Webinar On-demand: Success with Social Loyalty

In this presentation/webinar…I’ll go through how to think about taking customers from a shopper to a loyalist all by leveraging Social Media. I’ll share some thoughts and go into some examples that illustrate levels of engagement that will establish a deep sense of loyalty in the customer of the brand. The ultimate goal is to get the brand to be a part of the customer’s lifestyle.

So for example, if you consider the brands that customers think of first, usually the 1st choice will produce 10 times more spend.In my case, these are the brands I think of when it comes to fashion, cars, and coffee

At the moment there’s a lot of hype with Social Loyalty being the answer to everytihng (underline “A”). But what is social loyalty? It’s not one answer…it’s several.

Just like in traditional marketing, there are several channels to communicate with your customers

And just like in the traditional marketing world where we have to join these dots, we have to do the same in the social realm.

But what are we REALLY trying to achieve?

Engage with customers!

Marketers have been recently adopting the wave of social media to help communicate their brand, products, and loyalty program. But not all social engagements are well thought through. Sometimes marketers feel the pressure to use it as a channel because that’s what everyone else is doing. But marketers need to ask themselves what are we trying to achieve with it.

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Marketers have been recently adopting the wave of social media to help communicate their brand, products, and loyalty program. But not all social engagements are well thought through. Sometimes marketers feel the pressure to use it as a channel because that’s what everyone else is doing. But marketers need to ask themselves what are we trying to achieve with it.

What you have is a spectrum, where the ultimate goal with social loyalty is to develop a deep trust within the customer. But before you can do this, you need to start by understanding the landscape. Who are your customers? Where are they going to get their news? If it’s through social channels, what are the best methods to interacting with them?We feel that in order for your social loyalty strategy to be effective, and to get your customer to establish a deep trust in your brand, you need to provide different levels of engagement: interactive, innovative, and integrated.

As part of understanding the landscape, what else do we know? Well, traditional marketing methods aren’t working. Print media is strugglingUS adults now spend more time on mobile devices each day than they do with print mediaNewspaper ads have fallen by two-thirds from $60 billion in the late-1990s to $20 billion in 2011Newspapers are losing $7 in print ads for every dollar in online ads they gainTelevision viewing is downAcross the television landscape, network and cable, public television and pay cable, English-language and Spanish, viewing for all sorts of prime-time programming is down this spring.In the four television weeks starting March 19, NBC lost an average of 59,000 viewers (about 3 percent) in that 18-to-49 age category compared with the same period last year, CBS lost 239,000 (8 percent), ABC lost 681,000 (21 percent) and Fox lost 709,000 (20 percent).

Online video is upIn 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views* (video playbacks)60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. This number was only “48 hours” a couple of months ago.

But new media channels aren’t necessarily the answer either…Take the example of the well known iPad newspaper…62% of adults worldwide now use social mediaSocial networking is most popular online activity, with 22% of time online spent on channels like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest7:45:49 = time spent per person per month on Facebook54% of monthly users access FB via a mobile device

So what does Social really offer us? How do we make the most of it? Let’s look at how we can get pragmatic.

You can use existing techniques to be social, such as sending an email to friend to signup for a program. (next slide)

But, of course, with Facebook, you can reach a much broader audience.The issues we face with “liking” a brand, however, is that a marketer doesn’t always get the complete story.(next slide)

What is it that the customer likes when they become a fan of your page.Is it your brand, the Loyalty Program, or product?

This is why providing an engaging social experience with customers can help set your brand apart.(click mouse)Let’s take a look at the first part of providing an engaging experience.(next slide)

Here’s an example that we did with Nine West for their “9 Loves” program

Nine West decided to create a new page with the help of an external social media agency to help Facebook users easily sign up for program membership.Nine West customers are able to receive points toward their 9 Loves Loyalty Account for liking the 9 Loves Facebook app.When a customer opens the 9 Loves app – found on the Nine West Facebook page – a message displays informing them that if they like the app, they can enter an email or join to program to gain their bonus points.Once they like the app, a form appears. This form provides a field for current members to enter the email tied to their 9 Loves account. The forms also provides 4 fields necessary for non-members to fill out in order to open a new account.In either situation, once a member has entered their contact info, 50 bonus points will be awarded to that member’s account.

(optional slide)When a Facebook user tries to enter an email as if they are a current 9 loves member, a verification call must be made to Loyalty Lab to ensure that member exists in the LL database.The GetShopperByEmail API call is made to LL. This API call sends the email address entered by the guest. If a Nine Loves account exists under that email address, a return call will be made as a verification. If no account exists under the entered email address, a blank response will be sent back to the form, causing an error and referring the member to sign up for the Nine Loves program by entering info into the listed fields to the left for “non-members.”When a member or non-member enters his/her email or signs up for the program, the CreateEventInstance API call is sent to LL from the Nine Loves Facebook page.This tags that existing/new member as having completed the Nine Loves Facebook Like generic event. During the nightly awarding process, the bonus offer set up to award for this generic event action will award points to any members who have ever completed the event. Each member can qualify for the point award only 1 time.All info in the CreateEventInstance API call should match the Generic Event set up in the Loyalty Lab CRMS.

Here’s an example of the offer set up within our platform, including targeting and rules.

(click mouse)The next part to and engaging social experience is creating something innovative.

In this example, we worked with 1800 Flowers to not only create interaction between customers and our brand, but also with their friends. What made this campaign innovative was that 1800Flowers was taking actual products (different bouquets of flowers) and offering them as “virtual gifts” that members could sent to friends (member or not) for free.

DescriptionOnline and retail store selling flowers for special occasions and holidays.Business Challenge90% of customers buy only once a year.ObjectiveIncrease customer purchases per yearStrategySet reward threshold at approximately 2.5 transactions.What’s UniqueAt the time of adoption: Real-time processing and reporting

Drive engagement through facebook through virtually gifting FB users can install the “Gimme Love” FB appThe app allowed new users to become a part of the rewards programOr it just connected existing members with their rewards program accountExisting members could see their past purchases once they log on along with the status of their membership. They can also see new products to gift.

New members would see a selection of gifts to send to a friend or buy directly.In either case of buying or sending, rewards are issuedFriends who receive the love are notified and can quickly install the application to view the gift. If they already have the app installed the love will appear on their profileThe gift was also linked to product page so that friends of your friend can view details about this gift.

DescriptionOnline and retail store selling flowers for special occasions and holidays.Business Challenge90% of customers buy only once a year.ObjectiveIncrease customer purchases per yearStrategySet reward threshold at approximately 2.5 transactions.What’s UniqueAt the time of adoption: Real-time processing and reporting

(click mouse)And last on the spectrum is creating an integrated engagement with social users.

For this last example, we have Green Giant. What makes this project so unique is that fact that many different marketing channels and partners were involved to create a deeply integrated experience.

The idea was for customers to shop at any Target retail store, purchase any Green Giant packaged food, and in order to redeem for FarmVille dollars, you had to get the code by peeling the sticker off of the package. (click mouse)Once you entered the code on the landing page, you would earn 5 FarmVille dollars.Objectives:Modernize & build awareness around the GGF brandCapitalize on the high visibility of Farmville to get increased lift on our individual products Build email address listCreate a halo affect to encourage shoppers to buy multiple Green Giant productsGather and measure the results of the test, and pending successful results and expand the program nationwide to include other customers besides Super TargetGreen Giant Fresh will co-promote with Farmville who is featured on FacebookGreen Giant Fresh products would bear an on pack label promoting Farmville’s “Free Farm Cash”Consumers would enter a unique code from the on-pack label to redeem their ‘5 Free Farm Cash’ through a dedicated redemption site (TheGiant.com)

Let’s take a quick look at other social periphery that allows for extreme levels of engagement with customers.

Now if we look atTwitter, it offers a nice alternative to quick bits of information and does still deliver a following. The only drawback is that it doesn’t offer much flexibility for engagement.However! It can definitely come in handy when trying to improve customer satisfaction. <<click>>Take Kraft Foods, for example. Their internal social media team discovered a trend on words like “cut,” “blood” and “salad dressing.” Those aren’t words you want associated with food, so the team dug deeper to discover that customers were cutting themselves when opening a newly designed salad dressing bottle. The problem was easily solved, but wouldn’t have been discovered without monitoring social media activity via Twitter. The injuries weren’t serious enough to require emergency room treatment. It was merely an inconvenience, so customers didn’t call the 1-800 number. Instead they told their friends on social media. Because you don’t usually buy salad dressing very often, this problem could’ve gone undetected for months.So if monitored carefully, Twitter can provide helpful information to improve a brand’s products or service by simply filter for key words, such “I like,” “I wish” or “I hate.”But let’s take another example that leverages Twitter strictly for improving customer loyalty and rewards them immediately just by expressing personal interests.Mac & JinxThe brand’s first high profile social media push took place on Twitter in March. The choice of media and the creative theme dovetailed nicely with the “You know you love it” campaign. After all, Twitter is mostly a medium for adults (kids prefer Facebook) and the idea behind the campaign was based on a kids’ game.“Mac & Jinx,” as it was known, sought two people who were tweeting something with the phrase “mac & cheese” in it at the same time. Once those pairs were identified, Kraft sent both a link. The first one to click on the link and give Kraft her address got five free boxes of Mac & Cheese plus a t-shirt.The campaign, which took advantage of the real-time nature of Twitter, was considered a hit. The company credits it with boosting the brand’s Twitter followers by 400%, though that didn’t prove to be a snowball effect (at the time of this writing, the brand has about 3,300 followers). Mac & Cheese was also able to inject itself into the conversation: At one point there were 300 mentions of “Mac & Cheese” per minute on Twitter, and it became a trending topic.<<click>>AMEX rolled out a new social program in March 2012 called AMEX Sync which allows customers to tweet about their favorite things and earn points not just based on those tweets but also earn discounts on the things they tweet about! Genius! But what’s even more amazing is that AMEX involves hundreds of vendors to participate in this program by having them issue hashtags on items that have some type of promotion. Customers can retweet those hashtags and instantaneously AMEX will send those offers right to their account with no fuss. So customers don’t have to even deal with the coupons. They just take their AMEX card to that vendor location, swipe the card, and the discount is applied to their purchase.

Pinterest is the fastest growing social media site, but it’s not for everyone. People either love it, or hate it. But many consumers, specifically those ranging from the age of 18-35 living in the mid west of the United States spend an average of 2 hour on Pinterest per day! What’s to love? Well, the inspiration consumers get from simply following categories of interest.<<click>>Marketers seem to have taken a liking to it as well since it provides a quick emotional connection between their products and consumers. And the proof is in the effectiveness of Pinterest driving sales (see image).But how do you know if Pinterest is write for your brand? Well, let’s start out with some figures:87% of Pinterest users are women between the ages of 25 and 54. So does your target market fit this segment?Is your brand centered around events? Pinterest focuses on delivering inspiration for all sorts of events in one’s life, even if it’s the event of making a meal.Is your brand highly visual in nature? Pinterest is all about the pictures! So if you’re primarly product is a SaaS tool, Pinterest is probably not for you!<<click>>If you’ve determined that Pinterest is for your brand, then focus on creating boards that mirror the interests and activities of your customers or followers. Take Nine West, as an example. Their new “Nine & The Gang” campaign focuses on delivering looks for different fashion categories, and so their Pinterest boards mirror these categories. The idea behind having different boards is to be able to target different types of customers. For Nine West, they not only have customers interested in shoes, but also those interested in high fashion or even accessories. Creating different boards allows for the marketer to engage different types of customers.<<click>>Direct email has become a useful tool again because of Pinterest. Instead of just creating a simple email that delivers disengaging news, you can include “Pin this” (a Pinterest widget included in most ESPs) for a specific entry, which automatically triggers an emotional response and leads the recipient to do something next with your brand (whether that be to research more, buy, promote to friends, or simply just keep your brand top of mind).Source: http://distributedmarketing.org/2012/04/13/pinning-email-to-pinterest-for-faster-roi/

Foursquare has become increasingly popular since it added badging as a method to reward people for checking-in. <<click>>But marketers are benefiting ever more than before. Foursquare has a ratings services that customers can use to rate specific store-front locations (just like Yelp). Marketers can learn much from these ratings and further increase the engagement level with customers. In late July 2012, Foursquare announced a bunch of new merchant tools that give business owners more power to communicate with their customers through the location-based platform. Business owners can not only claim their venues, set up a special and let the platform take it from there, but marketing outreach has become ever more dynamic and allowing for more targeted offers compared to Facebook and Twitter.Let’s take a look at some examples of how various business types have successfully used Foursquare:<<click>>A great example Starbucks, a long-time veteran of Foursquare. They were the first company to roll out discounts for earning status at any of their locations. Since then, they’ve added a campaign for Foursquare users to add tips about what makes their local Starbucks “unique, different and interesting.”A pioneer in the location and check-in based services, Starbucks was one of the first major brands to reward check-ins and loyalty through Foursquare.<<click>>The marriage between reality television and social media seems like a natural one, and Bravo is using this to it’s full advantage with their Foursquare marketing campaign. Bravo offered Foursquare user “badges and special prizes when viewers visit more than 500 Bravo locations.” The locations will be picked by Bravo to correspond with select Bravo shows including The Real Housewives, The Millionaire Matchmaker, Top Chef, Kell on Earth, Top Chef Masters and Shear Genius.<<click>>The History Channel created tips on Foursquare that share historically significant facts with users when they check into a location of note, for instance the first building that bought an Otis elevator. Folks checking-in may not be getting directly involved with the History Channel, but their brand definitely becomes front of mind when people think about history.

No many are aware of Klout and it’s potential for marketers, but in essence, one’s Klout score can be rewarded.But what is Klout? It’s a service that monitors an individual’s social presence (FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc), and provides a score based on the level of that individuals engagement (including retweeting, posting, posting pictures, etc). In essence, Klout Scores are a measurement tool that gives insight into a person’s online influence based on their ability to drive action in social networks. The system collects data based on an individual’s reach and impact of engagement within social networks to provide them with a daily score on a scale of 1 to 100. The score is based on 3 major concepts: the number of people they influence (How many followers or friends do you have?), how much they influence them (Are they clicking your links? Liking and @replying to your posts?), and how influential the people in their network are.Klout has become very useful for travel and hospitality brands who offer upgraded experiences to Klout users whose scores prove them capable of starting highly influential conversations about their travels. Imagine that! Leveraging and rewarding evangelism to the fullest! Let’s take a look at an example:<<click>>In 2010, the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas looked at the Klout scores of guests as they checked in and upgraded rooms for high-ranking influencers—many guests had no idea how they’d earned the privilege. Among Las Vegas-based hotel casinos, the Palms went from the 17th largest social-network following on Facebook to the 3rd highest. The Palms owns from one of the best Klout scores among its peers. Today, they continue their partnership with Klout, offering impressive amenities for “KloutKlub” members, and even co-hosting a special event with the social-media site at CES this year.

With Game Mechanics, or Gamification, Badgeville has dominated this space very successfully, with the ability to …(click mouse for next animation)Apply motivational techniques to drive behavior from traditional game design to non-gaming experiencesbuild engagement, retention, and loyalty through game mechanics adopted from the gaming industry.Maximize ROI with Game MechanicsDrives higher frequency of engagementBroadens types and channels of engagementEncourages advocacyCan replace hard rewards with less expensive digital rewards all to still influence the desired behavior

With social login on, you can access a plentitude of private information about an individual