FEATURE CUSTOMER LOYALTY
“Using mobile to make offers or to allow points redemption is
expected and doing that within a mobile app is certainly more powerful and usable for the customer.” Dan Smith, Senior VP of Marketing, Clicksquared
can browsers then be targeted individually through other channels. Managing this transition is the key challenge in social media acquisition while, in a loyalty context, it is usually impossible to recognise individuals and so target treatments and offers correctly.
Facebook apps (web applications that run within Facebook, not the mobile apps you need to download) offer one way out of this jam. The need to use these apps intelligently to differentiate between loyal customers and browsers is the point that Smith hammers home. “It’s the idea of the exclusive application,” he emphasises. “You can only get an offer via an app if you are a member of a loyalty scheme, not just a friend on Facebook. You can also take casual followers and fans and route them into the scheme, so it becomes an acquisition tool.” Clicksquared offers 12 pre-built apps within its ClickSocial module that aim to make it easy for merchants to design and deploy games, contests and polling apps into Facebook and Twitter -- and bring fans and followers into direct marketing programmes by gathering email addresses and other basic contact details. Unlike their complex mobile cousins, this flavour of app is mean to have a short shelf life of perhaps a couple of weeks.
“That retailers like H&M and Best Buy are signing up to an American Express Twitter discount scheme is a clear indicator that retailers are increasingly social and data-driven.” Jonathan Lakin, CEO, Global Dawn
Recent major changes to the commercial use of Facebook and Facebook apps within the new Timeline Page format means that building and refreshing strong apps becomes even more important. As it’s no longer possible to set a default landing page, ads for a Facebook promotion or new application will be the only way to guide new and referred users directly to that app – so ads will be central to controlling a user’s experience. Pinning items to the top of the Timeline will also be critical to highlighting new and interesting content while, via Sponsored Stories, Facebook now lets companies pay to keep strong content (and so the ads) in centre view for an extended period. Last year’s American Express Facebook app called “Link, Like, Love” was a great example of how to bring loyalty scheme members into the corporate social media fold. By linking their card to their Facebook page, customers could access loyalty scheme points offers, entertainment content and special events, all based on their Facebook social graph.
Last month’s innovative “Sync. Tweet. Save.”
Twitter integration takes a similar tack: US Amex card members that have registered their cards can gain discounts via customised Twitter hashtags. These savings are loaded directly to their synced cards and automatically pop up on their card statement. “That retailers such as H&M and Best Buy are signing up to an American Express Twitter discount scheme is a clear indicator that retailers are tapping into the ‘social graph’ and becoming
36 April 2012
increasingly social and data-driven,” says Jonathan Lakin, CEO at UK agency Global Dawn. This and other social media promotions like those run in conjunction with FourSquare, employ Amex’s Smart Offers API. This speeds and simplifies the process of linking from Amex’s own cardholder systems to external channels and vendors systems for each promotion in which promotions are run. Amex merchants also benefit from the API through which they can obtain detailed reports on their customers’ online and offline spending behaviour. “Being able to link Twitter and American
Express account details will allow retailers to understand purchasing habits and deliver a service which offers discounts and information based on products of interest,” says Lakin. However GI Insight’s Wood injects a note of sobriety into the rush to use social media in loyalty marketing. “Email and SMS are mainly what we consider when we look beyond the traditional means of interacting with customers,” he says. “We really do not use any other new media channels at the moment.”
It’s clear that putting a big chunk of spend into online in general, and social media in particular, assumes that a suitably large and valuable chunk of the customer base operates largely in that realm. So Twitter may suit Diageo – but not Saga. Wood gives the example of a customer loyalty
programme that asked all consumers to register online, removing every other registration channel. “The thinking behind this was to reduce costs, but the reality was that applications fell by a third. And this was down to just channelling the web, not even new media.”
He goes on to note that, “consumers don’t necessarily want to be contacted through social media channels.” True in some instances but a recent Chief Marketing Officer Council survey highlights how divergent customer behaviour can be. It found that opted-in customers are actually far less precious about commercial contact via social channels than one might expect. Once they sign up (like on Facebook, opt in by email and so on), they positively expect to be offered exclusive promotions. One headline figure: 67% of consumers expect special treatment when they like a brand on Facebook but only 7% of brands actually reward their contributors.
“It is essential that retailers reward customers with not only point schemes, but invitations to product launches and personalised offers,” says Jeremy Michael, Managing Director of SMG UK. “This makes the customer feel appreciated and that the retailer understands what they want and what they like.”
Again, acknowledging its essentially
broadband character, social media has been used effectively to solicit signup and then other
www.dmarket.co.uk
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