Tag Archives: mobile

Delete…The Easy Solution For Lousy Loyalty Programs

May 16, 2013

by Jeanne Roué-Taylor

There are two things we can expect every morning when we wake up. The first is that the sun has returned from the other side of the world and the second is a queue of loyalty program emails waiting in our inboxes, screaming of discounts and one-day sales.

According to The Colloquy 2011 Loyalty Census, the average family belongs to 18 rewards programs, but is active in just 8.4. Loyalty is alive and well, but is it really doing its job well?

Impersonal

Considering the impersonal email queue that greets us every day, membership in a program isn’t necessarily the symbiotic relationship that merchants might expect. Customers have rising expectations (as described in this webinar), and the old practices of loyalty marketing are looking more and more like spam in today’s marketplace.

According to Aberdeen’s report, The 2012 Omni-Channel Retail Experience, 42% of respondents expect a similar experience regardless of channel.

We live in a world that’s using diverse platforms, is increasingly mobile and expects loyalty marketers to personalize their offers in an ongoing pattern of communication. Do most programs meet those expectations? Judging by the morning email queue, no.

Delete

The numbers also suggest that customers won’t spend much thought before deleting or otherwise ignoring communication that isn’t personalized, relevant, and comes through just one channel (and not the ones preferred). Considering how much copy, coding and graphic work goes into the average advertisement, not taking the steps to make the message “sticky” is expensive and ineffective.

Like so many things, you get out what you put in and loyalty needs to be as strategic and personal as any part of selling. The Loyalty Lab Reward platform is an investment that will keep your best efforts out of the wastebasket.

 

 

 

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I Know What You Did in Aisle 5

May 7, 2013

by Jeanne Roué-Taylor

Indoor mapping of consumer location is the latest arrow in the quiver of the retail marketer. When marketers know where things are happening, they can develop interesting patterns for where to put resources like people, signage and information technology. Geolocation also provides the remarkable ability to spot the patterns that predict what to expect from consumers, and can be tested and continuously refined based on effectiveness and cost.

Marketers can also send messages directly to the consumer based on where they are in that very moment. They can say, “Hey, you were in Aisle 5 and showed interest in that new phone—here’s an offer for 10% off.”

Service versus stalking

But where does it start to look like stalking and less like helpful service? The difference between creepy and convenience is found in whether consumers are knowingly and willingly sharing details about their path through the store, mall or city, and how long they spend in any one spot. When they’re not agreeing to this level of data collection and use, the outcome looks much more like Big Brother.

Pretty soon, they’re not agreeing to share their location and turning off that app that tracks their location. Who wants that?

Loyalty to the rescue

There is a simple way to make the same information useful both for prediction and messaging. Loyalty programs are the permission that consumers give because they see the benefit of having a closer, more open relationship with the seller. Anyone considering geolocation software as a way to get closer to the shopping cart has to first take into consideration the permission required to stay above the creepy line.

It is that easy. Loyalty programs are the de-creeping of big data and the answer not just to today’s monitoring and analytics tools, like geolocation technology, but also to what’s certainly coming in the not-so-distant future.

Learn more about the tools and technologies that are helping to reimagine loyalty marketing in this webinar.

 

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Real-Time Marketing or Right-Time Marketing?

May 3, 2013

by Ted Rubin

Real-time marketing is all the rage, though as TIBCO Loyalty Lab’s David Rosen is quick to point out, brands really need to be focused on right time marketing. “The speed and reaction of marketing needs to be relevant when the consumer is discovering, shopping or sharing,” he said.

Brands need to act with relevance and timeliness without crossing over into creepiness, Rosen warned. “You need to have customers’ permission to collect data and contact them in the time of decision-making. When that relationship is within a loyalty program, it’s far less creepy,” he explained. I agree because when the relationship exists, and it is documented via membership, the consumer feels a connection that otherwise may not exist.

Loyalty and rewards may be the first thing to get right first, he suggests, noting that “…it creates the permission-based relationship between a brand and its consumers.” There’s a value exchange there, he explained; customers have consented and contributed to the brand-consumer relationship. This is a great point because in many ways it makes it easier for the marketer than initially spending time on relationship building without a guarantee the C-suite often requires to fund relationship building.

The collection and analysis of the data available in a loyalty relationship allows marketers an edge in real-time marketing, with greater insight into which messages or offers are most likely to influence a customer in that critical moment. But keep in mind… data and analytics can’t replace judgment. Along with data, be sure to let judgement, learning, inspiration be your guides, not simply numbers.

Simple, Compelling Offers for the Win

The future of offers and real-time marketing is simplicity, according to Rosen. “The best rewards program is simple enough that any employee can describe it. It’s compelling enough that people will naturally want to sign up,” he said, noting that Sports Authority is a perfect example. They offer 5% back on all purchases, an offer everyone can comprehend and appreciate. It’s simple to use and doesn’t require that the customer understand a complex spend and earn program. I find this so incredibly important… ease of use and participation is key!

“If you can achieve high rates for enrollment and out of the gate, you’ll get immediate attention from senior management. If management doesn’t care, you don’t get buy-in and won’t have their support and budget to effectively run your program,” Rosen warned. Simple, compelling offers appeal to customers and can win the support of internal decision-makers.

Marketers are realizing the potential of next generation marketing tactics and tools, such as game mechanics, to essentially stimulate activity, add an element of fun, and change people’s behaviors in different ways. Game elements also help to cement the relationship by keep people involved and engaged.

“In this realm, you’ll see offers like group rewards, where consumers enter as a group to win prizes,” Rosen explained. “Retailers can link a number of behaviors and get consumers to accomplish certain tasks, ie: wearing a certain product and having a picture taken and posted to Instagram.”

Communication = Relationship Management

Better communication with loyalty program members means much more than simply delivering the content they want in a format they prefer. Brands needs to use the information gleaned from the program and other data available to them—through the website, email marketing, social channels and in-store—in order to effectively manage their customer relationships. When your customers are engaging via loyalty initiatives you have the opportunity to interact and engage them on a more personal level.

Are your customers shopping online, making returns, opening or responding to emails, or taking other actions from which you can draw insight?

Customers have come to expect that brands will deliver messages and offers relevant to their needs. This is the power of real-time marketing—the ability to act almost instantly on customer insights. Easing communication means understanding the needs of each customer and communicating the right message to them, at the right time.

It’s so important to keep in mind that right-time marketing means making a connection that goes beyond simply time and place, but takes it a step further and builds the connection… and therefore the relationship. Consumers desperately want to feel heard, connected, and valued, so remember to take it beyond the simple offer to engage and build Return on Relationship.

Analytics

Information has exploded, between the type of information we keep stored in databases —such as past purchasing behavior or past flight behavior—and the types of insights gleaned from activities happening in real time. “Customer loyalty marketing is not really marketing to people in real time, but using events, happenings, behaviors that are happening in real-time in order to very quickly make decisions about what to do next,” Rosen explained.

Analytics are critical for taking these masses of real-time and stored (historical) data and identifying patterns, in order to determine what to do next.

“The other piece of analytics that is incredibly compelling is that it gives the creative marketer the ability to be more creative,” Rosen explained. “You don’t have to get it right. You just need to have a great idea that it testable. If you have a great idea, you can make a moderate investment and put it in front of a limited amount of consumers and test that; you can measure the impact it had on people.” Great analytics takes away the risk of failure, he noted. Again I will add that analytics can only get you so far, it is easy to interpret data to mean what you are looking to hear, so be sure to let judgement reign.

Powerful reporting helps communicate the value of the program across the organization, not just to senior management, but across other teams, logistics partners, creative partners, etc. Dashboards, reporting and success metrics have become incredibly powerful and are critical for customer loyalty management.

Rosen’s recommendations are designed to help marketers move beyond the traditional loyalty program/offers model, to a relationship-based, mutually rewarding customer loyalty marketing solution. So use the all-important data, but remember the value in the data is in deepening the relationship connection.

“The whole idea is, don’t overcomplicate things,” Rosen advised. “Create a simple program with a compelling hook—this will become your canvas for testing and refining these other amazing things. That doesn’t mean it’s so vanilla people won’t sign up. But once you have that permission-based relationship with your customers, you can really do anything if you’re a good marketer.”

How effective is your brand at real-time marketing, using current and historical insights to influence purchasing behavior at the right time, in the proper channel, and building true relationships at the same time? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Hear more from David on right-time marketing and reimagining loyalty in the webinar, Customer Loyalty Management: Marrying the Art & Science of Loyalty.

Read more by Ted on his blog, and follow him @tedrubin and @R_onR.

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Finding the Holy Grail of Marketing

April 29, 2013

by Jeanne Roué-Taylor

The remarkable amount of change in the consumer world is ushering in a new definition of loyalty. What have long been static programs of points and plastic cards are becoming dynamic, individualized and much, much more engaging.

The old way of simple ledgers and confusing redemption schemes was a fundamentally flawed proposition. Customers were able to accumulate points but struggled to keep track of and gain real value in return. Something had to change.

Enter Customer Loyalty Management

Customer Loyalty Management is the new, holistic approach to driving higher levels of loyalty to brands. It puts a focus on what have emerged as the four ‘pillars’ of loyalty:

  • Loyalty programs
  • Wider event streams
  • Marketer-driven relationship marketing
  • Test & learn

Each of these four is key to finding the ‘Holy Grail’ of marketing: creating ‘fans’—people who think of a brand first and represent a much higher lifetime value. But today’s technology combines social, mobile and analytics to create new ways to drive another layer atop the four pillars, including higher trust, greater insight and relevance, and recognition leading to virtuous cycles of increasing value.

These are lofty goals that would be impossible without the new approach in technology and strategy offered by Customer Loyalty Management.

Aligning the Tools and Techniques

As consumers’ buying patterns change, the tools and techniques of loyalty need to change alongside them. There are four specific areas where the tools and techniques align with the four pillars and matter the most for the new Customer Loyalty Management:

  • Social
  • Mobile
  • In-store
  • On-line

Each of these areas is impacted by those changing buying patterns, and there’s an opportunity for brands to avoid disruption and benefit from the shift. These points of personal and digital engagement are the new realities of letting consumers engage in ways that increase their experience and create true fans.

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Return on Relationship™: The New Measure of Success

February 15, 2013

By Ted Rubin 

Social media is quickly becoming a way of life… and a way of business as more and more companies are realizing they need to integrate social media into their marketing strategies. We can’t, however, expect to do “business as usual” and succeed in building an eager audience around our brands.

If you want to continue to reach your market in this social media age, the marketing focus needs to be on building relationships, and metrics need to expand beyond ROI (Return on Investment) to include ROR: Return on Relationship™.

–Return on Relationship™…simply put the value that is accrued by a person or brand due to nurturing a relationship. ROI is simple $s and cents. ROR is the value (both perceived and real) that will accrue over time through loyalty, recommendations and sharing.–

Most measurements and empowerment stats that are used with regard to relationships (i.e. number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, retweets, site visits, video views, positive ratings and vibrant communities) are not financial assets, but that doesn’t mean they are worthless. Instead, these are leading indicators that a brand is doing something that is creating value that will be with you for the long term and will drive ROI if developed and used effectively.

So how do you build and strengthen relationships with your audience (as a whole, and as individuals) to increase your ROR?

1. Listen

If you want to be heard above the growing social media “noise,” you need to first listen to your consumers so when you do speak, you get it right. What are they saying, what are they feeling, what are their pain points, what solutions do they need?

2. Make it be about THEM

First think about and first address what matters most to your audience. Give them a platform to show you what they need, want, are interested in, and expect. Whatever matters most to them should become what matters most to you! We marketers like to think that social media is primarily a set of tools for our marketing purposes, but in reality, social media is also a strong set of tools our consumers use to share and influence opinion about our brand. Our consumers now have “the channel of me.” Consumers’ opinions now create the “reality” of the brand — if enough consumers say negative things about your brand, your brand loses its credibility, and (thankfully) vice versa.

3. Ask “How can I serve you?”

Taking the “ME” mentality one step further, when we are advertising instead of building relationships, we are focused on what our consumers can give us instead of how we can best serve them.

Your consumers will recognize in a heartbeat if you are simply trying to get something from them – and they will not stick around. It’s not that you aren’t allowed to want anything from your consumers, it’s that there must be a give to go along with every take. If you truly want to make an impact, aim to always put more energy and attention in your “give” column than in your “take” column. It will pay off.

4. Aim for Ongoing Engagement

Building relationships is about starting meaningful dialogue and taking the time to thoughtfully and genuinely engage in ongoing conversation. Relationships focus on getting to know your consumer and giving them reasons to stay engaged — not just getting them to react. This needs to be all the time… not simply campaign or initiative based. That is the biggest mistake being made today by marketers and brands… with consumers, and especially with influencers.

5. Know the People in Your Audience

Short and simple: if you are only focused on the money, you risk completely overlooking the people. Don’t make that mistake! If you don’t know who your people are, you might as well toss your marketing money down the drain.

Relationships ARE the new currency – honor them, invest in them, and start measuring your ROR!

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Moving Far Beyond Mad Men

December 20, 2012

By Jeanne Roué-Taylor

Retailers have gone miles beyond the traditional print, TV and radio marketing of the Mad Men era, for sure, but even the more recent digital campaign-based marketing isn’t the best way to gain loyalty while maintaining profitability.

I’ll tell what works best, but first let’s take a look at how we got here.

Don Draper style

Traditional marketing was about coming up with the best tag line and finding the best audience and channel for delivery. Mad Men’s Don Draper is the perfect traditional marketing guy/ad man (there were very few women). Don is masterful at getting into the heads of the paying client with a promise that he will get his message into the heads of the end customer.  Even with focus groups testing those messages, it was an enormous leap of faith for the firm’s clientele.  It was all about selling an idea and less about proven execution.

Costly setup

Computing brought us beyond Mad Men and gave us the ability to watch for signs of a receptive audience. Those signals, or triggers, are certainly a step beyond Don’s famous tag lines, like London Fog’s, “Limit your exposure.” Campaign or old-style trigger-based marketing delivers personalized, relevant content based on the best knowledge in advance.  That sounds like a great idea but is hampered by structure and slowed down by potentially costly setup and execution.

Getting a trigger wrong means sending messages people don’t want. Missing the timing means marketing into thin air.  Because triggers are structured and reactive, campaign development is based on a cycle that has several steps: Identifying triggers, creating responses, testing and evaluating, operationalizing and then optimizing campaigns.  Traditional trigger-based marketing doesn’t bring the speed necessary to for today’s business.

Getting it right

There’s a new and better way that’s gaining ground with some of the best marketers in the business. The modern Don Draper operates in real-time and with event-driven marketing instead. Events are simply ‘things that happen’ (or don’t). Powerful systems can anticipate combinations of events and fire responses in real-time that can take into effect an unlimited number of factors. Events include location, sentiment analysis, inventory levels, previous purchases and more. These are highly dynamic factors that can’t be correlated in traditional systems.

Event-driven is the marketing answer to mobility, social, cloud and big data. It is a true differentiator in an increasingly complex marketplace.

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The 12 Days of Christmas – Loyalty Lab Style

December 6, 2012

by Jeanne Roué-Taylor

With Black Friday behind us and Christmas just weeks away, retail establishments across the world are in their busiest time of the year. Are you maximizing the surge in holiday business? With that in mind, here’s our carol for you:

12 Days of Christmas, (Loyalty Lab style)

On the first day of Christmas, my system gave to me:
My customer’s undying loyalty.

On the second day of Christmas, my system gave to me:
2 mobile apps,
and my customer’s undying loyalty.

OK, OK, you get the point. Let’s just skip to the final tally:

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my system gave to me:
12 million tweets a tweeting
11 market segments
10 systems talking
9 clever campaigns
8 real-time offers
7 million web hits
6 retired systems
5 ways to sell
4 million page likes
3 months of forecast
2 mobile apps
and my customer’s undying loyalty.

So even if you don’t get everything you want in your stocking, we at least hope your customers turn into fans ­­– and you become a marketing hero in 2013!
Happy Holidays from the Loyalty Lab team…

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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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Teacher Testimonial: How Loyalty Programs Can Help Teachers Outfit Their Classrooms

September 26, 2012

In our back-to-school with loyalty series, we’ve covered college and loyalty in a number of ways. First, we took a look at the students themselves, and examined both how they can benefit from joining top-notch loyalty programs, and how loyalty marketers should consider the student demographic a valuable priority group to target. Second, we discussed the universities themselves, and ways in which they could greatly increase the engagement of their student bodies by employing some of the best tactics used by our loyalty programs.

Today, we’re going back to school even further — to kindergarten. And we’re focusing on one of the most important groups of people behind our educational institutions — the teachers.

Teachers are largely responsible for outfitting their classrooms, acquiring the materials for special activities, and making sure they have everything they need to give their students the most positive school experience possible. Below, we have a testimonial from a first-year kindergarten teacher:

I just graduated college and I spent around $300 out of my own pocket to decorate and prepare my classroom. And I probably spent much less than other teachers because I already had a lot of the art supplies and a lot of other things were donated from friends, past teachers or left over in the classroom.

Remember all of those holiday parties you had in elementary school? Treats for the Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas parties all come out of the teacher’s pockets, too. l also buy snacks for my students to get them through the day. And teachers have to purchase any special supplies we might need for a specific activity as well.

A fresh-out-of-college teacher has no money saved up. I’m paying rent and general life expenses, but I also have to factor in supplies, food and activities for 30 kindergarteners. The school gives an allowance to each grade but that has to be split between all of the teachers and it’s barely enough for one teacher for the whole year.

While teachers are often required to get materials from a ‘specialty store,’ there are still a number of ways that loyalty programs could help ease the cost of classroom-stocking.

Pharmaca’s Feel Better Rewards program is perfect to make sure your classroom is first aid-ready and read to cure the bumps, bruises, cuts, and sniffles that sometimes come with playground antics.

Orchard Supply Hardware’s Club Orchard is a great resource for arts and crafts activities, and for great materials to decorate the classroom and make it a friendly, welcoming place.

As for those classroom parties? Nothing is sure to put huge smiles on students’ faces like a big box of Dunkin’ Donuts. By using a Dunkin’ Donuts Card, teachers can earn Dunkin’ Dollars towards future parties, and more sweet treats for their students.

What other loyalty programs can help our elementary school teachers out?

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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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