Insights from Epsilon's Loyalty Roundtables & COLLOQUY

This week we hosted the Epsilon Loyalty Roundtables in conjunction with the COLLOQUY Loyalty Summit.  During this half-day event our Epsilon experts led small group discussions on Epsilon’s Loyalty Platform, Gamification, Emerging Channels, External Online Data and the Future of Loyalty. 

My personal belief is that loyalty programs have the opportunity to massively impact the overall organization’s thinking about marketing and drive profitability. After discussions with some of our partners over the past week, I have outlined four reasons why:

Loyalty Data is the Best Data You Have – There are lots of companies touting new sources.  The fact is that data is driving more and more marketing activities at every level of the consumer funnel - from Awareness to Consideration and all the way to Conversion and Up-Selling activities. However, using your own data – keeping in mind data on your loyal customers is the richest – and expanding from there ensures that the programs you put in place and the lessons you learn will actually help you drive future programs at scale and not be caught doing one-offs with the latest data flavor.  Start with what you know.

Loyal Customers are More Likely to Interact With Your Brand – Loyalty can demonstrate value to customers in personalizing their interactions with your brand as you expand marketing activities into more channels.  Whether it’s online, mobile, social or any other channel your loyalty program members are invested in the relationship and are most likely to respond to these new programs, provide feedback and teach you things that will make similar programs for the entire organization more effective.

It’s Easier to Sell to an Existing Customer Than Acquire a New One – While it’s intuitively true that the best customers to sell to are your most loyal, how many companies organize their new marketing initiatives with this in mind?  Many jump into a new channel or try a completely new program by doing new customer acquisition.  Instead, start with your best, most loyal customers and see what works, what segments of your customer base respond to what types of messages and expand from there.  Your colleagues in the marketing department are looking for examples and best practices.  Loyalty can help create them.

Loyalty Programs Drive Partnerships – You know a lot about your best customers.  As discussed above, if you listen they’ll tell you how to adapt and improve what you offer them and how you communicate with them to fit their needs.  Sometimes you can do that with key partnerships as well.  If you leverage those partnerships to their fullest, exchanging data with partners and learning more about your customers, you’ll be able to extend the reach of your program, increase the number of touch points across channels with your best customers and envelop the consumer with a richer experience.

What do you think?  Tell us in the comments section below.  For those of you who attended, what was your biggest takeaway?