This episode is a short summary of my conversation with Dr David Cox, a loyalty practitioner who also boasts a PhD in loyalty marketing.
Based on the success and awards he has achieved for clients such as IBM, he shares what key tools he and his company Motivforce have used to drive such powerful commercial results.
He also discussed the key loyalty trends that were emerging as a result of Covid-19.
Listen for my short summary of episode #43 of “Let’s Talk Loyalty”.
1) David Cox – CEO of Motivforce
PAULA: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for Loyalty Marketing Professionals.
PAULA: 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 the world.
PAULA: Thank you.
PAULA: Hello, and welcome to episode 148 of Let’s Talk Loyalty, with a brief apology for the slightly croaky voice today.
PAULA: Nonetheless, I wanted to continue with my show being released as usual on today, Tuesday.
PAULA: So today’s episode is a conversation with Dr.
PAULA: David Cox, a man who holds a PhD in loyalty marketing and also runs a company called Motivforce, who operate B2B loyalty programs for global giants like IBM in the technology space, as well as travel agents who specialize in premium holiday bookings.
PAULA: Now, as you can imagine, in both these industries, the members who join these programs have huge influence on customer purchase decisions, and hence the ability to justify a loyalty program to recognize and reward top performers that make commercial sense.
PAULA: David explained the key proposition for some of the programs his team run.
PAULA: He explained that they focus on hypercompetitive markets that suffer low differentiation in customers’ minds.
PAULA: So the role of the loyalty program is to mold the ambassadorial behavior of the intermediary, whether it’s a travel agent or a computer reseller.
PAULA: With his experience in motivational marketing, David focuses on creating soft benefits to create true connections and habitual behaviors that drive more revenue.
PAULA: As we all know, hard benefits like incentives and commissions are easy for competitors to match.
PAULA: So instead, they focus on making these people feel like brand ambassadors.
PAULA: One amazing example is the work they’ve done with IBM for over 20 years.
PAULA: This program has won two of the prestigious Loyalty Magazine Awards this year.
PAULA: Firstly, the best B2B program for the third year in a row.
PAULA: Plus, even more amazingly, it was voted by the judges as the best long-term loyalty program in either the consumer or business sector.
PAULA: Truly an incredible result for the IBM program.
PAULA: Their loyalty strategy is based on a number of clever insights, starting with the need for their resellers to stay up-to-date on the products they sell for the company.
PAULA: This program runs in 131 countries and in 14 languages, and is based on gamification, since even before the term became a phrase in our industry.
PAULA: Cleverly, they had thought long and hard about what game would appeal in each country, so they could leverage the existing passion and understanding of games like cricket in India, or ping-pong in China, to help resellers enjoy themselves while learning more about their products at the same time.
PAULA: David explained they chose whatever sport was seen like a religion, and this alone drove some extraordinary engagement for them with their members.
PAULA: The IBM loyalty program also uses badges, which have become hugely prestigious for members to use on their professional profiles to illustrate their skills and build their careers.
PAULA: So from a simple start using online quizzes, this global brand has ensured it’s relevant in each of its local markets using the power of sport.
PAULA: As a final comment to show how powerful this program is, David mentioned that the rewards for members of some of his B2B programs have to be capped, but at a whopping $100,000.
PAULA: So to me that just shows how profitable these programs can be for the members and clearly for the brands that are running them.
PAULA: Finally, David and I discussed why there has never been a better time to be a loyalty marketer.
PAULA: David had written an article detailing five key learnings and specific loyalty trends he had noticed since lockdown, many of which were existing trends, but were of course accelerated during the pandemic.
PAULA: In summary, these include getting lazy loyalty programs into the gym to ensure you keep your member base engaged, as well as the importance of finding new ways to communicate with members.
PAULA: The pandemic has made video meetings much more acceptable, so there are ways using new formats that will connect even more, we think, than text-based email.
PAULA: All of us are increasingly driven by the need for community and connection.
PAULA: So David also mentioned that even though some companies still feel threatened by social media, for example, because they can’t control the conversation, it’s more important that they do show up and mould the conversation, rather than try and ignore it or bury it.
PAULA: We also talked about the eternal challenge and increasing importance of measurability and being able to demonstrate returns on the investments we make back to our colleagues in finance.
PAULA: The last trend we talked about then was more emotional levers within loyalty such as sustainability and the element of charity.
PAULA: For example, letting members redeem their loyalty points for rewards for frontline workers, which was a new idea just coming to market at the time.
PAULA: The key now is that consumers don’t want to just hear about great intentions from companies they buy from.
PAULA: They want to see continual action.
PAULA: That’s it from this episode of Let’s Talk a Little Loyalty featuring my conversation with Dr.
PAULA: David Cox.
PAULA: If you enjoyed the short summary, please do listen to the full interview.
PAULA: It’s episode 43 from July 2020.
PAULA: And of course, please do join me again this Thursday when I’ll be chatting all about the latest trends in airline loyalty with Comarx Peter Kozlowski.
PAULA: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketeer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights and research.
PAULA: The Wise Marketeer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 170 executives in 20 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
PAULA: For more information, check out thewisemarketeer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.
PAULA: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
PAULA: If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on letstalkloyalty.com and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox every Thursday.
PAULA: Or just head to your favorite podcast platform.
PAULA: Find Let’s Talk Loyalty and subscribe.
PAULA: Of course, I’d love your feedback and reviews and thanks again for supporting the show.
Sign up here and get the latest podcast episodes and loyalty marketing news delivered directly to your inbox