More than. In fact, when it comes to justifying a customer loyalty initiative, too many executives focus on the financials, but there are 15 other major business benefits - each providing a unique competitive advantage - that a loyalty programme can provide.

In our latest Feature Article, the fifteen biggest business benefits that every loyalty programme operator can expect to reap - and use to justify continuing and expanded investment in the programme - are explained, including:

1. Retaining existing customers
2. Acquiring new customers
3. Moving customers up-segment
4. Deselecting unprofitable customers
5. Winning back defected & churned customers
6. Increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
7. Best customer marketing
8. Building stronger relationships
9. Creating brand advocates
10. Adjusting pricing levels
11. Responding to competitive challenges
12. Selecting stock lines more effectively
13. Planning merchandising more intelligently
14. Reducing promotional & advertising costs
15. Selecting new trading sites

Full article: http://www.thewisemarketer.com/features/read.asp?id=120

The study found that, while mobile commerce is still very much at the 'consideration' stage, the majority of retailers surveyed expect mobile commerce to be part of their main strategy within the next 12 months...

So are you ready to 'globiphonise' your loyalty programme? The winners in 2009 came from loyalty programmes that carefully studied the impact of the economic crisis on their members' household budgets. A very good example of this was the Tesco Clubcard. In May 2009, Tesco relaunched the Clubcard in the UK, with some £150 million worth of investment, aiming to add another 1 million members to the programme (which it did by 12th October 2009, when the programme signed up its 16-millionth UK member). Shortly after that, CEO Terry Leahy revealed that its offer of double Clubcard points had also improved the company's performance despite the recession.

Smart marketers quickly reworked their reward portfolios and showed their members how valuable their loyalty points could be. American Express introduced options to redeem Membership Rewards points for everyday purchases such as groceries, fuel, telephone bills, mobile phone bills, and cable service bills. Other examples were found within the airline industry where airlines such as Delta, Alaska Airlines, TACA and others dealt with over-capacity by offering more reward seats and one-way reward flights.

Today, the world's biggest loyalty programmes can be found in the airline, hotel and financial services industries. Most of them manage global member bases but face difficulties in engaging them across the globe. No doubt many of these programmes lose out on hundreds of millions of points-sales revenue and probably spend too much money building an infrastructure that ultimately delivers only a 'quasi-global experience' to their programme members. Future best practices will therefore be exemplified by global loyalty programmes that can deliver local experiences globally.

Critical to the success of any loyalty programme are the rewards offered. Over the past few years, the financial services industry has demonstrated that affluent cardholders can be lured away from airline co-branded credit cards when offered valuable and liquid points currencies together with large selections of relevant rewards. Most of these programmes are based on a new breed of reward that is completely e-commerce based. Equally successful are merchant funded rewards shopping malls, offered mainly in the travel and financial services sectors. These solutions integrate with hundreds of online merchants through a number of affiliate networks and provide loyalty programme members with an opportunity to earn points while shopping online. Both technologies are delivered by specialist solution providers. In terms of future technologies, we can expect to see the convergence of global earn and burn technologies.

There is no doubt that the best way to reach the world's most affluent consumers (such as the members of the leading frequent flyer, frequent guest, and frequent buyer programmes) is through their mobile phone handsets. The mobile phone is always in a traveller's pocket, and it is arguably the most accessible, most social communication channel of all (even beyond email).

But, so far, the mobile channel has not been fully exploited by loyalty programmes. However, everyone today seems to want an iPhone, and every company feels the need to be part of the Apple AppStore. Apple already offers more than 100,000 iPhone applications, and we will probably end up using 'iPhoogle' to navigate through the AppStore jungle! All these applications are fully controlled by Apple, and are available only to iPhone users. Now imagine if Microsoft had invented the internet and controlled paid distribution and access to web sites.

There is no doubt that we will begin to see loyalty programmes launching iPhone applications that cover all relevant loyalty processes for its Apple-happy members. From accessing their points balance to redeeming their points from wherever they happen to be, this will be a big step forward in providing a mobile channel that is powerful for both the programme sponsor and programme member.

In other words, the loyalty programmes that lead in the future will be the ones that develop iPhone-based global 'earn and burn' applications to reach out to their members through 'globiphonisation'.

This article is an extract from the 30 chapters of detailed coverage in 'The Loyalty Guide 4', which is The Wise Marketer's latest 1,000+ page global guide to customer loyalty and engagement techniques, best practices, models, metrics, practical advice, market data and research. The report provides hundreds of detailed case studies, forecasts, trends, tables and visual materials to support new initiatives, presentations and proposals. See how customer data can increase profits, reduce churn, and increase frequency, spending, and share of wallet, and find out where your competitors are succeeding or failing, and why.

From only £1,095 the electronic (PDF) edition of The Loyalty Guide 4 gives you a complete, portable reference library of customer loyalty, engagement and marketing strategy. A free 50-page Executive Summary, chapter samples, table of contents, text searching, licensing and ordering details are online now at http://www.theloyaltyguide.com

According to Christian Howes, head of solution engineering (EMEA) for Webtrends, this next generation of marketing science has to be underpinned by accurate and timely data. Many consumers now have access to not just one but two, three or even four communication devices, and marketers can expect that the amount of...

Specifically, the survey showed that the average social media spend for marketers whose primary objective is to obtain customer loyalty was US$88,000 in 2009, compared to US$53,000 for brand awareness and US$30,000 for customer acquisition - the objectives which attracted the next highest spending levels. The amount...

The company argues that organisations now have a golden opportunity to use the social media channel (including web sites such as Facebook and Twitter, among many others) to ensure that messages of great service are spread far and wide. There are many benefits to be gained by adopting a social media strategy...

Using the company's Mosaic TrueTouch insights to explore the most effective ways for brands to engage with different audiences across the UK, the company's findings appear to challenge current thinking on consumer preferences, as well as highlighting the growing importance of avoiding a...

So keep well, and market wisely.

Until next week,

Pete Clark
Editor