Loyalty That Saves Lives: How Blood Donation Programs Transform Communities (#693)

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Jacqui: You know, have a flag on the hill in terms of what you think you might want to get to, but don’t be so worried about how you get there, because you might say no to things that will serve you.

Jacqui: And that’s how I’ve ended up where I am.

Jacqui: We’ve had a 17% uplift with a 50% opt-in rate.

Jacqui: You know, these are numbers that most loyalty managers and certainly me in previous loyalty roles could only dream about, which is great, but then really that 17% translates into over a quarter of a million additional lives.

Jacqui: So, you know, blood donation is a very complicated process in itself.

Jacqui: It’s clinical, it needs to be clean, it needs to be hygienic, there’s all the checks and balances involved.

Jacqui: I’m married to a social worker, I come from a family of community people.

Jacqui: I knew inherently that I wanted to be able to do something that served a greater good.

Jacqui: I didn’t really know what that was or what it looked like.

Jacqui: Still in these dark times, you need humour to kind of get through it, and we recognise that that is a big part of a lot of people’s story.

Jacqui: So, you know, we also appreciate people who donate aren’t always driven by trauma or something awful that’s happened.

Jacqui: People are also driven to do it because it’s part of something bigger.

Jacqui: It’s giving back to the community.

Paula: Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, a show for loyalty marketing professionals.

Paula: I’m Paula Thomas, the founder and CEO of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, where we feature insightful conversations with loyalty professionals from the world’s leading brands.

Paula: Today’s episode is hosted by Carly Neubauer, managing director of Elevate Loyalty, an Australian-based company specializing in loyalty and incentive services.

Paula: Carly is also the managing director of One Tap Group, a UK-based company providing loyalty payment services.

Paula: Enjoy.

Carly: Jackie Solly is a self-professed marketing nerd, spending over 15 years in different marketing roles to discover that customer strategy and loyalty is the most interesting part of her marketing career.

Carly: She’s worked across lifecycle, performance, digital, customer strategy and martech in startups, small business and corporate.

Carly: After spending time at ANZ Bank, Energy Australia and Suncorp, she’s taken on the new role of loyalty manager at the Australian Red Cross, Lifeblood, 18 months ago, and recently won an award at the Asia Pacific Loyalty Awards.

Carly: Please enjoy this conversation with Jackie Solly.

Paula: Welcome, Jackie.

Carly: I am so excited to have you here today with us on Let’s Talk Loyalty TV.

Carly: Welcome.

Jacqui: Thank you.

Jacqui: I’m excited to be here.

Jacqui: Looking forward to the chat.

Carly: So we have heaps to talk about.

Carly: There is no question about that.

Carly: But the first things we always start these episodes with, we ask all of our guests to tell us about your favorite book, business book, non-fiction book, any kind of thing you love to read.

Jacqui: So when you told me you were going to ask me this question, this sent me into a bit of a blind panic.

Jacqui: I’ll be completely honest.

Jacqui: Because I am a bit maybe unconventional in the sense that I don’t read a lot of industry books.

Jacqui: But I absorb a lot of content, whether it’s snippets or articles and that sort of thing.

Jacqui: But there’s two people that I look to in terms of their concepts and their principles.

Jacqui: One of them is Simon Sinek and his purpose of why and what’s your why.

Jacqui: That really comes from earlier on in my career.

Jacqui: I worked out that I had a passion for people leadership and developing people and wanting to learn how to get the best out of them.

Jacqui: I’m a failed school president, student president and all those things that you’re not meant to talk about when you’re as old as I am.

Jacqui: But it’s just an interest I’ve always had.

Jacqui: He absolutely resonates with me.

Jacqui: Then the other person that I’ve been fortunate enough to hear speak is Emma Harris.

Jacqui: She talks about her concept of slow the F down.

Jacqui: That all comes off the back of her having a health scare and just I guess that perspective on life, which at the time I didn’t know what was to come for me in my life.

Jacqui: But definitely between those two things, being very clear on what my why is and making sure that I’m prioritizing the right things in my life that give me joy and give me energy.

Carly: That’s amazing.

Carly: These are really great ones and obviously through Let’s Talk Loyalty, we recommend these reads and or great speakers.

Carly: So thank you because you couldn’t fault either of those.

Carly: They’re very inspirational, both of them.

Jacqui: Yeah.

Jacqui: I’ve gone big stars to start with.

Carly: Yes.

Carly: No, I couldn’t agree more.

Carly: From here, let’s talk about loyalty and your favorite loyalty program.

Carly: What gets you excited to engage with?

Jacqui: When it comes to loyalty programs, as a punter, I’m actually very simple.

Jacqui: I still love the old school like stamp card concept.

Jacqui: Just because it’s easy to understand, you know what you’re getting.

Jacqui: But then I guess as a professional, I love the more complex programs that set out to drive behavior change.

Jacqui: My other favorite one, it’s a bit niche, but there’s a company called Good Pair Days.

Jacqui: They’re an online wine retailer.

Jacqui: Their rewards program is actually quite amazing.

Jacqui: It’s gamified, it rewards for purchases as well as interactions.

Jacqui: It’s very real.

Jacqui: They’ve got an amazing catalog of rewards and it’s all digital.

Jacqui: So it’s small, but it’s very impressive in how they’ve spun it up.

Jacqui: And I guess knowing what I know about building these types of things, and how hard it is to build that seamless digital interaction from a loyalty nerd point of view, it’s very impressive how they do it.

Jacqui: So they’re on my list of people to find someone in that company to talk to, because it’s actually very impressive.

Jacqui: And it’s not something that’s spoken about in the industry.

Jacqui: The other two that come to mind when I’m asked this question is the original Maya 1 loyalty program from back in the day.

Jacqui: And it’s interesting now that we’re hearing them talk about bringing that back to close their revenue gap.

Jacqui: But that was one of the first bigger retailers not from outside of grocery category.

Jacqui: I was an avid Maya shopper and you’d get the little stickers when you reached the tiers to stick on your card and it was a physical representation.

Jacqui: And there was real value vouchers that you received.

Jacqui: So it was a very meaningful, very high value program.

Jacqui: So I’m very interested to see what they do in their return to that program or whatever the next iteration of that might look like.

Jacqui: So yeah, they’re probably my two that I call out.

Jacqui: Great picks.

Jacqui: But I’m not a very, strangely, I don’t know whether it’s because I do what I do, but I’m not a very loyal customer myself.

Carly: Shall we end the episode now then?

Jacqui: But I think it’s because I just like to see what different brands are doing with different programs.

Carly: Absolutely, you’re researching.

Jacqui: Yeah, let’s put it down to that.

Jacqui: But there isn’t one program that I kind of hang my hat on as a punter and say, I go after this brand because of the program.

Jacqui: But I do absolutely have deep respect for how or what of them are built and run.

Jacqui: Good Pair Days is probably the only one that actually drives behavior for me, because it’s fun.

Carly: That’s a reason to pick it as your favorite, definitely.

Carly: As you said, some of the most simple programs from a consumer-facing point of view have such complexity behind the scenes, and that’s what makes it great, and we can respect it as the professionals knowing all of that work that’s going on to deliver it in a simple way to the member and the consumer.

Carly: So that’s great.

Carly: That’s really good.

Carly: And a big shout out to Good Pair Days.

Jacqui: Yeah.

Carly: Good.

Carly: So why loyalty?

Carly: How did you end up in this space, Jackie?

Jacqui: Kind of accidentally, but accidentally on purpose.

Jacqui: So I grew up as a baby marketer in, you know, where old school DM moved into email marketing, always data driven.

Jacqui: I kind of dabbled in brand early on, but I like knowing what is happening.

Jacqui: And I like that kind of instant real information in terms of the impact that your programs and your campaigns are having.

Jacqui: Then during my time at Suncorp, I was there for 10 years and in a place like that, that I was very lucky to work on a whole lot of different projects related to my roles.

Jacqui: But then also related to other project roles and other kind of customer optimization type projects.

Jacqui: And through that, ended up working very closely with our app and customer portal tech teams.

Jacqui: And then as the marketing team developed at Suncorp, there was an opportunity for kind of a customer strategy slash loyalty role and team.

Jacqui: And I had the opportunity to put my hand up and go into the role.

Jacqui: And at the time, I was leading the digital performance team and sort of dabbled in digital marketing for a while.

Jacqui: And that was the other part of it that made me realize that I missed that more customer strategy side of things.

Jacqui: You know, that what drives behavior rather than media buying and that sort of thing.

Jacqui: It was, no, I want to go back to that kind of customer strategy, customer psychology side of things.

Jacqui: And then, you know, I spent five years as a loyalty manager at Suncor before moving to Lifeblood.

Jacqui: And that’s really where I realized that that was my niche in marketing.

Jacqui: And a big part of that was also realizing that especially in a place like Suncor, where the majority of the efforts are put towards acquisition or getting new customers in the door, or getting market share, being in the market, having the message out there.

Jacqui: To be in a team where my role was to provide additional value to customers as much as possible.

Jacqui: That’s what really got me up in the morning.

Jacqui: It was like, I can actually do this to help people.

Jacqui: This is the opportunity to provide more value, to understand the customer.

Jacqui: So that’s really where I fell in love with the concept of customer loyalty.

Jacqui: As I said, it wasn’t kind of an expected or a purposeful move, but that’s also part of my career strategies.

Jacqui: I’ve never had a detailed or a formal career plan, other than being open to saying yes to things when opportunities arise.

Carly: Finding what you love along the way by the sounds of it.

Jacqui: Pardon?

Carly: Finding what you love along the way by the sounds of it.

Jacqui: Yeah.

Jacqui: As I said, I’ve just been fortunate enough to work in big places that presented those opportunities.

Jacqui: That was advice that was given to me by a leader a really long time ago.

Jacqui: Have a flag on the hill in terms of where you think you might want to get to, but don’t be so worried about how you get there, because you might say no to things that will serve you.

Jacqui: That’s how I’ve ended up where I am.

Jacqui: As strange as the process or lack of their old sounds, it’s worked out for me, so I’m very happy about that.

Carly: Great advice by the sounds of it.

Jacqui: Yeah, really good.

Jacqui: It served me well.

Carly: Fantastic.

Carly: You were Suncorp 10 years.

Carly: You realized and found out your love of loyalty.

Carly: How did you then move to your current role, which we’re definitely going to talk a lot about?

Carly: This is a brilliant program in market.

Jacqui: This is where I guess my fairy tale story starts.

Jacqui: My flag on the hill in terms of my career was always to get into a for-purpose role.

Jacqui: I’m married to a social worker.

Jacqui: I come from a family of community people.

Jacqui: I knew inherently that I wanted to be able to do something that served a greater good.

Jacqui: I didn’t really know what that was or what it looked like or when it would be.

Jacqui: But I also inherently understood and appreciated the value of working in a place like Suncorp or ANZ, where I was before, to learn from the best in the business, thought leadership, working with big budgets and big systems, with big customer bases and iconic brands.

Jacqui: I knew I couldn’t get my flag on the hill without learning from those types of roles.

Jacqui: It was great fun.

Jacqui: I got to work with some exceptional people on some great projects.

Jacqui: But I didn’t really know when that, I guess, crossroad would come in terms of what my for-purpose role would look like.

Jacqui: So then late 2023, a friend of mine sent me a job ad in LinkedIn, and it was Loyalty Manager at Australian Red Cross Lifeblood.

Jacqui: And it was just one of those moments where I was like, this, how these roles-

Carly: This sounds like it, yeah?

Jacqui: Like, this role doesn’t exist, which it didn’t, it was a new to organisation role.

Jacqui: But why it was such a, I guess, tipping point moment for me, is I’ve got a personal connection to Lifeblood’s purpose.

Jacqui: I’ve been a blood donor for over 10 years, and I’ve got two family members who are direct recipients.

Jacqui: And all of a sudden, it was that light bulb to say, this is my flag on the hill.

Jacqui: This is what everything’s been working towards.

Jacqui: And I just have to say yes.

Jacqui: This was like everything that I preach in terms of say yes to things, go through the open door, work hard, it will come, it was there.

Jacqui: So yeah, applied for the role, and here I am.

Jacqui: And it’s just, you know, I have to really pinch myself sometimes because to be able to do something that means so much to me and my family in a profession and a skill set that I love and am good at, it’s, you know, that’s very rare, you know?

Carly: Absolutely.

Carly: Well, the rarity, sure, but even the fact that, and we will start talking about this, is the fact that you can genuinely say loyalty saving lives.

Carly: So we’re going to call that out today.

Carly: Loyalty saves lives.

Carly: This is the time we can and you can say that.

Jacqui: I will credit our friend Adam Posner for that phrase.

Jacqui: Fantastic.

Jacqui: We’ve been working with him for almost 12 months.

Jacqui: And he’s been a fantastic part of Lifeblood’s story and what’s to come.

Jacqui: But it wasn’t until he said that where to start with, I was like, oh, come on.

Carly: Not every program can necessarily state much.

Jacqui: But in this instance, yes, we’ve got this amazing program in the market that’s just clocked 12 months.

Jacqui: We’ve had a 17% uplift with a 50% opt-in rate.

Jacqui: These are numbers that most loyalty managers and certainly me in previous loyalty roles could only dream about, which is great.

Jacqui: But then really that 17% translates into over a quarter of a million additional lives saved.

Carly: That is huge.

Jacqui: I’d never thought that was a phrase that I’d be able to say, that we’ve saved 270,000 additional lives through a loyalty reward program.

Jacqui: But in this instance, absolutely.

Carly: So what we’ll do from here, before we go into your metrics and how fabulous it is, let’s describe it a little bit for anyone who may not know the Red Cross Lifeblood Gifts program, tell us about how it works because then we definitely have to talk about the saving lives element.

Jacqui: Yeah, sure.

Jacqui: So Lifeblood or Australian Red Cross Lifeblood are the blood service or the blood bank in Australia.

Jacqui: We’re the only provider of that here.

Jacqui: And we function as part of the health system.

Jacqui: So we have over 80 centers across the country and another 400 odd sites that are managed through mobile units and pop-ups and that sort of thing.

Jacqui: We’ve got 570,000 active donors and we collect about 1.7 million collections a year.

Jacqui: And because of the wonderful progress in health science and technology, the demand for these products is increasing significantly year-on-year, which is great because that’s providing better health outcomes for Australians and saving more lives and the health systems doing a wonderful job.

Jacqui: But we have to ask more of our donor base to be able to keep up with that demand.

Jacqui: Now, rest assured, the blood supply in Australia is fine, but looking ahead, the rate of growth of demand is far higher than the rate of growth of supply.

Jacqui: Lifeblood, one of our key strategic initiatives in that growth pillar is a loyalty program and driving higher frequency of donations through that program.

Jacqui: There’s a whole lot of research done.

Jacqui: There was some trials run across 2022, 2023.

Jacqui: Then in June, 2024, we launched Lifeblood Gifts.

Jacqui: Very simple proposition.

Jacqui: Going back to my answering around the coffee card kind of situation, we kept the proposition simple for a similar reason.

Jacqui: Every three donations, a donor gets to redeem a branded merchandise gift.

Jacqui: Now, any loyalty purists will hear that and say, how on earth is a branded piece of merchandise going to drive behavior change?

Jacqui: But there is a very unique situation that we’re dealing with here, and that is our beautiful donors who love to be advocates, who want to be able to quietly and subtly show off the fact that this is what they do.

Jacqui: Because they’re also the kind of people that don’t necessarily want to shout it from the rooftops that they’re blood donors, but we give them this opportunity to do so in their community.

Jacqui: So every three donations, they get to choose between a reasonable coffee cup, a drink bottle, a blanket, a hat or a beanie.

Jacqui: And we’ve given out, I think about 260,000 of those over the last 12 months.

Jacqui: And that’s what’s been driving that incremental uplift in collections.

Jacqui: Now, what I will say to that is, while the proposition is very simple, there is a very important principle behind it that drives that success.

Jacqui: And that is to make the complex simple and the simple compelling.

Jacqui: And I can’t take credit for that, but it’s something I heard years ago from a leader and it just sticks with me.

Jacqui: Because at Lifeblood, we absorb that complexity for our donors.

Jacqui: So, blood donation is a very complicated process in itself.

Jacqui: It’s clinical.

Jacqui: It needs to be clean.

Jacqui: It needs to be hygienic.

Jacqui: There’s all the checks and balances involved.

Jacqui: Even for me, who’s done it almost 30 times, and we’ve got donors who’ve done it hundreds of times and it’s second nature, we still go through the same process every time to guarantee the safety of the blood supply.

Jacqui: So, we didn’t want a loyalty program to get in the way of that or make that already complex process even more complex.

Jacqui: So, the proposition had to be simple, but we had to work out a way to absorb any of that, I guess, other complexities to make that simplicity compelling.

Jacqui: So, that’s where things like logistic systems, integrated CRM, automated earning and redemption.

Jacqui: So, we don’t ask donors to scan anything, they don’t actually have to say, I’m redeeming, all of that is prompted in the center.

Jacqui: So, it’s very hands off from a customer point of view, which is also not necessarily what would be recommended in a loyalty program, but we had to do that and it works for us.

Jacqui: So, they’re probably the two principles that really drive that success, is that make the complex simple and the simple compelling.

Jacqui: And then also that absorbing that complex intelligence in our systems and our people and our processes to enable that simplicity to work for us.

Carly: That makes so much sense.

Carly: We’re not talking about a commodity donation.

Carly: This is, there’s true meaning behind it.

Carly: And the people showing up are doing it for so many reasons, not just a gift, obviously, but that thank you and recognition of what they’re really, truly giving is enormous.

Carly: So, as you say.

Carly: Absolutely.

Jacqui: Yeah, and I think that’s another really important principle or approach that we take at Lifeblood that might be a little bit different to other places, in that, well, I talked about the fact that this is an important strategic initiative in our growth ambition.

Jacqui: Woven into Lifeblood’s DNA is to recognize, reward and thank donors.

Jacqui: And we’ve been doing it since the service started.

Jacqui: So it’s been really interesting to see those conversations at an exec and a board level that we need to show equal importance for maintaining that reward and recognition, regardless of behavioural change.

Carly: Absolutely.

Jacqui: But also then providing those incentives to impact behaviour change and keeping those two things in equal importance.

Jacqui: And that’s just reflective of the incredible cultural values that Lifeblood hold in very high regard, you know, to make sure that we’re not just putting everything after the lower frequency donors to impact change.

Jacqui: This is equally about recognising those people who every two weeks show up for a plasma donation without fail or every 12 weeks show up for a whole blood donation without fail.

Jacqui: Because the 2% of the population that do that drive 80% of our collections.

Jacqui: So we need to make sure.

Carly: And the meaning behind that is so enormous.

Jacqui: Absolutely.

Jacqui: And they all have, you know, a lot of them have been doing it for a very, very long time and they do it for very personal reasons that vary and that’s, you know, we can segue into our brand platform and talking about, you know, that we recognise that the reason that people do this is the most important part of our story.

Jacqui: But maintaining that reward and that recognition for those high-frequency donors is so important to us because of the power in it.

Carly: This is why I love talking to you about this program, because it is quite unique.

Carly: We’re not talking transactional.

Carly: You are trying to drive repeat behaviour, but for such different triggers and in different methods and different reward mechanisms, because people aren’t just shopping for the next item and increasing basket size and a lot of the things we would, you know, very, very commonly address in loyalty.

Carly: This is a whole nother level that really ties into those personal triggers and really, but then as we’ve talked about, starts to actually save lives.

Carly: So important.

Jacqui: Yeah.

Jacqui: And another thing to add on to that, I mean, you just made me think in terms of what the actual reward is.

Jacqui: So yes, these merchandise items are fun and they’re good, you know, they’re good quality.

Jacqui: They’re better than the stuff that you pick up at an exhibition or an event or what have you.

Jacqui: But we get so much feedback.

Jacqui: There is an SMS that is sent to donors after they donate, and it tells them where their donation is going.

Jacqui: So as a whole blood donor, we don’t say who the patient that it’s going to, but we say, Hi Carly, thanks for donating yesterday.

Jacqui: Your whole blood donation is on its way to the Royal Melbourne Hospital to save up to three lives.

Jacqui: And that’s that connecting our donors to our recipients.

Jacqui: And we know that simply donors understanding where their efforts are going is actually could potentially be more powerful than actually the incentive that we’re offering them.

Jacqui: So we’re trying to look at a way how we amplify that and build on that kind of joining the ends of the loop.

Jacqui: If you like, between the donor and the recipient.

Jacqui: But that is also an indicator of, I guess, that intrinsic motivation.

Jacqui: And that’s what we have to maintain.

Jacqui: We need to maintain that the reason, fundamental reason that people donate, is that intrinsic altruism to provide to their community to save a life, to do something bigger than themselves.

Carly: Absolutely.

Carly: Your fabulous coffee cups are high quality and are great.

Carly: However, that is not the reason they’re coming in.

Jacqui: And also from a regulation point of view, we adhere to a voluntary non-remuneration act from the World Health Organization.

Jacqui: So we have to maintain that the main reason that people donate is altruism, but to give a little bit of a sweetener is okay.

Carly: There’s nothing wrong with saying thank you and recognizing such great donations.

Jacqui: Yeah.

Carly: Well, I guess you’ve definitely hit the emotional side of Loyalty without a doubt in this particular program.

Carly: What else would you like to tell us about some of the measures of success?

Carly: We need to go back to that.

Jacqui: Yeah, for sure.

Jacqui: So when we first launched in June last year, we had an opt-in goal of 180,000, and we had smashed that within three months.

Jacqui: So we pushed our targets out to 250,000 and reached that in six months.

Jacqui: So very quickly we realized, okay, there’s not an engagement problem here.

Jacqui: We’ve done a good job of telling that compelling story around the simple proposition, and also linking it very clearly to our brand purpose.

Jacqui: So I think that’s another, I guess, secret source or thing to keep in mind when you are building out, especially new-to-market loyalty propositions.

Jacqui: Is we didn’t necessarily go to market with a whole new concept around the program.

Jacqui: It was positioned as an enhancement to the existing customer or donor experience, and absolutely lent very heavily into our current life is the reason.

Jacqui: Brand campaign and linking it to those donor stories and those recipient stories.

Jacqui: So we kind of ticked that kind of engagement, and I guess value to customer box pretty quickly.

Jacqui: And then we pivoted to talking about an increase in frequency and incremental donations as quickly as possible.

Jacqui: But not unlike other kind of low touch brands or lower frequency purchase brands, we’ve got a ceiling that we place on donors.

Jacqui: You can only donate a certain amount of times in a 12 month period, depending on who you are and what you donate.

Jacqui: So it was a bit of a slow burn in terms of data to see what success looks like.

Jacqui: But then once we hit that tipping point, we were seeing almost a three week reduction in time between donations, which is pretty significant when we’re talking about two weeks between a pleasant donation.

Carly: The increase in quantity right there, just by increasing frequency.

Carly: Absolutely.

Jacqui: Pleasingly, very quickly, an impact on frequency was evident.

Jacqui: Then over time, we could then see those incremental collections of donations come in the door.

Jacqui: And that’s really then spearheaded what’s to come next.

Jacqui: Because what we also know is there are different, based on a whole lot of very health related scientific studies, there’s different hierarchies or tranches of people who are motivated by different things when it comes to this sort of behaviour.

Jacqui: And branded merchandise unlocks, I guess, the lower level of those people.

Jacqui: But if we’re going to start to unlock the other cohorts of behaviour, we have to start offering different things or more valuable things or offering things in a different way.

Jacqui: So that’s kind of what we’re working towards over the next 12 months.

Jacqui: And then further on from that is a far more dynamic, kind of traditional loyalty platform, you know, digitally integrated type experience, making sure that we maintain that principle of simplicity.

Carly: Absolutely.

Carly: Yeah.

Jacqui: And working out a way to use, I guess, that loyalty technology capability to tap into or leverage that very personal intimate reason that people donate.

Jacqui: So, you know, a lot of very nuanced work to do in what that proposition looks like, but incredibly exciting because while there are similar programs of that ilk in terms of technology driven points based programs internationally, there’s absolutely nothing in Australia from a charity or philanthropic point of view.

Jacqui: But even internationally, we will be leapfrogging what’s in market around the world.

Jacqui: So, this will be an absolute industry leading proposition when we get to market, which is so exciting, not just for us at Lifeblood, but for Australia’s health system, for our donors.

Jacqui: So, yeah, lots of really exciting things to come.

Carly: Oh, yes, that is amazing.

Carly: And a huge congratulations to you and your broader team as well.

Carly: The one unique thing you mentioned a little bit earlier was this ceiling.

Carly: And that’s not necessarily something most loyalty practitioners need to worry about or consider.

Carly: There are some spend thresholds across loyalty programs, sure.

Carly: But it is a unique challenge, should we say, to literally have a ceiling, that there is only so much someone can physically and or health wise contribute here.

Carly: So you’ve got the added complexity of increasing frequency, but hey, not too much, because there’s a certain limit, like an actual imposed limit.

Jacqui: Yeah, absolutely.

Jacqui: And this is again, something that has driven our strategy around that more points based program.

Jacqui: Because then what it allows us to do is to reward for related behaviors that aren’t necessarily direct donation.

Jacqui: Because the other amazing thing that happens in the blood donor community is we have a lot of teams that are created and that a lot of the time, those teams are created around a recipient.

Jacqui: So the recipient themselves might not be able to donate, but they create the team, they rally the troops, they make the appointments, they get people into center.

Jacqui: So how do we reward those behaviors?

Jacqui: Because they are fundamental to an increase in frequency and donation.

Jacqui: Or we’ve got a lot of social sharing that happens in all of the platforms.

Jacqui: So how do we reward for that?

Jacqui: Because that’s an advocacy piece and people are encouraging their friends.

Jacqui: People refer a friend, they bring a friend.

Jacqui: How do we reward for that?

Jacqui: So we’re trying to look at related and parallel behaviors that A, we know absolutely drive an increasing frequency, but then from a loyalty program design point of view, also provide more earning opportunities, which we all know are really important, especially with any kind of points or threshold-based proposition.

Jacqui: So yeah, that’s absolutely something we’re working through.

Jacqui: We also have things like we run media and PR-based appeals.

Jacqui: When we are low on blood supply, people may have seen them out in the wild in the Australian media market.

Jacqui: So we’d love to be able to say to people, if you come and donate for the first time during an appeal, you get double points or double value or whatever the mechanism is.

Jacqui: So I guess encourage, just that little bit more encouragement to come in and donate.

Jacqui: So that’s what’s really exciting about what we’re working towards, is while we know that rewarding for the fundamental behavior of donating works because of what we’ve got in market now, what I think will create a bit of a step change for us, and prove any sort of future loyalty program’s worth is being able to reward for those other behaviors in that wider donor community and recipient community.

Carly: Well, as you touched on, advocacy and creating the community referral, these are loyalty principles and techniques, but in such a unique program and scenario where it matters so much more, and bringing people in when XYZ member may have hit their threshold, but they can really positively influence others around them.

Jacqui: Absolutely.

Jacqui: And we know the power in that, and we inherently understand the power of people sharing their stories to drive that advocacy.

Jacqui: I’ve even got mates who, when I started working for Lifeblood and said, this is what I do, they’re like, oh yeah, I’ve always wanted to do that.

Jacqui: I was like, well, it’s really not that hard.

Jacqui: Here’s the app, make an appointment.

Jacqui: I’ll come with you.

Jacqui: There’s party pies and strawberry milk.

Jacqui: You’ll be fine.

Jacqui: That’s the other thing.

Jacqui: We are very happy for people’s reason for donating, is for the snacks.

Jacqui: If your reason to donate is for snacks, that is an entirely acceptable reason.

Carly: I think we should call that out.

Carly: We should have called that out well earlier, not saving lives, good snacks.

Jacqui: Yeah, this is the other thing.

Jacqui: Everything I’ve said is very serious around saving lives and all those sorts of things.

Jacqui: We do absolutely understand that there has to be some joy and some laughter and a little bit of light-heartedness in what we do to kind of, you know, not counteract, but-

Carly: Balance, balance it.

Jacqui: Balance, yeah, balance what it is that we do.

Jacqui: And even in our current brand platform, Life is the Reason, we’ve got this beautiful hub on our website where we ask donors and recipients to record their reasons, some with a photo, some without.

Jacqui: And there’s a couple of my absolute favourites in there.

Jacqui: In amongst all of the beautiful heartwarming or heart-wrenching stories, there’s things like, it’s the only time I get to have a sausage roll.

Jacqui: For me, it’s like the only place that I can get a strawberry smoothie milk, so very important.

Jacqui: My other favourite was to give the vampires a day off.

Carly: These are good, see, humour, humour and life-saving.

Carly: And loyalty.

Jacqui: And we understand, especially in a lot, for a lot of people in these dark times, you need humour to kind of get through it.

Jacqui: And we recognise that that is a big part of a lot of people’s story.

Jacqui: So, you know, we also appreciate that people who donate aren’t always driven by, you know, trauma or something awful that’s happened.

Jacqui: People are also driven to do it because it’s part of something bigger.

Jacqui: It’s giving back to the community.

Jacqui: It’s also a non-financial commitment from people, you know, we’re not asking people for money.

Jacqui: Lifeblood don’t take financial donations.

Jacqui: We just want you to sit in a chair for a little while and give us whatever it is that you can give us.

Jacqui: So, you know, we understand that that’s part of the message as well.

Carly: That’s amazing.

Carly: The stats, you did touch on them earlier.

Carly: 17 percent, what does that actually mean?

Carly: What does 17 percent mean to you?

Jacqui: So, for the last financial year, that was an additional 93,000 donations.

Jacqui: And that every donation saves up to three lives.

Jacqui: So 93 times three something in the vicinity of 280,000 additional lives saved.

Jacqui: Which is extraordinary.

Jacqui: To be honest, it’s probably more.

Jacqui: But that’s our conservative data point.

Jacqui: But when you get to step back and talk about the success of a loyalty program in that context, it really does, for me, it stops me in my tracks.

Jacqui: Having come from financial services for 15 years, where an increase in retention was people renewing a policy.

Jacqui: And there’s a protective element in that as well.

Jacqui: We’re helping people protect the things that matter to them and all that sort of thing.

Jacqui: But never did I think that that’s a stat that I would be able to be speaking to.

Jacqui: It’s just, yeah, whenever I talk about us, even in Lifeblood, I think because I’m so new, I’ve only been at Lifeblood for 18 months.

Jacqui: I say only because there’s a lot of people who have been there for a while because it’s such a wonderful place to work, it really is.

Jacqui: And I just, I always remind people that while we’re very, we tend to be a bit flippant about that, oh yeah, we’re saving lives.

Jacqui: But like, we actually are.

Carly: Yeah.

Carly: In this case, literally and actually.

Jacqui: Yeah.

Jacqui: And I don’t know whether this is the time to go into it, but I’m on the receiving end, though.

Jacqui: Not me personally, but as we were talking about before, my little three-year-old is a blood recipient, and that’s why he is around today.

Jacqui: And I remember standing in the hospital room with him and the nurse bringing in the tiny little bag of O’Neill blood.

Jacqui: And I’d been a blood donor before then.

Jacqui: So I, you know, this was long, you know, this my loyalty manager role at Lifeblood was a mere glimpse in someone else’s eye.

Jacqui: It was, you know, it wasn’t even a thing.

Jacqui: But the neuro pathways that connected was like, oh, someone like me has sat in a chair somewhere in this country and given their time to donate this blood.

Jacqui: And now this blood is in my kid’s room and he’s being hooked up to it.

Jacqui: And that is saving his life.

Jacqui: And in a split second, I was a parent watching her child become well and at the same time, a blood donor realizing the circle of life.

Jacqui: Effectively, it was this really weird moment of being like, next time I sit in a blood donation chair, I’m going to think about, like you, it’s amazing how much.

Jacqui: And, you know, reflecting back on that now, doing what I do now in this role, that’s that, the powerful art of storytelling.

Jacqui: You know, I understood inherently what the story meant and what the value of my efforts meant on a small scale, just to me.

Jacqui: But all of a sudden, it’s you think about all of the possible people that this impacts.

Jacqui: And you just feel like a very small, tiny speck in a very big universe.

Jacqui: But it’s quite powerful, very, very powerful.

Carly: Well, I think that’s one thing that why I’ve been so excited to bring you on this show and to have this conversation.

Carly: That’s something that you and I bonded over, literally saved.

Carly: We’ve both been through that, saving our son’s life and without it, that wouldn’t have happened.

Carly: And when you say and talk about the enormity of it, there’s just a level of knowing exactly what, whoever that was on the day that chose to donate, the on flow effect is in our world and our lives, one of the biggest you could possibly have.

Carly: I’m so glad you came on the show to share this because it obviously personally means a lot to me, but I hope that it really even triggers more people in Australia and even worldwide to think about that.

Carly: It’s such a huge, huge impact.

Carly: Maybe one person, but it’s the whole world to that person.

Jacqui: I think that’s a beautiful note to finish on.

Jacqui: I could talk to you for hours, Carly.

Jacqui: I have absolutely thrown out any kind of process.

Carly: All the prep we did, where did that go?

Jacqui: I know.

Jacqui: But I think you hit the nail on the head there.

Jacqui: For us at Lifeblood, our biggest competitors are Time and Fear, which is wild from a marketing point of view.

Jacqui: You’re like, how do I manage that?

Jacqui: But the perspective on it is, if you’ve got an hour in your day, not even in your day, if you’ve got an hour in your three months, find a donation chair to sit in.

Jacqui: If you can, not everyone is eligible, and we appreciate that, and we’re not forcing people to do it if they can’t, that’s totally fine.

Paula: Of course.

Jacqui: But if you can and you’re able, and you can find an hour every two to three months, spend it in a donation chair, have a party pie, or there’s vegan options as well, have a snack.

Jacqui: Because that hour or two hours in your life mean that you and I both have cyclone children who are well and healthy, and will make a mark on this world that they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

Jacqui: So, it sounds very dramatic, but that’s really what it is.

Jacqui: Two hours of someone’s time translates to a life for somebody and the people around them.

Jacqui: So, please donate blood.

Carly: Jackie, thank you.

Carly: Like I said, from a personal point of view, but also loyalty point of view, I think so many things you share today are amazing because it takes out the strategy side of loyalty, but applies it for such an emotional way, as a meaningful way.

Carly: So, the biggest thank you.

Carly: I hope to have you back because we’ve got so much more we can talk about, but thank you.

Jacqui: I didn’t even realise we were at time, I could have kept going.

Carly: Well, we can talk for hours, there’s no question.

Carly: And you’ve got such great loyalty experience, thank you.

Carly: But this is such a game-changing program in market, but it deserves the attention and thank you for your time.

Carly: Also, looking forward to seeing the next iteration, you’ve got a big roadmap coming up, which is super exciting.

Jacqui: Very exciting.

Carly: So all the best with that and thanks again for your time.

Jacqui: Thank you, Carly.

Jacqui: I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this.

Jacqui: Thank you so much.

Paula: This show is sponsored by Wise Marketeer Group, publisher of The Wise Marketeer, the premier digital customer loyalty marketing resource for industry relevant news, insights and research.

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