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Loyalty programs for CPG brands are nothing new to marketing, but adding strategic digital aspects can be one of the greatest ways to reward your biggest fans. And in turn these loyalty programs can create a solid customer base ready to connect with your brand in a positive way.

There are some well-known loyalty programs out there, that operate on the simple process of offering coupons in exchange for shopping data. Think about past programs like Campbell’s Labels for Education, or the currently running General Mills’ Box Tops, which reward customer loyalty by giving to schools. There are also third-party programs like SavingStar, which give coupons and offers to frequent shoppers.

While these are great ideas on their own, taking a full strategic approach on how to best acquire, connect, and grow customer loyalty can really bring your brand forward.

Seek Strategic and Ye Shall Find

Customer data can come from a variety of places, from product giveaways to user-generated content to deep-dive info sessions. What works best for your brand really means taking a look at what your customers want, and giving them something of value in exchange for information. Knowing what is valuable to them in the exchange is as much strategy as any other part. If the barrier to entry is too high (think long survey) you risk losing potential customers, but if it’s too low (only asking their name) you may not get the information you need to really connect.

The Chance to Make a Good Impression

A common first data step is to gather a customer’s email address. This is relatively easy for someone to give, and produces an opportunity to communicate and gain more information later.
Frequently brands gather info but don’t use it properly. There are so many opportunities to connect with a group of people interested in your brand or product, and all you need to do is set up a series of automated emails to send them.

These emails can be scheduled to deploy based on certain criteria (new sign up, if they opened or clicked on a previous email, etc), and should always be used to give your brand the best foot forward. Use these emails to connect with users, help them get to know your brand, and set expectations of what they will gain from future emails.

Monitor, Reach, Repeat

Collecting information can come from the customer without them doing any further work. Data can easily be pulled based on who opens emails, clicks links, returns to your website. And this statistically-driven data can be used to find lookalike audiences: potential customers that are highly likely to connect when they find your brand.

In addition to increasing your audience through lookalike advertising, monitoring engagement can help your company update and increase reach to those you are already communicating in. Insight can drive future ways to engage even deeper with your customers. Would they be willing to share demographics, interests, or places they shop in exchange for other rewards? This information will give you insight on where products can sell, what to promote and how to speak to customers.

Reward Customer Loyalty

As we stated in the beginning, people are willing to give more to a brand if they know they’re getting something in return. Focusing on the exchange is important at the start, but it can be equally important to remember as a long-term plan to keep customer loyalty.

When you know more about a customer you can connect on a stronger level, and you will be provided with small opportunities to surprise and delight your audience. Birthday emails are maybe the most well-known tactic for brands, but it’s equally as nice to send special offers or simply tailor the email messaging to their preferences. For example, a food brand could do a survey about lifestyle and diet preferences, after which they are able to send out emails tailored to different subscribers.

Customers these days have very strong opinions about companies. They think about the connections they make and they want to feel good about their choices in more aspects than just the brand’s offerings. Loyalty programs can drive sound data for your company, and allow the messages you want to not only reach the loyal customers, but build on that loyalty for stronger brand connections.

I love brands.  In fact, some of my best friends are brands.  It’s true, my Nike Pegasus(s) have taken me to more places than I could ever recall. And, I do love, unconditionally my Bic 4 color pen- it too has taken me to many places weird and far.

But, lets be real it is a one-way street.  My old school writing partner wouldn’t know me from Kurt Vonnegut.  And, Nike knows me mostly as the obedient discount reacting Pega$u$ guy.

Today, even with all the big data abounding, brands know you behaviorally.  Think about it, only by your actions, purchase patterns, click throughs and by the perks they throw your way.  Few brands (or the people who manage them) know you emotionally or get you empathetically.  They may be using Radian6 like tools on your Facebook comments or Tweets or what you blog.  There is a lot of heady ( or hoody?) extrapolating and projecting, but for all they know about you, not the persona you, but your emotional you, brands still have along way to go in getting real.

Brands of course want a deep and meaningful relationship, but it’s difficult, let alone really creepy for the “inanimates” to know too much, get too close.   Unless you’re a “people” who position themselves as a brand like Jillian “5 more reps, now!” Michaels or Justin “Be a Belieber” Bieber or anyone with the surname “Kardashian”, then it’s cool.  It’s like who needs another bud, when you just want another Bud?

All I am really saying is, all of us in brand land (all of us!) need to take it easy on the over the top ways of getting attention and penetrating our hopeful or loyalist lives. Just because we now know way more about the navigational and transactional pathways of our “friends” doesn’t mean we should use it against or for them. Most brand and digital brand people especially, live in the never-ending world of new and cooler “shiny objects.”

So  given this, what I’m REALLY saying is just maybe the only way to truly navigate the future of effective brand marketing and cultivate sustainable relationship value is say or sing “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” and practice RESTRAINT.

13 Big and little ways to make marketing next year even more epictorial!

1. More Word Play:  Nothing works harder for brands than when words work hard at disrupting, connecting and being fun!  More than even, especially in digital or in windows on 5^th Ave, fewer words communicate more.
2. Even More Use of Pictures:  Clearly Instagram burped recently when it proclaimed all future rights to all your pictures.  This aside, just as GIF’s demand attention so does adorable and emotional AUTHENTIC images. It is worth remembering if it looks like stock, it feels like stock.
3. Videoh my…: 1 billion “Gangnam Style” views don’t lie. The lesson to be learned is yeah production value matters but so does creative value with musical and visual hooks that are both addictive and contagious. There’s real take away value for marketers!
4. Rock and Scroll:  Mobile has made all of us scrollers- regardless of the device we’re on. Take advantage of this new habitual behavior with rich, story centered “endless” content.
5. Think/Be Relevant:  Capturing attention almost always is about finding what’s important and meaningful to people.  Deep rooted sensibility into the human condition elevates way beyond “brand positioning” and into the brand conscious. Think: Apple!
6. Don’t Be Sub- Optimized:  Smart SEO is foundational to marketing and brand/media management. It’s not “black box” anymore but with great talent, it can be out of the box!
7. Don’t Become a “Socialpedia” Page:  Brand info. is important of course; but, being a real emotional and meaningful part of your consumer’s life is the win.
8. Post Less, Listen More: The harm brands do to themselves by being insensitive or unaware about “social media etiquette” is unfortunate.  But the real loss is the insightful connection (and learning) involving your current or would be customers.
9. What Will You Do Different?:  Getting your head into this is big. What will you try that you didn’t in 2012?  What do you know that you didn’t 12 months ago?  Innovation is so sexy but it really starts with being “accountable” to what you/your team is thinking or doing differently.
10. Be Provocative and Declarative:  Cool apps and other breakthrough tech will only get you so far. Brands that have a “P&D” sensibility, that capture people’s imagination are much more likely to grow- regardless of the economy- because they inherently deliver emotional value.
11. Use “Fact Based Passion”:  The digital age is the age of KPI’s (key performance indicators) if not always ROI. Regardless, data is more available today than ever before to support big ideas and gutsy calls.  Creative people finally have real support to back them with their most imaginative, passionate thinking. We are in the Golden age of MTKG creative because of Fact Based Passion!
12. Earn from Mistakes:  Nothing is more valuable than helping people understand what not to do, what to avoid and why! Give speeches, be on panels, write blogs, be a for hire consultant.  If you messed up and you “own it”, then sell it. You’ll be helping yourself and others.
13. Have More Fun. Like really have fun in 2013. If that chicken chain can get people to eat more chicken using cows, us marketers should be able to up sell fun all the way to the bank!

Good luck and have FUN all year long!

The fact is, most consumer categories today are share grabs: Consumer Packaged Goods categories are not growth engines; apparel remains tough at best; even tech – from mobile phones to tablets – is focused on constant innovation or feature bundling to defend position and even cannibalize its own (the New iPad was just introduced, even though the iPad2 is but a toddler).

In this prolonged economic downturn it makes sense that today’s winning marketers really understand how to keep loyal customers from switching and how to get potential switchers to switch to them. They know the buttons to push and the buttons not to. Below, we highlight five success factors in driving business value – it’s a combination of art and science – that we affectionately call “Switch Craft.”

Creating Irresistiblility
In creating a truly must-buy proposition, you need to instill a degree of emotional – even financial – tension. Create so much desire and need that if the buyer opts out, the person feels guilty about letting a “once in a life time” opportunity get away.

To this point, for our client Rothschild Kids, a 100-plus year-old coat company, we recently held a 75% off weekend blow out sale on winter coats. The price/value was so hot that the sales far exceeded any of our expectations. PLEASE NOTE: If you are thinking it doesn’t take a genius to give it away, we couldn’t agree more. But we did liquidate inventory, drive cash flow, and get buzz that primes us for the spring season.

Mobile’s Point of Disruption
Everyone has a built-in way they navigate buying things at retail or online. The “point of sale” is not only one of the constantly studied and analyzed parts of commercial marketing, it’s also one of the most dynamic. The use of mobile/shopping apps has been nothing short of game changing in how people operate when shopping. Smart phones have enabled marketers to “disrupt” behavioral patterns by informing customers and providing real time choice – when the customer is already “hot, if not bothered.”

Being Real Human
Making everything emotional isn’t the point, but relating to and engaging deep emotional sentiment has always been a big thread of great marketing. Empathy today has almost become a buzzword, but “persona-fying” the individuals you are trying to engage is very helpful in imagining walking in or out of their shoes. And, we love the “what if” exercise as part of creating a grounded behavioral understanding of the human experience/persona.

In the Iterative Analysis
The opportunity to use data, measurement and real-time feedback loops to change early and if needed, often, is the way marketing works today. From search to social, all digital messaging and reach media is aligned to a continuous improvement model like never before. Keyword, algorithmic (Facebook has truly figured out how to push “like minded” ads!) and overall search optimization is finally the rocket science marketers used to moan they needed in the Nielsen-as-only-game-in-town days. Remember the saying (and I paraphrase), “Fifty percent of my advertising is working, I just don’t know which fifty percent”? It’s gone for good!

Relevancy is Currency
Because of the rolled-up analytics of Google search ads or Facebook page ads there is nothing haphazard about the commercial engagement. Ultra targeted and thinly sliced around interest and behavior- not random or demography centered- is why both companies have created near historic valuations. In commercial match-making if you can be relevant, you can get people to love you… a lot!

Given my favorite childhood show was “Bewitched”- my daughter is named after Samantha Stevens and her husband, Darren was an Ad guy working for an apparent two man shop McMann and Tate (McMann was really never seen!) I believe we in marketing today are playing with the combination of dark arts and illuminating science in profoundly new and magical ways. Who would have thunk it!

Related articles

• Why Sentiment Analytics is Crucial to Social Marketing (socialmediatoday.com)
• Beyond Buyer Personas: Connecting with Today’s B2B Buyers (customerthink.com)
• Do tricky marketing claims really help you as a marketer? (biznology.com)

Given the overwhelming pressure so many in America and around the world are feeling this holiday season, it seems appropriate to think about a different kind of blog post to end this year. One that can help set a tone for the better in 2012.

I look at this post as a “card blog” – it is about our most common threads of who we are or aren’t through the pure grace of being human in the time we all are living. You may be asking, “Why create and share a ‘card’ to various people of the world?” The act of empathy, of stepping inside another person’s world is always graceful, and today, couldn’t be more important.

In the sections below, we address this card to various people and players in the world. In some cases, they’re just my observations and don’t relate to digital. In others, they relate to the positives and negatives of the all-the-time connected-ness of social media and the Internet – how it can sometimes make us more human, and other times, remove our humanity. But ultimately, I hope that all these resonate with you as ways to make 2012 better.

To: A Politician
The electoral clock is ticking, you need to find some grace, PDQ! We are particularly impressed with Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker, whose smart use of Twitter and social media has connected him to his constituents in meaningful ways.

To: A Boss
Jobs are obviously in demand, which gives “bosses” even more power, more opportunity to affect people’s sense of self. Walk softly with your big stick as you’ll surely get more for it. Grace under pressure – and bosses are clearly under that – is transformative to all!

To: A Facebook, Twitter Enthusiast
Use your social networks to do more than aimlessly like and follow, or post and tweet. Use your imagination like never before to connect, create and immerse the collective spirit. To the social naysayers, this would prove to be a true grace of time.

To: An Unemployed Worker
Not enough jobs are available to enough people, this we all know. But by being your most imaginative, most relentless, by absolutely doing everything to elevate, to create opportunity, you are giving yourself and the ones you love the greatest gift.

To: A Subway Rider
Stop pushing, looking down at your iPod or iPad when you should be looking up when getting on, off, or giving your seat to someone who needs it more!

To: A Dog Parent
We are only as good as the company we keep which is why being a dog dad or mom is pretty damn good. We live in the age of dog awareness and dogs are fully aware of this. For this, they love us dearly. Dogs and cats relieve our stress and make us incredibly special.

To: Artists: Graphic, Literary, Whimsical, Musical, Performing, Conceptual, Digital
We live in the “Expression Age” and if you are an artist – in your soul, if not in your day job – the world of today is yours for the taking. If you have content originality to share, the future (and all kind of money trails) could not be more welcoming.

To: The Not So Humble or Gracious
Just take a moment as we turn the calendar to think about how good you have it- especially if you have your health (even if not all of it!) and some love in your life. I have always believed and tried to practice that all else (making money, creating a life or legacy) is possible with the grace of health and love.

Happy New Cheer!

Getting emotional is as human as it gets. It is also as dog as it gets – as my Airedale shows me when she gets near the vet. Brands don’t get emotional, yet we people (I am not sure about dogs) get really emotional about some brands and could not care less about others. It’s not simply about filling needs -like in Maslow’s Hierarchy – as nobody actually “needs” a Coke, a Swatch Watch or of course, the iPad, but now feel they do. I believe people get emotional about brands, not for what they are, but because of what is referred to in psychology as transference.

Transference is about projecting, as in, projecting a feeling about one person or thing to another. The brands that have become meaningful and successful in today’s hyper competitive marketplace have done so by transferring emotional related value to the user, as opposed to functional value.

Steve Jobs talked about this in a presentation he gave soon after rejoining and redefining Apple when he was introducing the “Think Different” campaign. He clearly understood, regardless of the functional differences between a Mac and Windows, that Apple would never return to his promise of “changing the world” if the brand remained emotionally detached. Fighting a product battle of “we’re better than you” would be a losing proposition, even though he and his faithful knew that they were better. The connection people had with the individuals featured in the campaign – Ghandi, Ali, Peron, Einstein, Lennon, Dylan – was exciting and elevating, and connected with people on an emotional level.

Brands today need to be vigilant about “getting emotional” and not about simply getting to a lower price point (though that doesn’t hurt as part of the deal). As a sociology major (I get emotional just thinking about how many moons ago) I was fascinated by the study of human interaction and still today often transfer or project that currency on to brands. Here’s two things that usually come in to play when trying to get deeper and more emotionally connected to a brand:

1. The One and Only: Does the brand convey exclusivity and intangible differentiating factors – the things the product delivers to you on spiritual or emotional level – over other brands? Luxury cars, high-end fragrances and premium chocolates nail this messaging; Apple’s iPhone 4S video is a perfect example.

2. Why Me?: Yes, there are always the specific functional reasons you should choose a brand; but it’s the emotional mood elevators and the fulfilling of desires where it gets exciting and makes an emotional connection.

Oreo is dead set on bringing that infamous “twist” to the Facebook world. And they’re doing amazing things. Recently, they were focused on breaking a Guiness world record by encouraging their fans to like a specific update with the goal of setting the record. It’s making a pretty big splash, or a colossal milk-dunk, the way that only Oreo can. But this recent attempt and others have me thinking with my marketing cap on and wondering: What’s really more valuable substance or splash?

Now, I’ll be fair to marketers and agencies that deploy these splashy tactics. Our first and most important job is to get people talking about the brand or company. There is no better way to do this than with some out-of-the-box campaign to create buzz. However one has to wonder about the long-term value in these efforts.

A smaller attempt to generate excitement has been the explosion of one-off social media campaigns. By this, I mean the thousands of contests and sweepstakes that companies use to build excitement about their brand and generate a larger fan base in the process.

A new study published by Co-Tweet (ExactTarget) reports that over 25% of Facebook users have admitted to liking a page to take advantage of one of these types of campaigns, but then, unlike the page once the campaign concludes. According to the same study, the relationship between a brand’s page and its fans is very fickle. More users than I would have thought take that step and unlike a page. What does this mean for marketers? Well, let’s backtrack to our ultimate hope when running a splashy “impact campaign.” Typically, our goals are to increase the fan base, and then, hopefully, convert these new fans into brand advocates—because of the positive experience and engagement levels on our page. This study tells me that, while the first part may succeed, it doesn’t guarantee the second part will. It is a lot more difficult to convert fair-weather fans into brand loyalists.

The lesson is that it takes work to transfer splash into substance—and you might lose some numbers in the process. A complete strategy for running an impact campaign has to address both issues: acquiring new fans and building brand affinity. There needs to be a dual focus to avoid the fallout that comes after a big splash. But don’t be discouraged, these one-offs do have plenty of value that can make a real impact. Just know that they are most valuable when properly balanced.

After a week when President Obama challenged our country to a heightened sense of purpose, it seems like a good time to breathe in what he so eloquently brought to bear. We’ve all heard about the tenor and tone of polarizing “political discourse” on society. Most everyone has an opinion on the influencing power of assaultive language on public opinion.

Clearly we don’t need another post about the contributing factors of why unstable people do unspeakable things.  But (and it’s a BIG but!), given that we’re marketing people putting out a marketing blog, I thought I’d share my perspective on marketing communication: It’s about the power of influence.

Money still equals power, the ability to get your message and influence blasted to the masses. Based on a projection by one research firm, the overall 2011 U.S. marketing media spend will be over a quarter trillion dollars. That’s a lot of power and influence. And that’s the simple point of this post: With this power to reach people comes an opportunity, maybe even a responsibility.

Even though it’s our job to sell pet microchip enrollment or soda or cars, we have the opportunity to elevate our message. Brands can be the financier of a positive, compelling message that isn’t at odds with the need to sell more stuff, but is totally aligned with it. People are looking for emotional leadership, and the companies that get that will get business.

There is “real world” carryover from emotionally-centered commercial campaigns. In today’s digital and social media landscape, we’re bombarded by messaging more than ever, and become hourly messengers ourselves. Positive, feel-good communication, even if originated with commercial purpose, can still exert influence.

From “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” to Cisco’s new “Together” campaign, marketing has the power to create a “one world,” all-in-it together landscape. Sentiments of empathy, optimism, compassion, or tolerance can and do come from anywhere.

Make it more human. Corporations can be more personal, be a part of the new message. Let’s keep it positive. For all the right reasons.

Skim, scan, click, post, watch, check-in, comment, chat, and like. Chances are you live this every day for hours at a time. And sure, sometimes the content is interesting, but did you ever think that the mechanics of what you’re doing is interesting? Or that what you do online could be visually appealing? Me neither. And right now, I’m eating my words. The creative mind has triumphed yet again, taking something abstract and maybe mundane and rearranging it into something dynamic, vibrant, and artful. The next chapter in digital storytelling is writing itself with the meta-internet video. The visual experience of experiencing the internet is coming out hot, hip, and viral.

Like most things internet-savvy, Google was one of the first to put a mainstream mark on this trend. Remember their Super Bowl commercial? Who’d have really thought that looking at a search bar and returns for nearly sixty seconds could ever be appealing. But it was, and it was highly emotive, too. Romance is powerful, and a wholesome foreign daydream made that sparse white screen move oh-so much closer to the heart.

But the meta-internet video, isn’t just about voyeuristic searches. No, we’re actually using them to re-write a little bit of history and religion, fluffing it up around the edges, so it feels more comfortable and familiar. A colleague of mine forwarded The Digital Story of the Nativity video that’s swirling around out there on the internet. It uses digital technologies to tell the Christmas story, complete with emails from Mary, tweets by Joseph, and King Melchior picking up a sweet deal on gold at Amazon.com. It starts with some unknown person (possibly you or me) typing in their search query at Google.com.

Japanese indie rock band, Sour, just set a new standard for amazing with their latest music video “Mirror.” The video, although it’s more of an immersive, interactive experience, begins with, you guessed it, the Google.com search bar. The twist is that if you take the plunge and allow the video to connect with your Facebook, Twitter, or webcam, you become an integral part of the composition. Alarming and captivating, you watch your own cyber identity fragment and stream into the rest of the digital collective. It’s quite remarkable to be suspended in that space where vulnerability and connectivity have an equally terrifying and fascinating hold.

I think we’re at the beginning of the meta-internet video era. This evolution of digital storytelling is a game changer because it’s primed for big, personal wows. As a communication vehicle, it can get closer to the subject than ever before—beyond the familiar landscape of the everyday digital highway and into the back roads of individuals. It’s versatile, too, enough that if your target is a larger social tribe, with the right research and creative execution, you can reach a group and simultaneously make intimate, personal connections.