7 Internet Marketing Loyalty Programs That Aren’t Coupons

Met a great prospective client last week who handles the marketing for a store chain who said ‘our company isn’t into couponing’. Boy, I can relate to that. As someone who has been in the same job trying to stimulate traffic but hold onto profit margin, I understood why someone wise said that coupons are like alcohol.

 ”Coupons are like alcohol; originally a stimulant, than a depressant.”

The biggest problem with coupons of course that nine times out of ten erode margin you end up subsidizing those who are already loyal without a demonstrable change in activity outside of them coming to expect the discount every time they show up. You’re effectively saying,

“Here. Go ahead. Reach into my pocket and take some profit margin.”

So what’s a poor internet marketing guru to do? Well, you’re better off identifying an activity that can grow your profits: such as rewarding your brand’s advocates for recommending you to their social network. Use Social Media Monitoring to identify those fans with the biggest networks and give them something to talk about. So here are 7 ways to provide non-monetary rewards to your biggest fans including specific examples from real-life marketers.

1. Invites Them To A Special Event

I love my local businesses that shut their doors after hours and have a party for their best customers. My local hockey shop does it annually for the men’s hockey league. It’s a great way for them to network and thank key decision-makers. It works for special company product launches as well.

2. Give Them Direct Access To Senior Staff

While research into ‘why people follow brands online’ shows that the number one reason is couponing it also indicates how interested people were in potentially being able to (more…)

10 Charts on the Best Time of Day / Week for Social Media Marketing

Are your customers giving you the time of day?

In today’s world of real-time streams and channel choices it’s often confusing as to when the optimal time is to post your social media marketing. Is Twitter better at night? Is Facebook better later in the week? What about blogs and email?  What times have been proven by research and technology as the best to hit that send button?

To shed a little light I’ve gathered some charts on each medium from a variety of smart folks. (more…)

Effective eMail Marketing & The Dusty Shoebox Phenomena

Everywhere I go marketers are all atwitter about Social Media. Yet, as often as I’m asked by businesses about how to build a following on social, just as often I discover that their business is yet another victim of The Dusty Shoebox Phenomena!

Here’s why email is often overlooked in the marketing mix and 6 steps to doing something about it.

It goes something like this:

“We’ve got this great car-giveaway contest and we’ll collect emails as part of it and we can email them after!” or…
“As part of the research we’ll collect emails so we can keep in touch with them after!” or…
“Now every time someone checks-in we’ll collect their emails so we can market to them forever!”

And then…

(cricket, cricket)

Nothing.

The list of names gets shoved into a virtual shoebox that grows dustier everyday. Ponder that while membership in loyalty programs increased 25% between 2006 and 2008, fewer than 44% of loyalty program memberships showed any activity last year. As the Colloquy report said, most loyalty programs are little more than names in a database.

Sometimes technology is to blame (“I’m just waiting till we get that new, fancy CRM system installed”), sometimes it’s just lack of time and sometimes it’s because something bright and shiny came walking along.

So What’s More Effective?

Should you concentrate on (more…)

The Gamification of Internet Marketing

Lots of folks staring into the crystal ball past few weeks to make predictions. Here’s one I actually buy.

A nice piece in the Globe today makes the case that the better way to achieving customer loyalty is through gamification: rewarding customers by turning your marketing into a game  or marketing through an existing game like Foursquare.

The piece is shy on any results but has great examples from Jay-Z and 7-11.

Turning your marketing into a game through badges and simple games is something to consider vs. the traditional buy-10-get-one-free ‘subsidize the loyal’ programs many businesses still use but I don’t think you can lump all the new gaming options together and say they work carte blanche.

If it helps check my thoughts on my guest post on the Search Engine People blog: Which Is Best For Marketing Your Business: Foursquare or Groupon?

Click here to read the Globe article: http://bit.ly/glogame

Bottom-line: Add the question ‘Can we turn it into a game?’ to your marketing checklist.

Naughty or Nice? A 12 Point Check List for Effective eMail Marketing

Pop Quiz! What’s the #1 way people share information found on the internet?

Social Media sites like Facebook?

Email is still the top way people share information they find online; it’s particularly the case if you’re trying to reach a business crowd. And, for most businesses, it still drives significantly more clicks, calls and visits than social.

But as spam filters become more rigorous marketers need to make sure they’re following email marketing best practices to avoid the spam bucket. Worst yet, 21% of email recipients will report email as spam even if it isn’t.

So in the spirit of giving here’s a 12 point checklist to make sure your email marketing messages end up on the nice list.

1. Do You Have A Simple & Safe Sign-up Process?

Did you reassure people? 50% of people unsubscribe because they think (more…)

9 Loyalty Rewards That Won’t Cost You A Ton

43 people like me. Or, rather, they like my post this month on Search Engine People’s blog (and 27 Twits?! do too).

It provides 8 (or 9?) alternatives to the all-too-common practice of Foursquare-like discounting of your product to secure the loyalty of your fans. Examples from KLM, Starbucks and others are provided.

Hope you ‘like’ it.

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