All of us are part of so many ‘similar’ loyalty programs, that not only is it difficult to keep a track , but we also tend to shrug off by the thought of joining another similar program offerings. The problem lies in the design coz they all look the same, behave in the same way and more or less offer similar rewards. It is very hard to differentiate one program from the other and hence a key point of ‘differentiation’ comes here.
Here, I am referring about the differentiation that can happen at a program level and not at a brand or offerings level. 2 similar category stores can differentiate themselves in many ways but when it comes to program-level dynamics, they all ‘seem’ the same. There is very little engagement or interaction with members (customers) and the reason for being loyal to the store is never because of the program.
I would like to highlight the need for DEEP to be integrated with every program – differentiation, engagement, empowerment and perception (DEEP, for short)
* The program needs to be different..
* It should engage customers, accurately and appropriately..
* Customers should perceive being empowered by the brand – to choose the way they want to get treated / communicated.. (one example of the same is given below – empowering customers)
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
CMO & CTO - any possible convergence
There are very few instances when there is coordination between the CTO and CMO. Both are busy working from their ivory towers and people below keep fighting for a piece of action. So much so, that they are deeply drawn into their respective fields of study and prefer to live in intellectual isolation. When will we see this as a common trend where both of them share a vision to achieve that common ‘organizational’ goal.
In the past week, I came across a person who is designated as CTO (or Head – IT), but has a much broader role in the organization. Not only does he take care of IT related stuff – integrations, software and application development, loyalty programs (back-end), payment gateways, he also handles marketing alliances, uses technology to achieve numbers or push sales through innovations, also pitches for selling in-house media properties etc.
This combination is rare to find but an organization which believes the efficacy of integrating the two teams will always deliver better results or more so, an organization empowering an individual for something like this. The benefits that accrue to the above organization could be summed up –
* Convergence between technology and business
* Applying technology to enhance value proposition (internal or external)
* Result-oriented practical innovations
* Efficient technology spends
* ‘Technology function’ looked as primary business-driver function
* Greater accountability from technology function (marketing also is no longer a cost centre)
In the past week, I came across a person who is designated as CTO (or Head – IT), but has a much broader role in the organization. Not only does he take care of IT related stuff – integrations, software and application development, loyalty programs (back-end), payment gateways, he also handles marketing alliances, uses technology to achieve numbers or push sales through innovations, also pitches for selling in-house media properties etc.
This combination is rare to find but an organization which believes the efficacy of integrating the two teams will always deliver better results or more so, an organization empowering an individual for something like this. The benefits that accrue to the above organization could be summed up –
* Convergence between technology and business
* Applying technology to enhance value proposition (internal or external)
* Result-oriented practical innovations
* Efficient technology spends
* ‘Technology function’ looked as primary business-driver function
* Greater accountability from technology function (marketing also is no longer a cost centre)
Monday, April 19, 2010
Data Collection - junk or useful, practise or opportunity
Every time we go to a restaurant or a pub, we are given a form to capture our feedback and some personal details. As a rule, my wife religiously fills the form (as I am paying for the bill). My guess is she does this to pass the billing time or is probably expecting something.
Most of the places just increase their junk and do it because it is done as a practice, everywhere. The live data collected is gone to thrash as soon as you leave the place. I want to quote 2 interesting incidences –
1. We went to a restaurant on our anniversary. Like always, she filled the form (with the date), while I was paying the money. We tipped and left. What have they done with the feedback. I guess no one even saw what we wrote – forget positive or negative comments. No one from the waiter to the manger even wished us (leave giving us a complimentary dessert). Did they miss an opportunity to connect on an emotional level with us?
2. This just happened a week back; she filled the form, we paid and we left. After about 2 days, I received a mail from the restaurant thanking us for our visit and also giving a touchdown on events like karaoke night, happy hours, etc. Now this was superb coz I (or for that matter, anyone) did not expect it. They could have done more but let’s leave that for further debate.
The point I am making is – how many of them who collect data, make real use of it. Now data comes at a price and using at a much bigger price. But, there are simple things one can do (without huge cost implications or heavy infrastructure) to –
* make an emotional connect
* look at ways to attract repeat visits
* helps to build relationship with your customer
* basic: acknowledging a customer’s visit
Running fancy loyalty programs, rich data analytics software or spamming sms’s is not what I want to propose. Generally, that is not the answer to some basic questions or concerns. I think – It always pays to treat a customer like the way they would like to get treated.
Most of the places just increase their junk and do it because it is done as a practice, everywhere. The live data collected is gone to thrash as soon as you leave the place. I want to quote 2 interesting incidences –
1. We went to a restaurant on our anniversary. Like always, she filled the form (with the date), while I was paying the money. We tipped and left. What have they done with the feedback. I guess no one even saw what we wrote – forget positive or negative comments. No one from the waiter to the manger even wished us (leave giving us a complimentary dessert). Did they miss an opportunity to connect on an emotional level with us?
2. This just happened a week back; she filled the form, we paid and we left. After about 2 days, I received a mail from the restaurant thanking us for our visit and also giving a touchdown on events like karaoke night, happy hours, etc. Now this was superb coz I (or for that matter, anyone) did not expect it. They could have done more but let’s leave that for further debate.
The point I am making is – how many of them who collect data, make real use of it. Now data comes at a price and using at a much bigger price. But, there are simple things one can do (without huge cost implications or heavy infrastructure) to –
* make an emotional connect
* look at ways to attract repeat visits
* helps to build relationship with your customer
* basic: acknowledging a customer’s visit
Running fancy loyalty programs, rich data analytics software or spamming sms’s is not what I want to propose. Generally, that is not the answer to some basic questions or concerns. I think – It always pays to treat a customer like the way they would like to get treated.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Essence in B2B Marketing
There have been numerous articles on B2C Marketing and a lot has been written about various subjects like – different approaches for marketing to them, branding, segmentation, profiling, customer delight, CRM and the list goes on, also covering new age tools like social media, viral, blogging, web, etc, etc…
This blog talks about B2B marketing and especially, those set of companies, with the following characteristics –
* whose products cannot be sold in the retail market
* where sales function is critical
* it’s all about big numbers
* where the normal gestation for sales conversion is 6 months or more
It is interesting to devise strategies to market such companies. Most of the things, I have read about, don’t have any relevance for such mammoths. Having spoken to some key people in some similar companies and taking their perspective alongwith my thoughts, my take on the things that forms the essence of B2B marketing.
Unlike most products in the B2C category, these products are not sold over mailers or phone or even the more recent ones, internet. In fact, because of the big world wide web, customers have a chance to meet your competitors as easily as ever. So, in traditional times, success of winning customers relied on the strength and smartness of your FOS, keeping other things constant, have changed now. It is, no doubt, important, but because of the overall emergence of new channels of information readily available, the buyer has become more aware and conscious about his requirements.
Things have changed dramatically, companies planning to buy your product or like, have the ability to research a hell-lot on the internet. This not only helps to get them self-educated, but also helps them reach to potential sellers (across the globe).. Markets are not restricted now to geograophies, bring in more competition..
I would like to detail the objectives, such companies want to achieve from marketing teams –
* Building a brand – which can be associated (and recognised) by employees, partners and customers (incl. prospects)
* Generate high credibility – by showcasing USPs, competitive advantage
* Develop internal resources to be industry experts (spokesperson) – who can exhibit detailed understanding about indusrty and its products/services in the marketplace
* Getting participation in the right forums / discussion boards / associations – which helps more involement from the industry as opinion leaders / experts
* Reaching out to a larger audience – by adopting new age tools like interactive web marketing, writing blogs on relevant subjects, Search engine optimisation, etc – to be in the loop and which can help educate customers about their requirements
I am concluding by stating my individual take on the most critical elements / stakeholders that need to be effectivey addressed in this space –
Employees – These are of utmost importance to your business. They are your mouthpiece in the market. Since, advertising does not play a big role here; these set of people, not only drive revenues, but also publicise your company and offering. More successful companies put huge efforts on this stakeholder to ensure their positivity and involement. Most of the advertising is restricted to hiring employees.
Partners / alliances – Most of B2B businesses work with partners (either forward or backward integration), their relationship is key to your business success. They might only enhance your offering, bring operational ease or help your business to be cost-effective, they can be strong advocates. They will talk a lot about you and another channel of being your spokesperson.
Customers – They bring you the money. They bring you the credibility. More the merrier or few but more satisifed the merrier would depend on the business
New age tools – All companies need to adopt / step-up to the new-age marketing.
Advertising on non-relevant, non-targeted space can just keep the marketing function occupied, but hardly generate results. The new-age is about interactive marketing where the relationship is changed from one-way-one-to-many to two-way-many-to-many. It’s the age where customers have more options to research (extensively), get educated and be informed.
The new-age PR is not about pushing a story to a publication. The new-journo finds relevant articles through web-sites, blogs and discussion forums on the topics they wish to write. They create a pool of information, overtime, and use it as an input to their writing.
This blog talks about B2B marketing and especially, those set of companies, with the following characteristics –
* whose products cannot be sold in the retail market
* where sales function is critical
* it’s all about big numbers
* where the normal gestation for sales conversion is 6 months or more
It is interesting to devise strategies to market such companies. Most of the things, I have read about, don’t have any relevance for such mammoths. Having spoken to some key people in some similar companies and taking their perspective alongwith my thoughts, my take on the things that forms the essence of B2B marketing.
Unlike most products in the B2C category, these products are not sold over mailers or phone or even the more recent ones, internet. In fact, because of the big world wide web, customers have a chance to meet your competitors as easily as ever. So, in traditional times, success of winning customers relied on the strength and smartness of your FOS, keeping other things constant, have changed now. It is, no doubt, important, but because of the overall emergence of new channels of information readily available, the buyer has become more aware and conscious about his requirements.
Things have changed dramatically, companies planning to buy your product or like, have the ability to research a hell-lot on the internet. This not only helps to get them self-educated, but also helps them reach to potential sellers (across the globe).. Markets are not restricted now to geograophies, bring in more competition..
I would like to detail the objectives, such companies want to achieve from marketing teams –
* Building a brand – which can be associated (and recognised) by employees, partners and customers (incl. prospects)
* Generate high credibility – by showcasing USPs, competitive advantage
* Develop internal resources to be industry experts (spokesperson) – who can exhibit detailed understanding about indusrty and its products/services in the marketplace
* Getting participation in the right forums / discussion boards / associations – which helps more involement from the industry as opinion leaders / experts
* Reaching out to a larger audience – by adopting new age tools like interactive web marketing, writing blogs on relevant subjects, Search engine optimisation, etc – to be in the loop and which can help educate customers about their requirements
I am concluding by stating my individual take on the most critical elements / stakeholders that need to be effectivey addressed in this space –
Employees – These are of utmost importance to your business. They are your mouthpiece in the market. Since, advertising does not play a big role here; these set of people, not only drive revenues, but also publicise your company and offering. More successful companies put huge efforts on this stakeholder to ensure their positivity and involement. Most of the advertising is restricted to hiring employees.
Partners / alliances – Most of B2B businesses work with partners (either forward or backward integration), their relationship is key to your business success. They might only enhance your offering, bring operational ease or help your business to be cost-effective, they can be strong advocates. They will talk a lot about you and another channel of being your spokesperson.
Customers – They bring you the money. They bring you the credibility. More the merrier or few but more satisifed the merrier would depend on the business
New age tools – All companies need to adopt / step-up to the new-age marketing.
Advertising on non-relevant, non-targeted space can just keep the marketing function occupied, but hardly generate results. The new-age is about interactive marketing where the relationship is changed from one-way-one-to-many to two-way-many-to-many. It’s the age where customers have more options to research (extensively), get educated and be informed.
The new-age PR is not about pushing a story to a publication. The new-journo finds relevant articles through web-sites, blogs and discussion forums on the topics they wish to write. They create a pool of information, overtime, and use it as an input to their writing.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Empowering customers - select products at your defined prices
An interesting concept of allowing the customers to select their own offers - put a reward to the item they want to buy. Customers can choose from an assortment of 'marked' produts in different categories and decide on the prices. By giving an alternate to have offers aligned to those needed products, am sure it makes a much fulfilling shopping experience.
Carrefour has initiated this and you can read more about it in http://www.thewisemarketer.com/news/read.asp?lc=h70213sx3128zk.
It takes the customer relationship and engagement at the next level - from pure selling to managing relationships to empowering them. Customers are themselves a part of the retailer's pricing policy.
To a certain extent, can this not be a Marketing Lagniappe (which i discussed in my previous blog).
It is an unexpected surprise, each time, every time and the customer, surely, talks about it to all...
Carrefour has initiated this and you can read more about it in http://www.thewisemarketer.com/news/read.asp?lc=h70213sx3128zk.
It takes the customer relationship and engagement at the next level - from pure selling to managing relationships to empowering them. Customers are themselves a part of the retailer's pricing policy.
To a certain extent, can this not be a Marketing Lagniappe (which i discussed in my previous blog).
It is an unexpected surprise, each time, every time and the customer, surely, talks about it to all...
Do something 'unexpected' extra, each time, every time
Marketing lagniappe (lăn-yăp)
The first few minutes, looking at the word mentioned in the title, just went in struggling to get the pronunciation right. Anyways...
Its a very interesting concept that i have come across and thought of having it mentioned in this site. The definition of 'Marketing Lagniappe' is act of differentiating your product or service by providing something little 'unexpected' extras.
It was interesting beacuse out of the whole list of examples that one gets to find on the blogs by Stan Phelps @ http://www.marketinglagniappe.com/, so much so that he is writing a book on this 'Marketing lagniappe - in search of your purple goldfish'.
I found the whole thing extremely simple, yet intriguing. After reading some of the cases, some of them were very run-of-the-mill, but I guess the presentation and ability to perform the task at all times was the real differentiator. One QSR - serves peanuts, while customers wait in the queue to get their order; while a hotel room – welcomes you with a funny animal (made out of towel) kept on the bed. There are whole loads of them and wonder why i haven’t seen any of them anywhere. Or is it that some of them are so simple (and subtle and not hitting straight in your face), that the experience lingers in the back of the mind for a long time..
I was attending a loyalty summit and the speaker gave us an example (as of now, it was one step towards lagniappe). He and his son were waiting in MacDonalds to get their burger and took unusually longer time. Observing them, one of the employee walked to them and asked about their irritation. Having heard their story, the employee was back with thier order, with an additional softie, for the son. This made the man (our speaker) more loyalist to MacDonalds than his son.
Taking this as a cue, do you think, the speaker and his son would have got almost same treatment at any other MacDonalds store. The answer is 'May or May not'. Here, I feel that the lagniappe was created by the employee (in an individual capacity) and not the corporate and this is the difference.
The beauty of this concept is not a little extra one time, but over and over again, which means that the dna of the org has to be aligned towards acting in a particular way (as a practice) that every individual in the org performs the task to turn the customers visit into 'an experience'. An experience, which he keeps talking about. It is an on-going concept (a practice, a mandate, a habit) to thrill your customer on any aspect of your business.
The first few minutes, looking at the word mentioned in the title, just went in struggling to get the pronunciation right. Anyways...
Its a very interesting concept that i have come across and thought of having it mentioned in this site. The definition of 'Marketing Lagniappe' is act of differentiating your product or service by providing something little 'unexpected' extras.
It was interesting beacuse out of the whole list of examples that one gets to find on the blogs by Stan Phelps @ http://www.marketinglagniappe.com/, so much so that he is writing a book on this 'Marketing lagniappe - in search of your purple goldfish'.
I found the whole thing extremely simple, yet intriguing. After reading some of the cases, some of them were very run-of-the-mill, but I guess the presentation and ability to perform the task at all times was the real differentiator. One QSR - serves peanuts, while customers wait in the queue to get their order; while a hotel room – welcomes you with a funny animal (made out of towel) kept on the bed. There are whole loads of them and wonder why i haven’t seen any of them anywhere. Or is it that some of them are so simple (and subtle and not hitting straight in your face), that the experience lingers in the back of the mind for a long time..
I was attending a loyalty summit and the speaker gave us an example (as of now, it was one step towards lagniappe). He and his son were waiting in MacDonalds to get their burger and took unusually longer time. Observing them, one of the employee walked to them and asked about their irritation. Having heard their story, the employee was back with thier order, with an additional softie, for the son. This made the man (our speaker) more loyalist to MacDonalds than his son.
Taking this as a cue, do you think, the speaker and his son would have got almost same treatment at any other MacDonalds store. The answer is 'May or May not'. Here, I feel that the lagniappe was created by the employee (in an individual capacity) and not the corporate and this is the difference.
The beauty of this concept is not a little extra one time, but over and over again, which means that the dna of the org has to be aligned towards acting in a particular way (as a practice) that every individual in the org performs the task to turn the customers visit into 'an experience'. An experience, which he keeps talking about. It is an on-going concept (a practice, a mandate, a habit) to thrill your customer on any aspect of your business.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Traditional Loyalty Programs – Business Requirement or Pure Hygiene or Customer Focus???
Does every loyalty program or solution necessarily revolve around Earn & Burn? Can we visualize a loyalty program without a reward catalogue or redemption??
A brain-storming session with a client led me to ask myself and all of you this question.
We would love to be a part of a Loyalty Program of a company purely for reasons known to us. There could be hundreds of different reasons for getting us enrolled in a program, with very little point calculations & redemption in our minds.
How many of us look at the rewards catalogue, choose a product and then get enrolled? Would this be very difficult? – Not really, let me explain this with a live & simple example – I was about 8 yrs old when a chocolate company came with a tactical (loyalty) program (will decide later whether this was a loyalty program in the 1st place). There were some very attractive gifts aimed at our age group by redeeming against wrappers. Looking at the ad, I knew what I wanted and saw how many points would I require to win this. This program lasted for approx 3 months. I followed it, purchased hell lot of chocolates and finally won (have purposely mentioned the word ‘won’) it. A program that enticed me to WIN a desirable gift primarily & an activity of purchases was positioned as a secondary factor.
It is strange that Marketeers have forgotten the very aspect of human tendency – to forget things / program will run out of fizz if you don’t excite customer today. I would want to question the very need of creating a loyalty program –
* Does it really impact business / should it only mean clinging cash registers (because if that is a case – than a healthy & wealthy competitor can cut in your pie, just anytime)
* Are customers coming to your store because of the program?
* Will the same profitable customers stop shopping at your store?
* Is it only because of points of a program that a customer feels like choosing your store compared to the competitor?
* Is it like the hygiene factor – just like a store should have a good layout and ambience, they should also have a loyalty program
Some points to ponder on what I am really trying to say –
# Can we look at Loyalty Programs not only for incentivising customers but for various other things (which are softer aspects of business) like appreciating the fact that they walked into the store, appreciating / rewarding / recognizing their feedbacks, rewarding spontaneously for just being with us
# In every case, we still treat a customer like a customer – why can’t we make him a part of our family?
# Why does he have to go on collecting points for ever?
# Is reward always have to be a tangible benefit?
A brain-storming session with a client led me to ask myself and all of you this question.
We would love to be a part of a Loyalty Program of a company purely for reasons known to us. There could be hundreds of different reasons for getting us enrolled in a program, with very little point calculations & redemption in our minds.
How many of us look at the rewards catalogue, choose a product and then get enrolled? Would this be very difficult? – Not really, let me explain this with a live & simple example – I was about 8 yrs old when a chocolate company came with a tactical (loyalty) program (will decide later whether this was a loyalty program in the 1st place). There were some very attractive gifts aimed at our age group by redeeming against wrappers. Looking at the ad, I knew what I wanted and saw how many points would I require to win this. This program lasted for approx 3 months. I followed it, purchased hell lot of chocolates and finally won (have purposely mentioned the word ‘won’) it. A program that enticed me to WIN a desirable gift primarily & an activity of purchases was positioned as a secondary factor.
It is strange that Marketeers have forgotten the very aspect of human tendency – to forget things / program will run out of fizz if you don’t excite customer today. I would want to question the very need of creating a loyalty program –
* Does it really impact business / should it only mean clinging cash registers (because if that is a case – than a healthy & wealthy competitor can cut in your pie, just anytime)
* Are customers coming to your store because of the program?
* Will the same profitable customers stop shopping at your store?
* Is it only because of points of a program that a customer feels like choosing your store compared to the competitor?
* Is it like the hygiene factor – just like a store should have a good layout and ambience, they should also have a loyalty program
Some points to ponder on what I am really trying to say –
# Can we look at Loyalty Programs not only for incentivising customers but for various other things (which are softer aspects of business) like appreciating the fact that they walked into the store, appreciating / rewarding / recognizing their feedbacks, rewarding spontaneously for just being with us
# In every case, we still treat a customer like a customer – why can’t we make him a part of our family?
# Why does he have to go on collecting points for ever?
# Is reward always have to be a tangible benefit?
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