Animal loyalty

Loyalty by pictures; you are more likely to remember it. The goldfish really is the ultimate 'loyal because I don't have a choice' example. This could win a prize for best use of animals in marketing presentation. Boston Matrix only uses a cow, dog, wildcat so one up already.

Wonder if it transaltes internationally?

Three reasons why companies fail/succeed with social media

Big companies don't tend to get it because ...

• it does not deliver sales tomorrow so they cant prove the business case
• they don't have the resource or specialist skills, they are geared up to campaigning and that's they way it will continue until ...
• agencies don't know how to charge them and make money out of it

Small companies tend to get it because ...

• it does deliver sales. http://www.bakertweet.com/
• they don't need specialist skills
• they could never afford agencies anyway.

Lesson in here somewhere. Think like a small company if nothing else.

Got a problem you cant fix - invent a program

Spent two days in a workshop on loyalty for a client, there was lots of clever thinking, but one conclusion was there is no such thing as loyalty marketing. You either have a specific loyalty program or you just do your job properly - which means getting brand .... service ... in store experience ... smart cross selling ... CRM processes right. And in many cases if you desperately need a loyalty program it probably means you have got something wrong somewhere in your core offering. Another case of marketing covering up organisational dis-function. Remarkably common.

My other conclusion is there is an obsession with measurement and data to the point that businesses wont implement an initiative if they cant measure impact - even if they think it is right thing to do. It was an example someone cited from IKEA that got us thinking. One store manager decided not to keep a list of FAQs from customers for review. They just act immediately. So if a customer asks whether a table comes in oak as well pine, they immediately change the labelling to indicate the information. A culture of immediate response, it just isn't automated, and impossible to measure impact.

Loyalty businesses not loyalty programs

About a year ago on the blog I suggested that loyalty would be doing a big come back, and in the last year there have been numerous loyalty and CRM briefs and pitches flying around. We have been fortunate enough to get a few and win some businesses. So it looks like I was proved right. That's all I wanted to say ...

But then you start to think a bit deeper. Increasingly if a business wants a loyalty program that probably means something is broke and they are looking for a mechanic to fix loyalty. For a few businesses loyalty programs (transactional based ones) are difficult to implement. Little control over the retail environment ... very infrequent purchase behaviour in the category ... big ticket, low margin. White goods would be an example.

We should look at loyalty differently, examine businesses in sectors with relatively high levels of loyalty and work out what they do well. My 'guess' is that they have good products, strong brands, good customer service processes and policies, customer focused culture. The trouble is it is easier to create a loyalty program than fix a business. Short-termism creeps in. But perhaps we should think about creating loyalty businesses not loyalty programs.

If Easyjet thought of themselves as a loyalty business that happened to sell flights how would they behave differently ?

Its quite a good question to pose to businesses.

I am off to look at our research now, there is 1000 page doc on my desk at work, to see what businesses with great bonding and loyalty scores do so well. But if anyone has a nice neat answer that will save me a lot of reading please let us know.

How to get site experience wrong

I have just discovered how easy it is to get a site experience, technically right, but from a consumer perspective horribly wrong. So wrong that consumers are aching to give their business to someone else even in a market where you are relatively dominant.

1. Agree your business model and purchase journey.
2. Put it on line.
3. Direct consumers through it.
4. Upsell, upgrade, ignore consumer interactions eg closing windows.
5. Continue to offer helpful reminders just in case consumers missed offer the third time.

Of course the business may argue the process works and is a source of value. They are confused, it is nothing to do with marketing or customer service more the fact they operate in a duopoly/cartel/monopolisitic competition environment and consumers have little choice.

For more detail on actual journey please go to http://www.easyjet.com/

Getting the budget numbers wrong

Marketing textbooks suggest lots of different ways to allocate media budget. Unfortunately people get in the way. Here is what normally happens. Budget gets assigned as a % of expected revenues. So if you are marketing lots of products and services you have assumed they all have the same scale of issues and challenges. Invariably your core product may require either less spend because it is truly established or it is so important that you have to chuck everything behind it but you cant because of how budgets are handed out. Then what else happens is parts of your product portfolio get enough money to be dangerous but not enough to sensibly achieve anything.

Here is an alternative, work out what is really important to the business like say the website or customer experience (or ideally which customers), invest in the resource to optimise the hell out of all the customer initiated touch-points. Organic search, call centre, collateral, CRM, loyalty then think how you can waste the rest of your budget. Interestingly b2b organisations tend to get this more right than consumer facing brands. Main reason is they have less money, so they don't have the get out of jail free big budget card. But also they don't have as hungry a call centre to feed.

PS don't forget to measure it.

8 principles of b2b marketing

8 principles of b2b marketing

View more presentations from james myers.

#1 Clearly communicate why you are here, what you do and how you add value. Cisco's POV is a good example. World would be a better place if we learnt to collaborate. A very good organising principle.

#2 To cut through the search mentality you have to be interesting, whether it be content or free stuff or sponsorship. Like Sage's sponsorship of Krypton factor. There is also a big point here about listening and relevance.

#3 Obvious. And a lot more than just social media by the way.

#4 If customers bother to contact you (and you sell expensive stuff) roll out the carpet.

#5 They expect free stuff. do it. Tools, articles, assessments. Try not to make it too thinly veiled a selling process.

#6 CRM. yes. and don't leave it to sales.

#7 Advocacy, customer forums, co-creation. Dell, BMW telematics design, Amex Open.

#8 The bit everyone struggles with. Involves everything from collateral to managing intermediary relationships.

I am composing a list of case studies if anyone has some suggestions love to hear them.