I more often than not find that I am walking a fine line between a friendly reminder and nagging.
- If I ask my husband to pick up the drycleaning once, will he remember to do it? However if I ask him five times, will he start to tune me out?
- If I email or tweet my customers too much, will they un-subscribe or un-follow? But what if I under-communicate, will they remember me when they are making a purchase?
A study by The Chief Marketing Officer Council, “The Leaders in Loyalty: Feeling the Love from the Loyalty Club“, proves that I am not alone in this concern. This report, released originally in 2010, has resurfaced on leading hospitality industry blogs within recent weeks due to what I believe to be a timeless question posed by loyalty marketers: when are we crossing the line between welcome information and unwanted annoyance?
Study findings reveal some interesting numbers:
- 54% of loyalty club members surveyed are tired of receiving a barrage of irrelevant, impersonal communication
- Nearly 20% of consumers who belong to loyalty clubs have never received a personalized communication based on their individual preferences or behaviors
- 73% had been the recipient of promotions for products or services they already owned
I would like to see the CMO Council revisit this research, as I am quite curious as to how industry changes which have occurred in the past two years would influence survey results:
- Would the massive increase in B2C social media marketing influence results (either positively or negatively)?
- Would the loyalty industry’s increased focus on experiential rewards (versus merely points and rewards, which survey results found hard to redeem) change the opinion of loyalty program members on the merits of particular programs?
- What is the influence on their “Loyalty Leaders” and “Lifetime Value Leaders” of mergers, acquisitions and re-branding?
What do you think?
