Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, a podcast for loyalty market professionals. I’m your host Paula Thomas, and if you work in loyalty marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from loyalty specialists around world.
Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV. If you feel like you’re facing a perfect storm an increasing pressure to build brilliant customer loyalty in a very complicated world, then you are not alone. We all know that customer behaviors have changed dramatically and at the same time brands are being expected to achieve more but with fewer resources. Loyalty marketing is simply not working like you choose to. If so, you will love today’s episode. It’s a masterclass in tools tips and techniques for loyalty marketers in 2024.
We’re joined by Michele Fitzpatrick from Marigold who has more than thirty years experience as an advocate for putting the humanity back into marketing. In this episode, she shares her wisdom and expertise and top ten tips to improve your customer loyalty and do more with less. So whether you are listening to Let’s Talk Loyalty or watching us on Loyalty TV, I hope you enjoy today’s conversation and Michele’s top tips in growing your customer loyalty in 2024.
So Michele Fitzpatrick, welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.
Michele: Thank you so much for having me today. I’m thrilled to be part of this discussion.
Paula: Amazing. I know you have been doing some incredible work Michele recently. I think you told me you did six different presentations at the recent CRMC Conference. And I was intrigued with what you were talking about. So looking to great conversation today.
Michele: Oh, me too. Glad to share some of my experience and expertise with you, too.
Paula: Incredible. Great stuff. So as you know, we have a very important opening question which our audience really look out for in terms of hearing what loyalty professionals are admiring in the market these days. So I’m gonna kick us off with our usual question. Please tell us, what is your current loyalty program?
Michele: Well I’ll answer this from the position of a consumer. I’m really happy these days with the American Airlines program. You know, as we know frequent flyer program started, you know a long time ago with the purpose of giving people credit for the miles that they travel.
You know the pandemic changed people’s travel behaviors significantly and American Airlines and many others adjusted to that change. And you know with the American Airlines credit card the program still gives the members the ability to be rewarded and not just for miles, so the program is evolved from being a mileage based program to really a reward program.
Additionally one of the things I really love about the American Airlines program is the app itself. The mobile app does exactly what you needed to do as a traveler. It helps you quickly get to your boarding pass, quickly get the information you need while you’re on the go. So I would say for a bunch of reasons in terms of both the way the program is adapted to market conditions and consumer needs, and then the functionality, the utility of the program, I think is pretty exceptional.
And just one more thought, kind of on frequent flyer programs, you know whenever people join them initially to get miles, right? But if you travel a lot, you have so many miles you can’t possibly use them or it’s hard to use them. And as a frequent traveler, your biggest, for me the biggest reward that I value is being able to board earlier and get my bag in the overhead compartment. So the promotional currency matches my needs.
Paula: Totally. And I’ve started using a term for myself, eh recently Michele, which is I am a status chaser. So I wasn’t traveling as frequently as I would’ve liked in fact last year. So having, being a Gold card holder here with Emirates Airline, I’m down at silver at the moment. When I hear that the likes of American are doing initiatives as you’ve said, for example that are not necessarily travel related but other ways to earn my tier benefits, I get back to whatever status I’m used to to get all those soft benefits. I think that’s absolutely incredible. So sounds like American Airlines have won your heart for good reason.
Michele: Yeah and I happen to be in an American Airlines market. So I for example in the past I would’ve said well, I’m a loyalist just by convenience, right? Just by geographic location but over time, you know as the program evolves, I’m now not just that of convenience of frequent traveler of American Airlines but the benefits have kept up my personal needs. So I thank them for it.
Paula: Amazing. Great. Well, we’ve certainly had them on the show already a couple of times, Michele. We’re certainly very excited to keep in touch with the American Airlines team. So we’ll tell them that a very important person in Marigold was certainly impressed with their work. So we’re off to a great start, Michele.
So the next, I suppose, important thing for our audience to understand is a bit about you. So I know we had your predecessor Jamshed on the show about a year ago, and you’ve stepped into his shoes with an incredible career. So will you tell our audience all of the kind of things that you’ve been doing in terms of CRM and loyalty throughout your career?
Michele: Yeah, for sure. So really my background and my passion is customer experience and it’s really helping brands connect with consumers in ways that matter to them and in ways which pay off for the brand, right? So it’s a by directional value proposition. And I’ve spent my whole career in, in CRM agencies and data companies. And now with Marigold in the MarTech space, really helping advise clients in a variety of industry sectors, retail, travel, QSR and the like you know, on the ways they can use customer insights or the ways they can capture customer information. In a way that that kind of helps fuel or power a contextually relevant experience.
Paula: Amazing. Yeah. Brilliant. And it is, I think, both the longevity of what you’ve done, Michele, but also for me, what you literally do day to day in your role with Marigold in terms of understanding what brands are facing.
I think I always felt that loyalty was quite a lonely business when I was running programs back in Ireland. So I was really fascinated when you were talking recently about what you’re hearing from clients. Both, I suppose, in terms of, you know, the difference for consumers, their mindset, but also in terms of the complexity of running a loyalty program in 2024.
So I’d love to start with the I suppose the market, you know, kind of top level, Michele, what do you think it is that’s on consumers minds that our audience need to be aware of?
Michele: So I love this question, and for a bunch of reasons, it starts us kind of being grounded in the customer first. And we know that the pandemic, you know, changed a lot of things in people’s lives, and while we’re probably all sick and tired of talking about the pandemic, I’m here to tell you that there’s a long tail impact, and it’s especially apparent in loyalty programs.
So the pandemic created an environment where people had to buy circumstance, not by choice, necessarily, adopt new shopping and buying behaviors. And literally over a very short amount of time, 80 to 90 percent of people changed what they bought, how they bought and where they bought. And then just think about the shortages we face with, you know, paper goods, you know, paper towels and toilet paper and all that kind of stuff.
And me, for me, I’m a, I’m a, a bounty loyalist, but when I went into their grocery store and there were no bounty paper towels on the shelf, and I still needed paper towels for my household. I bought whatever was available. And so what began to happen over, over a very short amount of time is loyalty became undermined by this access restriction that we were all facing.
And while some pre-pandemic behaviors have returned, the vast majority have not. And so today especially as it relates to loyalty programs you know, we have digital front and center digital and mobile front and center in terms of the customer experience and a buyer journey and and an experience that is really driven by the consumer. Not driven by advertising, not driven by marketing, not driven by the brand, but the consumers figured out how to get what they want, how to get what they need.
Now you, you, you match that kind of the restrictions that we face for a period of time and add to it then the economic challenges. And now you have people that are not only buying and shopping differently, but faced with economic headwinds, they begin to you know, and purchase differently, look for things that are on sale or only buying with a discount or putting off expenses.
So, so the things that we got used to, the levers that we got used to for loyalty programs in particular, to drive incremental visits, to drive average order value, to drive margin, all of those things that we’ve used in the, in, in historically, to move the needle on the key metrics and the customer behaviors that matter, those things haven’t been working so well for many brands. So we’re really at this moment, in my opinion, where any loyalty program, whether it was created a year ago or 10 years ago or whatever period of time, you know, now is a moment where I think all loyalty programs deserve a little bit of inspection and reimagining to be in lockstep with a consumer who’s frankly figured out how to get what they need with or without your help.
Paula: Yeah. Well said, Michele. And you know, you’ve also reminded me, we did an episode with one of your colleagues recently on the Consumer Trends Index. And, exactly what you’ve just been saying, the whole idea of, I suppose, consumer anxiety, it’s not a word I find very comfortable because none of us want to feel like that. But I do think, as you said, there is that long tail effect. We possibly haven’t discussed it enough because we’re all dying to move on into the new world. But you’re right. It’s absolutely important to maybe just take a pause, reflect on exactly what consumers do need. And I know you’re pretty obsessed in terms of making sure that it’s customer first in terms of insight before we start building anything. So, thank you for reminding us about what’s important to consumers at the moment.
And I think the important thing again to recognize, as you said, is many programs are perhaps not performing the way they were. And whereas that’s never going to be good news, I know there is good news coming and you do have a lot of recommendations for us to take an opportunity to look at those.
But I also think it’s an opportunity for people who listen to our show, if they are experiencing that particular problem to feel like they’re not alone. That it’s not necessarily that their program, you know, is, is not, you know, right. Maybe it just needs, as you said, to be relooked at, rethought of in the context of this environment.
But if it’s happening to, to clients, as you’re seeing across a wide spectrum of industries, it sounds like something everybody needs to be aware of and to really start that rethinking process.
Michele: Yeah, for sure. And, you know, it’s really amazing to me, I get to the privilege to talk with lots of different marketers in loyalty, relationship marketing, zero party data collection, a whole variety of different topics. And, you know, by and large, 95 percent of the marketers I talked to when I asked them, like, is personalization still on the top of your to do list in 2024? And 95 percent of the time the hands go up. Yes. Absolutely. That is still a challenge for me.
And it’s for me that’s a little bit mind blowing because we’ve had data driven marketing or CRM for almost 40 years now. So you’re going to ask the question like why is personalization still a challenge? And you know within loyalty programs you collect certain bits of information about a person based on their transactions and and the way your program is structured. But there’s so much more we can and should know about customers to help them along their journey.
And I I think it comes down to a couple of key things that I would just remind the audience to think about. So as you’re as you’re wondering what to do with your loyalty program and what might help it perform better you know, the first stop on the, on the, the trail is to, to show me, you know, me.
And I, this, I think we’ve got to kind of make a pivot from thinking about personalization as the idea and really focus heavily on contextual relevance. So at any stage in the customer’s life cycle, whether they’ve just signed up for your program or they’ve been engaging actively with your brand for a long period of time or anything in between, there’s certain information that you know about people and you should use that information in a transparent way. In a way that benefits the customer and that might lead to the idea of customizing your loyalty experience instead of a one size fits all kind of framework.
The second thing then is to make it worth for customers while to provide even more information. And you mentioned our Consumer Trends Index study, 91 percent of people will happily provide any information you want or need about them if they can see the path toward how that will benefit them.
So either that unlocks benefits, unlocks content, creates a better experience of some sort, but people will overwhelmingly provide information that would be helpful to you as a loyalty marketer to understand that person and help deepen that experience. And, when I look across the marketplace, the brands who do those two things, the show me, you know, me and make it worth my while, typically earn a higher degree of brand love. And that shows up in the form of brand sentiment. It shows up in the form of repeat purchase, and it shows up in the form of kind of average order value and margin, which at the end of the day is what a loyalty program should help us do.
Paula: Amazing. And again, words that I think a lot of people in this audience would will be repeating at management meetings internally. And again, feeling like they’re not alone and that these are the things that business needs to focus on. So thank you for taking us back to basics, Michele.
So, so much to talk about today. We’ve talked about the market context for consumers before we get into all of the, you know, top 10 tips that we have, and I really want to get into some of the really important ones today.
Do you mind just for, you know, the benefit of other audience people who are obviously running programs, would you mind just summarizing, you know, what you told me when we spoke last time, specifically about what are the marketers themselves facing in addition to their own, you know, consumer existence?
They’ve got different marketing challenges, I think, in 2024 that have been also building up over the last couple of years. So I think it’s important to remind ourselves about, you know, things like, for example, you know, the marketing technology stack feels like it’s just getting more complicated instead of simpler.
So when you talk about things like personalization, I totally agree. I think that’s something that everyone talks about. Very few people come on this show and say they feel they’ve nailed it, but what else are marketers facing that we just need to acknowledge before we get into, you know, all of the solutions and actions they can take.
Michele: Yeah. So it’s a really amazing time, a very challenging time for marketers, but I also think an exciting time. So we’re at this moment where consumer behaviors changed to the point that it’s very complex. We’re also at this point where the buyer journey is, the signals have gotten more difficult to read because of all the multitude of digital and other interactions people can have with the brand. But all this is happening at a time where the technology has progressed to the point where segment of when personalization or contextualization is more possible than ever from the marketer’s perspective. All that sounds good until you realize that most marketing organizations are under pressure to do more with less.
So fewer resources, you know, quicker turnaround times. They have more complex technology stacks. So the need to do, as you mentioned, tech stack consolidation to try to kind of simplify the technology and, and to make it easier to link all of the signals and, and leverage all the intelligence about a consumer that can be garnered in lots of different places, but use it in a, in a productive and effective way. And then to the extent it makes sense to begin automating the way you act on, on that relevance, you know, at a segment of one perspective.
So there, I think there’s both challenges, right? In terms of the complexity and the do more with less, there’s also a significant opportunity in that the technology, at least the, when I think about the Marigold stack, We’ve invested a lot of time and effort to kind of link our technologies across that spectrum from zero party data collection to messaging and engagement to loyalty program facilitation and everything in between.
So we’ve linked all those technologies so that it’s easier for a marketer to understand what’s happening with the customer base, make decisions about those campaigns, and then to the extent it makes sense to begin to automate or leverage the functionality and the technology to make the load a Little Lighter to carry from a human resource or personnel perspective. So I like to present both the challenge and the positive, the opportunity. The opportunity exists, there’s solutions for this, for this challenge.
Paula: Amazing. Yeah. Well, actually, you know, my nickname in Ireland, Michele, with, with my friends now, not necessarily professionally, but my nickname, I think people on the show will have heard before is Positive Paula. So while I do want to acknowledge the you know, the challenges we all face, we’re absolutely here to talk about the solutions.
So I want to get into that now but two things I wanted to mention before, if you don’t mind. First of all, I love this brand name of Marigold. Obviously we’ve been working with you guys now for quite a while, but just in case anyone, I suppose, hasn’t heard a little bit the I suppose the brand story as I understand it, Marigold as a, as a plant and a flower, I know is one that is that brings growth to everything around it. So I just always love that now when I think about you guys, I think it’s a difficult thing to rebrand a company. But the fact that there’s meaning behind it is something that I do think is important for the audience. So thank you for bringing that to our attention.
And now let’s get into the actual solutions, Michele. What is it that you think as you said, there’s lots of opportunities. You guys have done a lot of work in terms of simplifying things. So tell us about this particular, I suppose, presentation you have as well, because one thing we have found on this show is a lot of the audience love to reach out and get I suppose, access to additional information from industry experts. So I know you guys are very generous in terms of sharing additional information. So tell us about the particular presentation you’ve put together for our audience today.
Michele: Yeah, I put together a presentation to kind of bring all these concepts together in one place, right? To first set the stage for the changes in market conditions and why as loyalty marketers, we need to have a rethink about our programs.
And secondly, you know, I, I have some content in here that really covers some of the blocking and tackling about how loyalty needs to fit into the larger context of brand marketing. So in many organizations the loyalty team and the loyalty program are kind of off on their own doing their own thing. But if I look at the brand level the loyalty program creates a tremendous opportunity to collect information and insights about consumers not in some nefarious way, but in a way that helps you understand what people want the behaviors that they exhibit and to be able to utilize that in ways that are not more broadly than just within the within the loyalty program. So I, I look at loyalty as a knowledge center that that organization’s typically under leveraged because it’s kind of on its, on its own.
We also know that there are some traditional ways where I’ve been effective in terms of, you know, even some oldies and goodies that are coming back now and really effective in kind of stimulating loyal behavior. And those include things like punch cards and some very simple ideas. So, you know, you know, in your rethink about kind of evolving your program, you don’t have to be kind of necessarily distracted by shiny objects. But there are some oldies and goodies in terms of capabilities that consumers really value and are really helpful in getting people to engage or to re-engage.
We also need to take into account mobile wallets and a whole variety of other things AI and PNL that are, that are newer in the loyalty toolkit, which are also things that any loyalty marketer should be looking for the proper ways to incorporate. So this material that I’ve prepared for the audience will give a lot of this information.
If anybody wants to have a deeper conversation, they can reach out to us at Marigold and we’d be glad to have a conversation about it. But it concludes with, and I know you’ve referenced this a couple of times so far, Paula, that there’s our top 10 things that loyalty marketers should consider. And those are included in this presentation material as well.
Paula: Super, super. Yeah. I always feel like, for example, Michele, as we’ve talked about, you’re presenting at so many conferences and with the best will in the world, like I’ve already kind of, you know, attended a number of conferences recently. I have plenty more coming up. But I always feel like I’m missing out. So I think our opportunity again, with your support, is to be able to share it more widely. So thank you for putting this deck together for our audience.
And we definitely won’t have time to do all 10 of them today, Michele. But as we sit here, middle of 2024. What do you think are the single most important things that that our audience should be thinking about in terms of prioritizing, optimizing, I suppose, their programs again, with all of this long tail that we’ve talked about, all of the additional complexity, but the opportunity to do something, as you said, maybe it’s back to basics. So where should we start?
Michele: So I’ll, I’ll cherry pick a couple of them from the top 10. One that I think is extremely important, at least right now, is that when, you know, a lot of brands, we talk about customer experience, we talk about the buyer journey, and we measure things in terms of clicks and opens and all those kinds of things.
But my plea to loyalty marketers everywhere, is that it’s time to evolve from thinking about it as a customer experience and really evolve to thinking about it as a human experience. When you do that it will cause you to kind of take a look at. What are our messages and what are our offers and what’s our value proposition and how do we support the human being at the other end of this conversation?
And you know we’ve all been through a lot lately where some are in better shape than others but the whole idea here is when you start thinking about the human being on the other end of this relationship that you’re trying to build. It causes you to kind of really get very contextually relevant and personal. So that would be the first thing.
Another thing that I would, I would mention is that, you know, digital and e-commerce has been certainly on the rise for the last 10 years or what have you. But it’s plateaued or leveled out a little bit and 75 to 80 percent of consumer purchases across all categories of goods still happens in a physical environment. So when you’re thinking about your loyalty program, you’re thinking about digital interactions, don’t forget about the opportunities to create physical interactions in store or wherever your customers are interacting physically with your products and your and your services.
And then the last thing that I’ll mention is before you do anything in terms of evolving your program, make the math work. If the math doesn’t work in kind of simple back of the napkin calculations all the time and effort that you might put into changing and evolving your program might not be time well spent. So make the math work.
So, you know, is, is, are the changes that you want to make to your program, are they really the right things to affect the, the key metrics that matter or the engagement that you’re trying to foster with your customers or the brand love that you’re trying to build. So you got to make the math work and make sure that your investments are going to give you a proper return in both the brand love as well as the financial impact, and to your profit.
Paula: Absolutely. And I’ve often said again on this show, Michele, like that’s often where I struggled as a loyalty marketer because, you know, I was working on my first program and yes, I was an experienced digital marketer, but I didn’t have the loyalty marketing expertise.
And I think that’s what I love about what you guys offer I suppose as a dedicated team, because I know you don’t come into the client conversation to talk about the tech. You actually come in to talk about making the program work. So I’ll of course make sure in the show notes to link to your profile if people do want to reach out to get some support in terms of what the math might look like, either within the current model, or of course, if they’re looking to make different changes to that. So thank you for focusing on, of course, the commercial side, because yes, it has to work for the consumer, but it definitely has to work for the business. So all of these sides are equally important.
So, I’ll pick up on my favorite one as well, Michele, you’ve I suppose alluded to it, but for me, I’ve always fallen in love with this concept of the difference between Big L loyalty and Little L loyalty. And you’ve referred to it there in passing, but just for anyone who’s not familiar with that concept, it is my favorite of your top 10 tips to keep in mind. So would you mind just explaining that for anyone who’s not familiar with the concept?
Michele: For sure. So, so Big L loyalty is brand love, right? And that’s where the human being, the person has an emotional connection with your brand. And, and when people have that kind of experience or that kind of relationship with your brand, you know, they forgive you when you mess up because everybody messes up every once in a while. And you don’t want to plan for messing up, but brand love buys you a lot of goodwill with a customer.
It also brands love the Big L. Also causes consumers to buy not always at a discount, right? To kind of have your brand or your products top of mind so that every time they’re in market for something that they could buy from you, they think of you first.
The, Small L, the Little L in loyalty is really your transactional or programmatical loyalty. And most loyalty programs, let’s face it. Loyalty programs were invented a hundred years ago with the purpose of connecting a consumer to a purchase. Right. And so the program at its core, loyalty programs at their core, you know, start from a position of rewarding transactions that are identifiable to the consumer.
And so, I think in my experience the best programs have a combination of the Big L and the Little L. So, you know, the transaction piece is the Little L is what gets somebody to sign up for your program. The Big L is what gets them to stay. The Big L is what gets them to, to behave differently and incrementally. And the Big L is what gets them to tell other people about your, about your program and your products and, and help them become advocates.
So, there’s a whole, I could do a whole workshop just on Big L, Little L loyalty. I would be glad to do that in the future if you’d like. But it’s really important. I’m glad you raised this. It’s really important that programs today have to have some of each. And the Big L, the brand, the brand love building things can be and should be very customized to the individual.
Paula: A hundred percent. Yeah. And the reason I did want to touch on it today, Michele, is in my experience, again, in different sectors, but I often felt that Big L was seen to sit in different departments to the loyalty program owner, for example.
And that might be an important conversation for our audience to be aware of that, you know, that there is that, that inherent overlap that I suppose is assumed, but again, to have the right language, to have those internal conversations that everyone who needs to be around the table in terms of driving overall loyalty for the business. It’s not just about a program. It is about making sure that people just behave in better ways that are useful for the organization. So I do think that’s a great idea. We might have to come back to a full absolute conversation about Big L and Little L loyalty, Michele. So thank you for touching on that.
Michele: It would be my pleasure. It’s one of my favorite topics.
Paula: Amazing. Great stuff. Well, listen, we’re running out of time for today’s episode. I just want to again remind people that the presentation deck is going to be available both from of course ourselves here in Let’s Talk Loyalty, and of course directly we’ll make sure you’re linked on the show notes for this episode.
The presentation deck is called Reimagining Loyalty in 2024 and Beyond. So a fabulous 32 slide masterclass in terms of what loyalty marketers need to be thinking about in 2024. So that’s my key outtake for today for our audience and top recommendation. Is there anything else, Michele, that you wanted to mention before we wrap up?
Michele: Sure. There’s one thing that I think might be helpful. My plea to loyalty marketers everywhere is to really put the customer first. And I, I know it sounds like something everybody’s already doing, but I mean, there are little and big ways that you can do this.
One, one technique I would recommend is to put an empty chair in the meeting room. And if you’re, everybody’s remote, you’re working from home, have an empty chair next to you and, and think of the customer that would be sitting in that chair as you do what you do. So it really kind of humanizes, is kind of your thinking about the customer experience, about the promotions you’re doing, about the messaging, about all of those, those things that you need to hook up in terms of, of making the customer experience work for a consumer that’s kind of motivated. So, bring the customer into the room virtually, physically, any way you can. And, your program and your results will be better for it.
Paula: Oh, I love that. That’s a great idea, Michele. I’m going to do that actually for Let’s Talk Loyalty team meetings in future as well to make sure our audience are in the room with us. So a very practical, actionable piece of advice to close off on. So listen, I just want to say thank you so much. It’s been a wonderful conversation. I really feel like I’ve learned so much and so much more available to learn from you as well.
So Michele Fitzpatrick, Vice President of Enterprise Strategy and Services with Marigold, thank you so much from Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.
Michele: It’s been my pleasure, thank you for having me today.
Paula: This show is sponsored Wise Marketer Group, publisher of The Wise Marketer, the premier digital customer loyalty market resource for industry relevant news insights and research. Wise Marketer Group also offers loyalty education and training globally through its Loyalty Academy, which has certified nearly 900 marketers and executives in 49 countries as certified loyalty market professionals.
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