Paula Thomas: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an Industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m Paula Thomas, the founder of Let’s Talk Loyalty. Today’s episode is hosted by Tom Peace, managing Director of the Loyalty People, a strategic consultancy with a laser focus on loyalty, CRM and customer engagement.
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Tom Peace: Hi, I’m Tom Peace, managing Director of the Loyalty People and presenter of Let’s Talk A Little Loyalty. Welcome to this week’s short summary show. In this week’s episode of Let’s Talk A Little Loyalty, I’ll be showcasing some key learnings from Paula’s original interview with Hollie McLellan, formerly Head of Customer Marketing and Loyalty for Boots UK, and now Director of Customer Marketing.
At the time of the original podcast, it was the 25th anniversary of the Boots Advantage card, which has circa 15 million members and 70% of adult females in the UK have a Boots card. It was great to hear Paula and Hollie discuss the company’s latest innovations and initiatives. The Boots Advantage Card is a fantastic loyalty program, as testified by its long tenure, and Hollie talks about how crucial it is that staff are really well-trained on the program and are genuinely part of the customer journey.
This is so vital in any business building or managing loyalty. Never exclude your staff from the program and make sure they can evangelize the benefits to any customer that asks. The first thing I thought was interesting in this call was Hollie’s choice of her favorite loyalty program. You’ll have to listen to the main show to find out which one it was, but Hollie’s reasoning was instant value through subscription and the convenience of the brand experience.
This is very interesting because these factors are becoming more and more important to us all when we interact with our favorite brands. We aren’t as motivated by rational benefits like points and discounts anymore, although they are still very important. We are happy to pay a subscription fee to access benefits instantly, and we want convenience, helpful service, and a good user interface.
This leads very nicely into Hollie’s talking about how content marketing has been a real growth driver for Boots loyalty members as they introduce my beauty. An exclusive club for members looking for beauty related content and exclusive offers. Content marketing is a great way to create member interaction and deliver on service advice and engagement within the health and beauty sector, this is especially valuable since there is a broad range of customers looking for advice on the latest look or the new products.
Many other beauty brands have similar. Marketing solutions, even using AI to create the new look live on screen. As Hollie quite rightly says, content marketing is going to be a big part of customer engagement, moving forward, building loyalty, and assisting with creating a personalized experience based on what content a customer engages with.
At the time of the original podcast, boots had just introduced member pricing in the form of price advantage aligning to the Advantage Card brand, and this is still running today. Many brands are implementing member pricing, especially in the uk, and this will help to drive reengagement with the program As penetration is down across all categories, we’ve all just got out of the habit of using our loyalty cards and member pricing will help to reestablish that habit.
Hollie also talks about how member pricing has driven fantastic performance results. Member signups the scheme have increased as well as downloads of the app. Member pricing has also helped boots to drive better profitability through promotions. I personally think that member pricing is great for brands that have a very large share of customer membership, and boots are clearly in this position.
Brands with less customers on their membership should be careful to not alienate customers who are loyal that don’t want to join the program. This was a fascinating podcast review as there were so many excellent tips for anyone working in the sector. I’d highly recommend listening to the main show, which can be found at www dot Let’s talk loyalty.com, and first ad on the 1st of June, 2022.
Episode number 230. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed my summary Show all the best, and speak to you soon. Tom.
Paula Thomas: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketeer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty, marketing, news, insights, and research. The Wise Marketeer also offers loyalty, marketing training. Through its Loyalty Academy, which is already certified, over 500 executives in 38 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
For more information, check out the wise marketeer.com and loyalty academy.org.
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