#349: Are Subscription based programs the future for loyalty ? (Short Summary Show)

Paula: 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.

The Loyalty People also runs a free global community for anyone working in the loyalty industry. If you are working in loyalty marketing, make sure to join Let’s Talk Loyalty every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to hear the latest ideas from loyalty experts around the world.

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Tom: 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 five minute summary show on behalf of Let’s Talk Loyalty.

This week my Let’s Talk a Little Loyalty podcast showcases Paula’s interview with Robbie Kellman Baxter, the world’s leading expert on subscription pricing and membership models.

You can listen to the original show on www.letstalkloyalty.com, episode number 177, which first aired on the 25th of January, 2022. Robbie is a bestselling author, speaker, and consultant with more than 20 years of experience providing strategic business advice to major organizations, including Netflix and other notable brands.

She’s also the author of The Membership Economy and The Forever Transaction and Host of the podcast Subscription Stories, true Tales from the Trenches. subscription loyalty has become very big, very quickly, especially where the purchase frequency is high and the activity is a known habit. Think coffee, fast food, entertainment, subscriptions like Netflix or certain types of shopping like grocery and Amazon.

For these programs, the psychology of value is triggered when the consumer can easily calculate the saving on something they do often. For example, 20 pounds for unlimited coffee when a coffee costs around two pounds is very easy to imagine drinking more than 10 coffees in a month. So there really is no barrier to entry beyond a simple subscription.

There are other new types of paid for loyalty that are really innovative. Many airlines are now offering the option to buy points or to buy into their top membership tier. This is a great for customers who perhaps have enjoyed these benefits previously, but due to a life change such as retirement, don’t travel as often as they used to, but do want to maintain their privileges.

This is not only a great customer experience, but a nice revenue stream for the brand Also. And let’s not forget the move from product sales to membership that we have all experienced through brands like Microsoft where we now pay a yearly membership for which we get the software and all the future updates, patches and developments.

The days of buying the latest Microsoft product every few years are thankfully behind us. subscription based loyalty becomes really valuable to the member when the program provides additional benefits or money can’t buy, experiences that further reinforce the value message. Amazon Prime being the perfect example where the rational mathematical benefit calculation is done on the free delivery.

But actually there are other benefits such as Prime video that really lock the members into Amazon. So it very much looked like paid for, loyalty is here to stay, and more and more brands are taking up this strategy either as a subscription based model, paid for benefits or an exclusive membership model. I really believe this is a strong play for loyalty and I really look forward to seeing how this develops further over time.

Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed my summary. I’d highly recommend listening to the main show. All the best, and speak soon. Tom.

Paula: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty, marketing, news, insights, and research. The Wise Marketer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 500 executives in 38 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.

For more information, check out, thewisemarketer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.

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