By Mark H. Goldstein | CEO
Well, Loyalty Lab lost this one—we were in there and thought we had a espresso shot of being their partner but they went to the agency of record and built on top of First Data, their POS gift card vendor. Its a solid program and well designed——will it work? You betcha.
by Mark H. Goldstein | CEO
We’ve always been loyalty snobs but yesterday’s news on Amazon entering the market Amazon To Focus On Customer Loyalty Points is truly great news. Amazon is opening up their backend and allowing third parties to create ‘reward centers’ based on 3rd party products. This makes it that much easier to offer aspiration rewards. Less need now to secure dedicated third party fulfillment relationships with traditional older-school firms like Maritz Marketing.
Note –Amazon is only entering the fulfillment side of the business. But it’s another great leap for cloud computing. As more and more functionality is available via web services, the better and easier it will be to build powerful loyalty programs!
by David Rosen | Senior Vice President
Two great companies have come together in a very innovative way. BzzAgent is a company devoted to creating structured opportunities for influential consumers to spread positive word of mouth about new products they’ve recently tried. I’m a Bzz Agent and have done my part to try Tropicana’s new premium juices, Claritan’s Red Tabs and have shared coupons for those products with my co-workers. I earned points for the actions I took.
MyPoints (editors note – I used to work at MyPoints before joining Loyalty Lab) is the leading online frequent shopping program. Every purchase I make I first pass through MyPoints. Over the past five years, I’ve earned a hundred thousand points (roughly $1000) for a pretty moderate level of ecommerce.
MyPoints offers its 8 members a choice of roughly 100 gift cards and electronic certificates from top retailers, restaurants, airlines and hotels. Great liquidity of the points makes MyPoints valuable and therefore a currency that significantly motivates behavior.
Yesterday I was notified that BzzAgent was discontinuing their homegrown loyalty currency and converting all current and future points to MyPoints. This makes a lot of sense for both parties. BzzAgent now has a currency that has far better perceived value and therefore a much better chance at being a behavioral motivator. MyPoints has a new channel for recruiting new members (and what an incredible member profile – active, viral shoppers) who will want to earn even more points.
Clearly a case of one plus one equaling three.
by Joshua Tretakoff | VP, Account Management
Rightly or wrongly, many people think of two things when they hear the term “loyalty program:” frequent flyer programs and grocery cards. The latter are fascinating: the value proposition is that you will get lower prices when you use the cards at the cash register. The cards themselves are free, of course, so what it amounts to is usually a modern version of traditional couponing: offer lower prices, and the customer will shop with you. Problem is, there’s no ongoing earn component to most grocery programs, and every grocery chain has one…so what’s the “loyalty” component?
Safeway, out here in the West, has recognized this problem, and added a new benefit to their Club program: spend $40 in groceries with your Club card, get 2 free movie tickets. Why movie tickets? Like gas, movie tickets are one of those ethereal commodities that has a higher perceived value to the consumer than the actual cash it represents, so it truly “feels” like a larger reward. Already, they’ve previously tied Club membership to earning gas at stores with attached fueling stations, so this lower-cost, higher value approach fills out their Club offerings.
This is complimentary marketing 101. I would not be surprised to see the nascent theater loyalty programs, like AMC’s MovieWatcher program, monitor the redemption of these certificates and possibly eventually reciprocate with gas from Safeway, etc. And with the ongoing competition of traditional movie theaters against home theaters and videogames, this could just be the start.
by Mark H. Goldstein | CEO
Russ Klein, CMO at Burger King, gets kudos from me on their ‘Whopper Bar’ concept, as featured in today’s Wall Street Journal.
He took the best of Starbuck’s and Fat Tuesday’s and mapped it to his business.
This should be every consumer brand’s retail model. Take your killer product and allow your customers to dress it up the way they want, when they want to, all in a unique, on-brand, to-go environment. Cut the unnecessary products and services out—drop the concept in a high-traffic location and focus on your strengths and be as upscale and aspirational as you possibly can be!!! Burger King, between putting their ‘King’ in bed with fashion models on TV and rolling out a burger bar….they are going to win me back from increasingly staid In-N-Out Burgers after all!
by Joshua Tretakoff | VP, Account Management
Just a quick compliment to our valued clients, UTANGO, for the great article on their innovative program in today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer. These guys have one of the smartest takes on long term loyalty, and enough can’t be said about their efforts. If you are a newlywed or single, sign up today!
by Mark H. Goldstein | CEO
www.cellfire.com just raised an additional $12M in venture financing. I think this puts something like over $25M into the firm and that officially makes it a big venture bet.
I use Cellfire and while it’s not there yet (the only offers made to me are for movie rentals and 1-800-Flowers.com so it totally lacks content), it strikes me as the one with greatest potential to break out. SMS messaging by marketers is waning…as users are opting out and governments are opting into setting restrictions. The name of the game here isn’t intrusive messaging, it’s politely having the right offers at the right time. Cellfire has a nice UI and works well, although slowly, on my Blackberry Pearl phone.
If I were Valassis, I’d buy these guys, for example.
The mobile messaging landscape in the
We saw the free-411 directory assistance services start to give up on message targeting and simply focus on getting broadcast messages to users (new movie releases and everyday products used by everyday people). It’s now beginning to work and generate revenue.
Malls are experimenting with mobile with some initial success. If I were a mall, I’d have a service to prompt my younger customers to text-in and get targeted offers sent to them while they are strolling the mall….sure beats paper coupons!
Of course, the Koreans and Euros are well ahead of us, thanks to a more mature and speedier mobile platform. It’s going to be an interesting next few years in mobile marketing…
By Josh Tretakoff | VP, Account Management
Tesco, the celebrated UK supermarket chain, has already launched in the US with their Fresh & Easy stores in Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Southern California, but today comes word they are headed to the Bay Area. Tesco is one of the “gold standards” for excellent loyalty marketing, as documented in Clive Humby’s book, Scoring Points.
While ostensibly designed to compete with smaller foodprint markets like Trader Joe’s, the choice of the Bay Area is clearly a shot across Safeway’s bow, who makes their headquarters on the Bay Area’s edge. With Tesco’s background in loyalty, Trader Joe’s instinctual appeal, and Safeway’s massive presence, these 18 locations should prove to be an interesting real-world proving ground for the power of loyalty.
By Mickey Neuberger | Senior Director, Loyalty Strategy
In an effort to build deep customer relationships, organizations are increasingly hooked on requesting information from their customers. But some brands go overboard, leaving their customers to wonder why they bothered answering those questions in the first place.
For example, upon registration for a grocery club card, only ask “what’s your favorite vegetable” if you plan on sending the appropriate customers a discount on tomatoes the next day. And when customers call into your support center don’t prompt them to dial in their account number, phone number etc. just to have a customer rep re-ask those same questions a few minutes later.
Recently I had an experience with a brand that did it right. Upon arrival for a repeat hair cut at Great Clips, the hairdresser asked for my phone number. She then looked up my information and said “should we use the #4 clip and cut about an inch off the top again?” Now that’s value add.
Bottom-line brands that ask and then act on only the very critical customer questions win the respect of customers and provide superior service.
