Driving customer loyalty without the loyalty card by Onur Ibrahim

Special Report on creating Loyalty to win the Zero Moment of Truth @StrategyDigital, January 2013

Special Report on using Loyalty to grow consideration at

The Zero Moment of Truth

26/01/2013

Onur Ibrahim

Content Collective LTD

[email protected]

07730550347


Loyalty without the loyalty card

The points mean prizes model of loyalty programmes will always have its place but, this era is now coming of age. Customers now want a more engaging relationship with brands, there will still be space for rewards and points are one way of delivering these. However the battleground is no longer for share of wallet but for ownership of the digital endpoint. Customers no longer care how they get the product as long as they feel like they have some level of control in and get the best value from the purchase. Brands are moving away from a purely transactional relationship with customers and travelling together into a more emotion led purchase journey. Google’s ZMOT study illustrates this fact really well in terms of flight paths:

I would like to expand this even further for you. Each of these locations contains further data and information about the customer. They are interacting with each of these “data points” multiple times throughout the journey and through agile analytics structures we can harness insights and decisions that they are making along each part of the journey. This enables us to build a deeper understanding of the customer and also serve them with demonstrations of value relevant to them and their purchases at each point. The true value of this additional data is that we can personalise the journey to an individual and make them feel special. Every shopper is unique and expects to be treated as such, shoppers want to feel like they are buying from a brand they relate to and that is relevant to them at that time. There is a level of computation that has to be undertaken around capturing and translating this data and then assigning the correct response to each individual. This can be simplified through clustering and profiling. If we start to categorise similar journeys and personalities using techniques learned from behavioural targeting and information retrieval we are able to condense many millions of individual journeys to a smaller group of persona types and provide relevancy through clusters of interest.

“We have to tackle the issue of data capture, but consumers are much more aware of the value of their data and the numerous things that organisations can do with it, that it’s not just enough to ask for it, but data capture must be part of a value exchange, one where the consumer is treated respectfully and honestly (they know you want their data to sell them more stuff, don’t lie or deceive them)”


So how do we talk with our customers?

Each customer will also have a personal communications preference. This will include things like frequency of communication, topic, and most importantly channel. Bearing this in mind we should note that it is very important to provide as many communication paths as possible for the customer to choose from. They may want to interact via SMS or email or direct mail or via a mobile website. And the purchase journey will be over multiple channels and multiple devices often simultaneously whilst dual or triple screening. As a modern brand you should have a foothold in each of these areas and maintain some level of communication preference for users in each. We should now be able to imagine our customer flight paths with an additional layer of ‘craft type’ added to them representing the communication channel used to carry them to the next stop.

After the initial purchase we should now start thinking about what earned content we can get the customer to create for us. The modern customer is more than happy to contribute product opinions and reviews, often just asking them for these post purchase will yield very valuable feedback and future testimonials. Another by-‐product of this is that the modern customer wants to feel empowered and that they have some control over future products created for them. By asking for feedback and showing that you are implementing ‘consumer created change’ will make that customer feel closer and more affiliated with the brand. Bonds created in this way are stronger and more long lasting as the customer is now not only a user of the product but a brand contributor and as such feels part of a larger whole. These customers will advocate your brand and products without question as their co-‐contribution has made them part of your brand.

This might sound difficult in practice but with a few tips and pointers this can be put into practice in a straightforward manner. The following 7 tips are a good starting point.

Seven ways to generate engagement that drives towards loyalty

1. Always provide a clear call to action and never rely in user to interact of their own accord. Relying on users to interact without expressly asking them to is like ‘fishing without bait’ and will be unpredictable at best. You should try to influence the potential outcomes for every interaction you offer or at least measure the effects at each stage.

2. Run multiple engagement programmes across all of your channels simultaneously. Provide users with multiple ways to engage for each campaign and category. Then give them ample reward for participation. This will increase the time they spend with you and get them coming back for more rewards and getting their friends to also participate. Some examples of these rewards could be: • Giving them something relevant to their purchase or interest that is regularly updated.

This could be some digital content, a review or ‘money off’ voucher. • Allow them to; ask you a question, create and update their profile, or subscribe for more

information • Deliver company information highlighting your company values and positive practices

that they may align with • Link to your social media hubs where they can interact with you and find out more about

the products and interact with others who are either at a similar point in the cycle or


who have completed the cycle and are leaving positive feedback. (Pinterest pages are a great and unobtrusive way to do this.)

3. Extend your communities cross channel and cross category. Don’t forget to cross promote

and also to keep trying to engage your customers at different ‘landing points’. By bringing customers into your eco-‐system at different points and also cross promoting product categories you can maintain interest and test new ways of communicating with them. A sportswear brand may find that they get higher referrals to their ecommerce site by recruiting participants via SMS and then asking them if they would prefer email communications. This shows that you care and are giving them a choice, it might not seem like much but the freedom of choosing is more powerful than one way forced communications.

4. Try to stay real-‐time. There are many real world and timely influencing factors that should be considered when designing these journeys. One of the most powerful is trend hopping; a recent example was the 2012 London Olympic Games. With the heavy sports coverage and national pride at stake TV sales increased due to people wanting to have the best possible experience of the games. Granted that Olympics licencing rules do not allow use of the logo, name or other assets without permission. Nevertheless this was a massively influential factor that created huge purchase intent.

5. Mix up campaign types and create new offers based on season and topic. Some marketing campaigns naturally inspire customers to participate and to share their interactions and experiences. Recent research by social app creation company Wildfire has shown that campaigns that have heavy user entries do not perform in the same way as campaigns which are heavily shared. It is better to promote to a smaller base of advocates and give them the tools to participate and share their activity rather than running competitions where customers might be hesitant to broadcast the fact that they just entered. In short highly shared campaigns will generate more earned media per participant. So you should have a healthy mix of both types in order to keep a steady stream of new entries to build the value of your owned media, and get those new entries to start sharing and participating to grow your earned media. The infographic below highlights this quite nicely:


6. Use image, video and testimonials as much as possible. Users want to see, feel and

experience the product before deciding to make a purchase leveraging their passions and taking them across the journey of Dream, Locate, Explore means you can influence how they purchase and the factors that contribute to them coming back for more.

7. Stay relevant. It is ok to cross promote products and even to put promotions or ‘wildcard’ topics in your communications but keep to the point with your main message. If you have categorised a person as an influential decision maker and they are interested in buying a new TV then make sure that they can do the majority of their research with you. Provide a decision journey that takes them to your affiliates giving them your voucher. You have to be in as many places as possible and remain relevant to that persona in each location.

Driving customer loyalty without the loyalty card by Onur Ibrahim

Business

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