FREE ON DEMAND WEBINAR

You’re a sharp brand marketer with multiple goals and a toolkit of promotions to achieve them. But when and why do you give your customers rewards vs. discounts at checkout? The latest research from branded payment experts Blackhawk Network and Aberdeen explores the effectiveness and impact of the promotion types.

Join this webinar to learn how to overhaul your customer acquisition, retention, and loyalty strategy for 2022 and beyond.

You’ll find out:

• How to maximize marketing effectiveness and profitability, and grow sales and profits over time
• The top factors for marketers in choosing reward-based promotional tactics
• The best ways to create a positive customer experience, generate brand loyalty, and increasing customer lifetime value without devaluing your core product or service.
• What happened when a thoroughly modern company—built on promoting a “better lifestyle”—asked us to make its promotion as sophisticated as the company

Presenter:

Scott Lapp
Director, Incentives Marketing
Blackhawk Network

Scott Lapp works with Blackhawk Network clients and partners to help leverage data and insights for effective reward use within their incentive programs. Scott has more than 25 years of experience providing solutions that drive awareness and adoption across industries like technology, professional services, and nonprofit. Scott has earned the Incentive Professional designation from the Incentive Marketing Association (IMA), is a member of the IMA and Incentive Gift Card Council (IGCC), and currently serves as a taskforce member of the Diversity & Inclusion Board for the IGCC and the Retail Gift Card Association.

 

Theresa McEndree
Global Head of Marketing & Corporate Brand
Blackhawk Network

Theresa McEndree is the Global Head of Marketing & Corporate Brand for Blackhawk Network. In this role, Theresa oversees a multinational team focused on brand, product marketing and revenue generation. With more than 15 years of B2B marketing expertise, she is a sought-after thought leader with a thumb on the pulse of marketing, retail brand and shopper trends. Prior to Blackhawk, she held senior marketing positions at FreedomPay and Ecount, a Citi company.

 

 

Moderator:

Kaylee Hultgren
Group Content Manager
Chief Marketer/Event Marketer

 

Sponsored by:

The post Planning Your 2022 Promotions Strategy: How to Foster Engagement Without Cutting Prices appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Customers who fly intercontinental biz class are presented with a variety of little blue and white porcelain houses filled with booze prior to landing. They can choose whichever one they want to add to their collection. It’s a delight for customers and a physical reminder far beyond the KLM cabin as many people keep rows of them on shelves in their offices or homes as a kind if status symbol.

This week KLM celebrated its 100th birthday with the release of the 100th version of the so-called Delft Blue houses. Customers can track which houses they have and which to collect through an app.

“Every single house of a senior business executive in Holland has these somewhere,” Aaron Holmes, an American lawyer who formerly lived in Amsterdam, told New York Magazine.

In fact, 55 percent of consumers want personalized experiences from brands, but only 12 percent think their favorite brand executes personalization successfully. This indicates that brands are not effectively collecting or using data to successfully personalize experiences for customers, according to a new study from CrowdTwist.

The study also found:

• 87 percent of consumers are willing to recommend their favorite brand to their friends and family helping drive new customer acquisition.
• 71 of people are active in at least one loyalty program.
• 68 percent redeem rewards at least once a quarter, and 25 percent of those redeem at least once a month.
• 40 of respondents said their favorite brand has a loyalty program and that they are a member.
• 20 percent said their favorite brand doesn’t have a loyalty program but they would join if they did.
• 39 percent of consumers want free delivery and 29 percent want special member prices and perks as a loyalty program member.
• 59 percent are willing to pay for a loyalty program with valuable perks.
• 82 are willing to complete a survey as part of a loyalty program.
• 50 wanted to be rewarded for visiting a company’s website, 47 percent for playing a game, and 47 percent for writing a review.

So with 62 percent of consumers saying they could be persuaded to choose one brand over another due to the presence of a loyalty program, do those neat little rows of blue and white houses sitting on office shelves move others to fly KLM? I’m persuaded.

Other articles you might enjoy:

• 5 Tips to Foster Brand Loyalty
• Godiva Plans to Grow its Business Fivefold in Six Years
• What it Really Takes to Earn Millennial Loyalty
  

The post KLM Airlines Celebrates Loyalty with Booze-Filled Figurines appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Competition has never been fiercer as ongoing digital disruption means that consumers are now just as likely to choose a whole new product or category as they are a direct competitor. Consumers are also more visually literate, marketing savvy and opinionated as they continue to build and manage their own personal brands on social media. Meanwhile, peer-review culture means that the days of consumers passively oscillating around powerful brands are gone. Consumers are now in charge and brands oscillate around them.

Here are five tips  to boost brand loyalty in the age of empowered consumers.

1. Empowering consumers with a voice

Traditional notions of branding and marketing are often about one-way communication of brands sending messages out to target audiences. But in the age of the empowered consumer, brands that have the confidence to engage in two-way conversations and hand power over to brand communities will be the ones who win out.

For example, subscribers to the iconic Lego brand can submit their own designs of potential new products for other members of the Lego community to review and vote on. If a design gets selected the creator gets a cut of the profits. Not only does the financial incentive drive engagement among Lego fans, the opportunity for them to enter a dialogue with other consumers and for them to have a say in shaping the development of the brand makes them feel a sense of ownership and investment in the brand, in turn boosting customer loyalty.

2. Personalization 2.0

The trend of personalization has been around for a while, with some of the most well-known examples such as “Nike by you” allowing people to customize their sneakers; Coca-Cola replacing its brand name with hundreds of different names, and the success of FitBit’s ultimate customization of your individual lifestyle and routine.

Personalization isn’t going anywhere, but it’s become so widespread that brands now need to take it to the next level to really stand out from the crowd in the age of empowered consumers.

Customers who sign up to Kentucky-based bourbon brand Maker’s Mark ambassador program get their name stamped on a personalized barrel of Bourbon, get their own bottle of their named batch and privileged access to it, along with special access to the distillery where they can hand-dip the wax seals on their own batch. These kind of personalization perks go way further than having your name on a bottle, to actually bringing customers right to the heart of the brand and the product, making them feel invested in the brand long-term as they wait for their personal barrel to mature to perfection.

Other articles you might enjoy:

• Thinking About Charging for Your Loyalty Program? Consider This
• L’Oréal Masters the Codes to Fend of Digital Disruptors
• Meiomi Wines Readies First Sports Deal with PGA Tour

3. Genuinely talking to your customers

A lot of brands claim they stay in touch with their customers and routinely build customer feedback into future products. But how many of them can say that they FaceTime their customers every week to check in with them?

The legendary British comic book and media brand Beano has a panel of 20 children who they have a 15-minute chat with on a weekly basis. It also runs regular Skype user testing sessions with children from its target audience. It’s an approach that other brands can learn from as it lets the brand’s fans have direct access and influence over the brand and its content, and ensures that everything they create is in line with what their audience are genuinely interested in. They say that the most powerful influencers of today are actually the children in consumers’ homes—the ones who are most up to date with the latest technology. If this is the case then Beano is ahead of the game.

4. Brands that have your back

In a world where consumers are hit with scandal after scandal (data privacy, politics, banking fraud, fake news), it’s no wonder that people are less brand loyal than ever. Gaining consumer trust is hard right now. But this represents an opportunity for brands to win through and foster consumer loyalty by showing that they’re genuinely looking out for their customer’s wellbeing.

Banking is a particularly tough category to inspire trust in but trailblazing challenger bank Monzo is doing it by developing products around mental health challenges that some consumers face. For example, putting a system in place for consumers with certain mental health conditions that make them prone to excessive spending late at night to check if they do actually want to go through with these purchases the next morning, or setting up an alert system for caregivers or close family/friends to keep an eye on the spending of a more vulnerable customer. Brands that show they can go the extra mile to look after their customers will be the ones who reap the biggest rewards in the age of empowered consumers.

5.) Employee empowerment 

After all the talk of empowered consumers, we have to remember the people on the other side of the retail and brand experience: your employees. After all, they are the people on the ground who are actually interfacing with consumers and providing them with an experience that may, or may not, strengthen their sense of loyalty and engagement with the brand. Making them feel empowered to go the extra mile is essential when battling with competitors for brand loyalty today.

Starbucks have been good at this. Every morning, each branch fills in a worksheet, which includes a weather report and what’s in the news that day with the staff then free to adjust their service and product offers accordingly. In one easy step, employees feel a sense of ownership in the service they’re offering, and that good will is passed on to the customers. If consumers are more demanding and savvy than ever, then you have to empower your employees to deliver, meet and surpass their expectations.

The central thread running through all of this is that brands can no longer depend on traditional branding and marketing methods of pushing messages out to passive consumers. In the age of empowered consumers, it’s actually sharing even more power—by sharing your brand with customers, giving them a say in its development, involving them on an ongoing basis, going out of your way to show you’ve got their backs, and gearing up your staff to give them the best experience possible.
Marie-Thérèse Cassidy is executive creative director at FutureBrand.

The post 5 Tips to Foster Brand Loyalty in the Age of Empowered Consumers appeared first on Chief Marketer.

Belly up to the Bar, the Stoli Vodka LGBTQ bartender competition is underway in 14 cities shaking things up in preparation for the grand finale in June, The Stoli Key West Cocktail Classic.

The theme for the weeklong classic, June 4-10, is “Visibility: Making it Loud and Clear” and ties to Stoli’s new brand campaign of the same name. Finalists from the local events will gather to make their Stoli cocktails and, during their presentation, put a spotlight on a person, place, film song or movement previously unseen in the LGBTQ community.

This marks the sixth consecutive year of the classic and one of many of local and national events and programs that Stoli has supported for the community over the last 25-plus years.

“When it comes to marketing we really focus much of our efforts on our events because that engagement, we feel, is more authentic and real versus traditional adverting,” Lauren Longenecker, senior brand manager, Stoli Vodka, says.

Brands that authentically support and understand LGBTQ people earn their loyalty, a group estimated to be 4.5 percent of the U.S. population with massive buying power of $917 billion in 2017, up from $884 billion in 2014.

Stoli in general, and its Key West Cocktail Classic are no exception. The event has grown over the years from the number of cities and attendees at those events to the number of competing bartenders. And what began as a three-day weekend six years ago, the grand finale in Key West is now a week-long event due to the increased interest and number of people that come to join in the fun.

Along the way, a lot of lessons learned—not to mention great new cocktail recipes—have been used to improve the events year over year and further build loyalty among LGBTQ. A few examples include a shift in the way local events are promoted—from digital media and direct mail to social media only—which has increased RSVPs to all of the local events. There are Facebook pages for each local event as well as the classic. To maintain a more compact run of show, the number of contestants have been limited and this year audience voting mechanisms are being introduced at each event so attendees can text-to-vote for their favorite at the end of each competition. Attendees also clamored for samples and Stoli did not disappoint.

“We are really getting the audience engaged, not just as spectators, but actually showing up in various markets that have a high concentration of the community,” Longnecker says.

To get a read on ROI, PR, social reach and engagement, audience attendance and sales volume in markets where Stoli executes are all tracked.

Outside of the classic, some of the other events Stoli supports include the Diversity Honors Awards, hosted by the Harvey Milk foundation, the NLGJA Awards by The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, the Night of a Thousand Gowns, as well as various Pride events and festivals throughout the year. In New York in June, Stoli has a full calendar planned for what will be the first World Pride event hosted in the U.S., which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.

“It’s important to engage with the community 365 days a year, not just show up for Pride in June and then take the rest of the year off,” she says. “It is very important to us to physically be there, not just making a donation or donating products.”

More on Marketing to LGBTQ:

• Understanding and Marketing to the LGBTQ Community
• 10 Ways to Foster LGBTQ and SOGI Inclusivity at Events
• How T-Mobile Built a Strong Connection with the LGBTQ Community

Marketing to the Masses

The current mass market global campaign, “Loud and Clear,” which launched last year is supported by the Stoli Key West Cocktail Classic. Print and digital ads feature real people like Frankie and Jackie, two ladies who are engaged. Then there’s Ruben, a fire breather and an LGBTQ advocate.

“We do recognize it’s important for any group to see themselves reflected in our brand marketing and advertising,” Longnecker says. “So instead of building a separate campaign for the community, we looked at how can we ensure that we are including the community in our overall brand campaign.”

In 2017, Stoli’s “Raising the Bar” digital platform debuted, which reinforces the brands long standing commitment to the community and general equality.

“The main goal is to celebrate the individuals and organizations that are central to advancing diversity and equality within the community,” she says. “Ongoing, that’s our umbrella under which all of our LGBTQ activities fall within.”

Stoli’s Secret Weapon

One of the key components to understanding and marketing successfully to LGBTQ consumers is employing and hiring LGBTQ people.

Patrick Gallineaux is part of the LGBTQ community. He has worked full-time as a Stoli brand ambassador for eight years traveling across North America engaging with charitable partners, advocacy groups, bartenders and bar owners and consumers at various local and national Pride festivals and LGBTQ centric events. He champions the brand, but also listens and learns and delivers those critical insights back to Stoli.

As an example, the “Q” in LGBTQ stands for queer. Years ago that was considered a hurtful and derogatory term. Today, young people have embraced the word so Gallineaux relayed that insight back to Longnecker. In turn, Stoli’s overall program was recast under LGBTQ to ensure it was relevant and inclusive of the entire community.

“Having someone on board like Patrick is a perfect example of how important it is to have diversity and people from various backgrounds have a seat at the table,” she says. “I don’t think we could do what we do specifically with the LGBTQ community to the effectiveness that we have without having someone within from the community on the team. Marketers need to hear from people who have lived different experiences and are living different lives and facing different challenges.”

Back at the classic, each of the 14 finalists will win a seven-day, all-inclusive trip to represent their city in Key West. The champion will serve as the 2019 Key West Pride Parade Honorary Grand Marshal and will receive $10,000 for the hometown charity of their choice and an additional $5,000 for a local Key West charity.

The post Stoli Pours on the Events and Loyal LGBTQ Consumers Imbibe appeared first on Chief Marketer.