The Loyalty Marketing industry is replete with people who identify as experts, gurus, or pundits. Interpreting the meaning of these terms with a slightly jaded eye, I remember a well-respected colleague from the UK who once told me that an expert was “someone who had accomplished something great on one occasion many years ago – and had been trading on that accomplishment ever since.”
That is not always true of course, but it does remind us that we need to stay current in our thinking, and that while we can reference past experiences to our benefit, we need to evolve our thinking and our skills, while staying abreast of current trends to bring value to our organizations.
With the renewed interest in data-driven, customer-centric marketing, there has never been a better time to approach this business with a Beginner’s Mindset than today. The Beginners Mind is tied to Shoshin, a concept from Zen Buddhism. It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when approaching problem solving.
Cloaking oneself in a Beginners Mind requires humility and grace. For example, when considering solutions for a problem, the first question should be “why have we always done it this way” instead of a statement that “we have always done it this way.”
Our business is at a crossroads, and opportunity abounds.
- Ever since Google announced Privacy Sandbox, its plan to reduce cross-site tracking, marketers have been in frenzy solving for how they can gather valuable consumer data without the support of third-party cookies. Forrester coined the term Zero Party Data (ZPD) to describe the data that is volunteered by consumers and is indicative of their preferences, biases and desires. Loyalty Marketing veterans know that while ZPD is a super-clever term, the concept has been a central part of industry best practice since the early 2000’s. We called it building “dialogue” with customers in those days, but we like Zero Party Data better as a description, so we will continue with that as a reference point.
- Brands are rethinking strategies, emphasizing eco-systems and partnerships rather than striving for success solo. Brand partnerships – like Target and Ulta, Sephora and Kohl’s, Nike and Dick’s Sporting Goods – create value through experiences, convenience, and choice. That means Loyalty Marketers need to rethink the essence of their value propositions. We have to be able to answer the question of how the shopping experience of a loyalty program member differs from any other customer. Sure, members earn points and receive other benefits, but how is their actual purchase experience, store visit or web experience different from other customers?
- The impact of loyalty marketing is being noticed by the C-Suite. The Digital Transformation methodologies of global consulting firms have Customer Loyalty as a step in the process. Brands like Starbucks, Panera and Circle K have disclosed that 30-50% of revenue is represented by loyalty program members. At this level, your customer strategy (including the actual loyalty program) can’t be seen as a fringy effort housed in the Marketing Department but is core to building the accretive value that attracts the attention of stakeholders and stock analysts. As an industry, we need to shift our thinking to express the value of what we can deliver for the organization and create new metrics and dashboards that clearly express that value to our senior leadership.
- We are living in a new reality spawned during the global pandemic of 2020 – 2022. At the same time that Gen Z was growing up and entering prime earning years, ALL of us were introduced to new ways to work, shop, and just live. We developed new habits which accentuate how we are wired as humans, mainly our need for autonomy, competence and community. While advance technology will continue to open up opportunities to deliver more precise offers and communications to customers, we need to be more intentional about what data points we collect and take into account elements of behavior theory that will shape future best practices for this business.
A Beginners Mindset is not an easy attitude to adopt, and I’ll share a personal example to illustrate why.
After 25 years participating in endurance sports, I’ve built a high level of comfort and habit running, swimming, and biking. But recently I started to paddle a Surfski, and I was presented with the opportunity (i.e., forced) to adopt a Beginners Mindset to stay afloat. A mentor in that new sport told me to focus on “stability before speed.” I soon found out how “tippy” the ski was and quickly realized that my sense of mastery in other sports didn’t serve me well in learning something brand new.
To learn new skills, I needed to realize that my ability in other sports didn’t translate to this new one. I had to accept that I was a complete beginner. It didn’t matter that I had become experienced and comfortable in the other things I did on a regular basis. This was different and I needed to adopt the humble approach necessary to make progress.
I hope you see the parallel in this story to where we are in Customer Loyalty today. Just because we have participated in building many programs and have experience, we still need to study the present and be willing to try new approaches to connect with our customers and create the value propositions and experiences that will give our brands “top of mind share” with our customers.
To me, the European Loyalty Association is the ideal Petrie dish in which to learn, acquire skills and experiment with new ideas. When brands can talk with other brands in a non-sales environment, while learning from colleagues and providers about new trends, strategies, and technologies, they can approach their business challenges with the Beginners Mindset with minimal risk.
Aaron and I look forward to continuing these conversations with you in the ELA HUB meetings and you can learn about the new approaches that I mention here in our refreshed body of courses at The Loyalty Academy.
Stay. Loyal. Always.
