Listen up, marketing and branding pros: Don’t assume the customer programs you’ve developed are the ones that will hit home and keep your customers brand loyal!

ROI. It’s the only reason most marketing departments justify budget growth. So here we are well into Q2, and you’re either preparing a new budget (if your calendar year starts in July), or you’re starting to tweak your 2012 budget to more clearly align with desired results. So it’s time to take a look at what’s working and what’s not, and begin some re-considerations.

Do you have a Brand Loyalty program in place? Yes? Well, how’s that working for you?

According to a new study by SAS, a leader in business analytics and integrated marketing management, and Loyalty 360, The Loyalty Marketer’s Association, these programs aren’t working well.

What’s going on? Well, let’s start with the survey snapshot. More than 150 BtoB and BtoC marketing execs were surveyed. Results? Survey says:

• Two-thirds have a department or functional area dedicated to customer loyalty and retention

-       13 percent plan to add one

• Less than one in four consider their loyalty and retention efforts “very effective”

-       Approximately 44 percent think their programs are “somewhat effective”

OK, so we’re investing all this time and money, and the efforts are not returning much in the way of loyalty. If you take findings from a CMO Council survey into consideration, you’ll find that what’s really happening as a result is defection! Bulldog Reporter points out that research from the CMO Council suggests loyalty programs are actually alienating our customers, especially when we repeatedly send information that is not tailored to individual needs or interests.

Stop Spamming Your Customers!
As a group, marketers have gone deaf on our customers. Instead of listening to what they need, we tell them what we want. We tell them and tell them and tell them. What are we saying? “We want you to buy more!”

And what our seemingly desperate actions say is that “We don’t care what you buy, just buy something! And we will keep emailing you with irrelevant offers until you DO buy something!”

Or, more likely, until they bow out – gracefully, or not so gracefully.

Let’s consider a few personal examples. Think of that wine club you joined online recently, or that makeup you purchased using a store credit card (whose bill you pay online), or the new store downtown that offered you 10 percent off in exchange for your email address. Every one of them wants to make you a loyal customer, and every one of them has your email address.

Now, how many emails have you received from them lately? One a month? A week? Or is it closer to one a day? Are those emails tailored to you, to what you want or need? How do you feel as a result – do they instill a desire to tell all your friends about how great this is, or would you talk about how obnoxious they are?

Stop Pushing. Listen More.
We’ve been blessed to be marketers in a time when we have a plethora of tools at our disposal. It’s time to use those tools, and use them to refocus on the customer. It’s time to look at the long term value of that customer – and retrain your efforts in converting them into not just ‘loyal customers’ but the Full Monte: A Brand Evangelist!

So be serious. If you think the primary goal of your loyalty program is to get customers to spend more now (as it was with 47 percent of those unsatisfied marketers in the survey), I encourage you to think again.

Likely, your ultimate goal is a hyper-committed customer – someone who recruits new customers for you, who is proud to use your product or service. The best way to drive the long term financial success of your product and your company, thus meeting your objectives, is to create what Loyalty 360 CEO Mark Johnson calls “sustainable behavioral change.”

At Arketi we call this Stop Selling. Start Listening. It’s a way of thinking that re-orientates BtoB marketing to place buyers and their needs at the center of all marketing priorities. Understanding what buyers care about, how they make decisions, and how they want to receive information, makes marketing about them, not us.

That’s not done by beating your customers over the head. Instead, develop a formal customer lifecycle program. Start early in the program – maybe even before the first purchase – and integrate loyalty data into the research and purchase process. Recognize that your customer’s voice is easier to hear now, thanks to social media. Start listening for it. That’s where you’ll get value from your loyalty program.

The SAS/Loyalty360 online survey, entitled Facing the Challenges of Building Loyalty and Retention: The New Strategic Imperative, was conducted from November to December 2011 from a cross section of industries.

This blog post was featured on CommPRO.biz on May 8, 2012 and can be found here.  

In Youngme Moon’s quintessential re-thinker “Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd,” marketers are challenged to knock it off. Really, just stop doing what we’ve been doing and brand differently. Better. Breakthrough.

Not More. Not Bigger. Not Louder. Not Newer. Just Differently.

Moon talks about reverse brands – companies that differentiated in a mass market by changing some key element of business-as-usual. They realize that marketing is as integral to the success of an idea as the engineering of the idea itself. That having a true success doesn’t always stem from what is ‘more’ or ‘better’ about the offering, but instead it’s the break-out idea of how to communicate – and BE – that differentiation.

The Artist was the year’s most winning film. Best picture. Best director. Best actor in a leading role. And that’s just the Oscars – we’re not even listing all the other accolades. Great film, sure. But why was it a break out? Well, let’s see – it’s only the second silent film ever to win Best Picture. A silent film, in black and white, that’s not a heavy ‘artiste’-prone dramatic epic, starring, well, not the bankable Brad Pitt or George Clooney. It’s a great example of a reverse brand.

How do you apply that to BtoB marketing? Well, let’s start by taking advantage of the luxuries we have. Chief among them is that we introduce our products, for the most part, to experts. We’re communicating with people who live in “our world.” Unless we’re dealing with the jaded (there’s a whole different approach to that problem!), we’re dealing with true “category connoisseurs.” Film buffs, if you will.

They know how differentiation works for them, the way a sommelier knows how to pick the perfect wine. Red or White? Oak-y… or absolutely not!?

This group doesn’t have a particular brand preference – they certainly don’t drink Lafite every time they select a great wine. They love to try new things. These highly informed people may not be “early adopters” because they are highly selective. You do have to get their attention, though… and the best way is to differentiate.

Because we market to connoisseurs, they actually help us cut through. We can take advantage of – and respect – their expertise, honoring our buyers with something unique. Give them something different to try.

Obviously, neither ‘new’ nor ‘improved’ will help you be an outlier. So – how can you talk about your product, your company, using words that reflect a unique selling proposition? How do you come up with the strategy that is truly disruptive – that violates what’s currently available?

The best way is to create something. Something fresh. And then get your audience to experience it, to set their jaded side aside, to put on hold that state of cynicism.

Augmenting the current state of your product won’t accomplish that. Maybe it’s time for a reversal. Take the time to turn it upside down.

Moon suggests that marketers are leading the conversation for our time. That our work has become the soundtrack of our generation, setting the rhythm for what our society consumes, craves, loves – and hates.  Search for that great example of reversal. Perhaps, it will come from you.

We moved recently, and suddenly I don’t have to clean as often. Oddly enough, I have digital publishing to thank for that.

In my new house, there are no fingerprints on the banister or door jams. It’s not a scientific cleaning breakthrough. It’s that my husband got a color Nook, so his New York Times obsession no longer has wall-based residue.  Having him join me in the world of online delivery of key content reflects where much of the population is headed.

More Digital/More Content

Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard recently published a study noting that digital reading continues on the upswing. That’s not because of newsprint fingerprints – apparently moving from print to digital subscription of the New York Times, for example, can save readers $330 per year. If it’s saving me a car payment, what does it do for the publisher? And what does that mean for PR and marketing?

Most in the US agree that a free press is critical to democracy. It is critical for business as well. Those of us in PR are anxious for the next wave of digital content developments, as we search for what will save publications. In the age of pay walls and open doors, aggregation and curation may be the key. It’s much cheaper to repurpose great content than to originate 10x what you can afford today. The trick is finding the best content to repurpose.

More/Better/Cheaper Content

Repurposing – republishing – curating… somehow, they all raise questions of discovery. With so much content on this enormous Web, I’m not sure what articles I want to see – so, who gets to be ‘my’ editor? I’ve already made some decisions about who I trust – Americans decide every day whether they rely more on MSNBC, FOX or NPR, for example. You know where you go for information you believe, whether it’s on the debt ceiling or the latest Silicon Valley escapades.

As we face increased consolidation in newsroom operations, we’ll see consolidation on the digital pages of these publications, too.  Great journalism can now appear where the reader is – not necessarily where it originated. It’s obviously great for the consumer, but it’s also a good thing for publishers — and even journalists. Although the change may require some new thinking.

• For publishing: The cost of acquiring content is a major consideration, both in hard dollars and in the time to negotiate agreements. People have always recommended articles, with social networks increasing this trend. Because really – who has time or patience to deal with the Google factor (search, sort of find, search again for something better, repeat)?

• For Journalism: If publishers find a way to get profitable again, good journalists will have a steady flow of opportunity. Expensive journalism – such as covering international affairs or investigative reporting – will become more affordable when additional income is produced from other websites paying to run that story

It’s a hot topic, with much to watch. The key is to expand engagement, and continue to engender reader loyalty. Certainly, the ‘wall’ that separates publications from one another is getting thinner. That’s being driven by the economy, where operational cutting is likely to continue as news organizations deal with continuing unprofitability.

Keep your eyes open – big changes in news and information discovery and consumption are coming your way. Quickly.