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The four golden rules of loyalty

By Tamara Gillian, founder and chief executive officer

Cherry London

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April 1, 2015 | 5 min read

Today’s consumers are more demanding than ever. They are more empowered and able to switch to other brands at the click of a mouse. Loyalty is declining, people are falling out of love with brands and that is leading to big drops in margin.

Cherry London founder and chief executive Tamara Gillan.

The key to success is to build deep emotional connections with your customers that matter and last – capturing their hearts rather than their heads.

What’s needed is not a subtle change, but a bold rethink. Not an evolution but a revolution in our thinking about how we understand, recognise, reward and connect with customers. We need to leverage the power of insight and new technology to enable us to target personally and use brand partnerships to do something totally standout, that creates unique stories for people to share.

Here are my four golden rules of how to create true loyalty:

Listen to people

The key is to find out what really matters to your customers in life, not just in your category – to use the right mix of research and analytics, overlaid with experience to find the big emotional insights that matter and the opportunities where your brand can connect.

In the development of the BloominGirls proposition with Sport England, for example, we used the full knowledge bank to understand what really mattered to 14-17 girls in life, as well as sport. We identified the passions in life that excited them and made them feel confident and worked with the coolest brands (boohoo.com, MUA, Batiste and Babyliss), girl band Neon Jungle and netball, hockey, touch rugby and football to stage an experiential and social campaign that shifted their perceptions of and loyalty to sport significantly. We backed it up with in-depth research pre, during and post campaign too. At every point, we were listening, learning and adapting our approach to make it better.

Change the game

People are smart. They are savvier than ever before and you need to work hard to create real loyalty. They see through generic market discount programmes masquerading as rewards programmes. To be successful you have to understand the rules of your sector, then change them for good. O2 Priority did and does exactly that.

What O2 does differently is stay true to the mantra that it wants O2 customers to feel special. O2 invests to understand what its customers’ passions are and then works with the best brand partners to give its customers rewards, offers and experiences that they couldn’t get otherwise. Love film? Get tickets to the premiere of the latest blockbuster. Or a great cinema tickets and combo deal for the whole family to enjoy at the weekend. Love music? Get tickets 48 hours before anyone else and tracks to download for free. Love treats? Get coffees and chocolates from brand partners like Caffe Nero and WH Smiths.

Go big or go home

A lot of brands dip their toe into the loyalty space. That doesn’t work. Brands have to either go for it or not bother at all. The North Face VIPeak is a great example of a loyalty programme that does just that. The North Face identified that their “best customers” weren’t the ones who spent the most with them, but the ones who did the most with the stuff they bought. So they developed and launched VIPeak to reward and encourage “brand appropriate behaviour” with brand appropriate rewards. It is a big bold move that has paid off and sets them apart.

Don’t go it alone

The last golden rule of generating brand loyalty is that, together, brands can think bigger, achieve more and do more than they ever could on their own. You can share ideas and inspiration as well as assets, budgets and resources. You can understand what matters in life to your customers, then work with the right brands to play a role in that bigger space.

Aviva Advantages is a great example of a bold move from a financial services giant working with brand partners to give their customers more. Aviva understand that Christmas is a special time for families – so they worked with the very best to give their customers the chance to have the most special Christmas ever –the chance to win a family holiday to the Ice Hotel, tickets to the Christmas Carol Singalong at the Royal Albert Hall and great gifts from brand partners like Toucanbox.

As in our personal lives, achieving true loyalty for your brand is a big challenge. It takes commitment, dedication and a totally fresh way of thinking. We need a loyalty revolution.

For readers interested in learning more on this subject, Cherry London recently published a new white paper on the subject of brand partnerships and customer loyalty which can be downloaded for free.

Tamara Gillan is the founder and chief executive officer of Cherry London.

Content by The Drum Network member:

Cherry London

Cherry London is a new breed of marketing agency with a story about the power of collaboration. Independently owned, it is based in London and works globally. As...

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