trend of loyalty programs popping up in wireless.

The point is, customer loyalty is there for the taking. It is a proven method for attracting and retaining customers. If you are in an industry where customer turnover is high, then consider how a loyalty program can set you apart and positively impact your retention rates. After all, as we all know, the benefits of keeping a long time customer far out weight a new one. It’s worked wonders for U.S. Cellular. Maybe it’s time for your provider to consider the possibilities that loyalty has to offer.

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Customer Testimonial: U.S. Cellular’s Choice Program Works With Me, Not Against Me

August 22, 2012

It all started with a ski trip. I was up at Heavenly in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with a group of friends, getting set for a day of shredding the slopes and carving out some powder. It was snowing that day, seemingly harmless little flurries. Then we boarded the chairlift up the mountain — the flurries turned thick, coating the strands of my hair until it turned icy.

mobile

“No way other way to get down!” we said cheerily. I patted my phone, safely zipped (or so I thought) in the pocket of my coat. Pointing my skis downhill, I sped off — and promptly face-planted in a swiftly growing snowdrift. Spitting the snow from my mouth and wiping off my goggles, I tucked down the mountain, already anticipating a hot beverage.

It was there, over a much-deserved winter drink, that I realized that my phone was gone. My zipped pocket sat tauntingly half-open. “Ugh,” I thought. “Here comes another two-year contract.”

I was spot-on with that prediction. My provider at the time said that, in order to get a new phone on my current plan, I would have to sign on for another two years. Otherwise, I would have to pay an exorbitant fee to break the contract. I’d been planning on doing this as soon as my current contract had run out — until my ill-fated ski trip and my sudden need for a new phone. What’s more, I had been anticipating upgrading to a phone that was being released in about a month — this forced me to settle for the same model I had lost.

That’s where the providers get you. They know you need your phone, and they know you need it now. I sucked it up that time, but as soon as that contract ran out, I left my provider and moved on to U.S. Cellular. I’d read about the launch of their Belief Project, that allowed users to break free from the two-year contract system after signing once. Once! That’s all that was needed to prove that I was a loyal customer. My old provider had forced that new contract on me after I had been a customer for years.

U.S. Cellular makes me feel like they actually value my business; it’s a nice change from feeling forced to stay. I earn points through the Belief Project, and even used them to update to a cool, new smartphone shortly after it was released. I had a particularly heavy texting month recently, and used points to soften the overage charge. Thanks to the Belief Project, I finally feel like I have a mobile provider who’s working with me, not against me.

Oh, and my next ski trip? I’m putting my phone on the inner pocket of my jacket. The snowdrifts won’t have me beat, this time.

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U.S. Cellular’s Belief Project — Making Us Believers in Mobile Loyalty

August 20, 2012

When it comes to loyalty programs, it seems like a no-brainer that a mobile provider would want to reward its loyal customers. Because these days, it’s basically a given that everyone has a cell phone. And in the U.S., going the pay-as-you-go route is a rarity. We have family plans, two-year contracts, and obligations to stick around if we want to upgrade to the coolest new smartphone — at least, if we want to avoid massive contract-breaking fees.

So it’s hard to believe that U.S. Cellular’s Belief Project, a rewards program that actually benefits its loyal customers, is just two years old. And beyond that, the Belief Project really was the first of its kind.

The Belief Project’s components still feel fresh. Customers are required to sign one two-year contract — once. After that, they are free to switch to paying by the month, allowing them to terminate their contract should something change.

What’s more, switching to the month-by-month option doesn’t prevent members from accessing the rewards that U.S. Cellular has to offer. Actually, just by opting in to the Belief Project, you automatically earn points. The longer you are a member, the more points you earn; you’re even gifted points for your birthday.

And these points are actual valuable entities, something any customer stuck in a frustrating mobile plan can appreciate. You can use your Belief-earned points to add a line to your plan for free; to buy fun ringtones and ringback radio subscriptions; to set up a voicemail-to-text service.

Most significantly, however, you can apply points towards overage forgiveness, and to upgrade to a new phone whenever you’d like. Gone is the frustration of being stuck with your old-school Blackberry, or even a (gasp) flip phone for an extended period of time because you’re forced to wait out your two-year contract. And, your phone upgrade doesn’t necessitate a new contract.

It’s refreshing that U.S. Cellular has made serious efforts to earn its customer’s loyalty over these past two years — rather than forcing them to remain with them by making contracts a necessity. For an industry such as mobile, this kind of consideration and appreciation for loyalty is all the more stand-out — if everyone has a cell phone, many people will end up suckered in to a plan that is not beneficial to, or conscientious of, their needs.

At least, customers not with U.S. Cellular. Their Belief Project has made believers out of us, and has set the standard for loyalty in the mobile space.

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