#137: TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY - Let's Talk Loyalty Celebrates with The Wise Marketer and Loyalty Academy

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: So this week marks another exciting milestone for us here in Let’s Talk Loyalty.

PAULA: The show is officially two years old.

PAULA: To help me review what’s already been an incredibly exciting new career, I couldn’t think of anyone better suited to have on the show other than my partners and friends at The Wise Marketer and Loyalty Academy.

PAULA: So to help me look back and forward at the world of loyalty in 2021, I’m chatting with Mike Capizzi, Director of Education at the Loyalty Academy and his partner Bill Hanifin, CEO and Managing Editor of The Wise Marketer.

PAULA: So Mike Capizzi and Bill Hanifin, to celebrate the two year anniversary, I’m so excited.

PAULA: Welcome back both of you to Let’s Talk Loyalty.

BILL: Good day, Paula.

BILL: It’s good to be here.

PAULA: Wonderful guys.

PAULA: Well, listen, I actually can’t believe it’s been two years.

PAULA: I know the three of us have been working together for quite a few years, but this has certainly been a very special experience for me.

PAULA: I think as usual, we’re going to start just talking about all of our favorite statistics.

PAULA: But given, I suppose, all of the work each of us do in the loyalty industry, I really think we can start with almost like a then and now.

PAULA: So here we are.

PAULA: It’s August 2021.

PAULA: So let’s have a look at August 2019.

PAULA: And I suppose essentially what’s happened between all of us in the last two years.

PAULA: So maybe Bill, I’ll start with you.

PAULA: Tell me all about the Wise Marketer then and now.

BILL: Great, Paul, I have to tell you 2019 seems a very long time ago.

BILL: But I can tell you that there’s been tremendous progress and it’s quite amazing.

BILL: Actually, I think back to about two years ago, the Wise Marketer was a property that we were so excited about.

BILL: But then we realized that our database was maybe smaller than we had hoped for.

BILL: It was around 7,500 subscriptions.

BILL: We found this moderate level of engagement.

BILL: We found that a lot of people had changed jobs.

BILL: So we were really in a place of rebuilding the list, trying to understand more about everybody.

BILL: Today, good news, we have almost 11,000 people that are actively engaged.

BILL: That’s about a 38 percent increase, if my math is correct.

BILL: That represents people in about 115 countries.

BILL: When I say engaged, I really mean that the time that people are spending on page, the number of visits every month, the way they send us questions and the way they attend podcasts.

BILL: All of that, I collectively, I just think it was engagement.

BILL: But it’s really amazing over the two-year period to see it just through our efforts, of course, but also organically just to see the audience grow and become much more interested.

PAULA: Well, it is the Global Standard Bill, which is obviously why I wanted our partnership from the outset.

PAULA: So congratulations.

PAULA: I mean, and to have that many people paying attention and opening those emails, I think that is the definition because I think we’ve all been guilty of vanity metrics in the past where we build a list and then discover actually, it’s not the right audience in terms of quality.

PAULA: So you must be super proud of those results.

BILL: Very proud.

BILL: I’m also very proud.

BILL: Honestly, no patronizing involved with our relationship because that’s the other thing that two years ago we were talking about a podcast, this idea of a podcast.

BILL: I know that it was a long time in planning for you because we’d had chats here and there.

BILL: To think about the beginning of it and maybe the courage that you had, the risk that you took to put it out there because it was at a time when there really wasn’t anything of the like out there.

BILL: But to see how it’s grown and the audience that you developed and just, I go different places and talk to people and they’ll mention Let’s Talk Loyalty to me and so I’m just saying, it’s all yours, but we’re also so proud of you.

BILL: It’s sort of like you’re in the family.

BILL: So we’re just really pleased to have a partnership with you and then we see the traffic.

BILL: That’s another place where we see tremendous traffic.

BILL: So I’m sure it’s contributed to our growth as I hope it’s contributed to yours.

PAULA: Undoubtedly, Bill.

PAULA: Thank you for those lovely words, actually.

PAULA: That really means a lot.

PAULA: Mr.

PAULA: Mike Capizzi, I’m sure you have some wonderful growth in the last two years, then and now.

PAULA: Tell us all about the Loyalty Academy since 2019.

MIKE: Well, Paula, you know, similar story, a lot of growth, a lot of success overall.

MIKE: We started with 26 original CLMPs and today we have over 200 in 26 different countries around the world.

MIKE: And most of that’s come in the last two years.

MIKE: We’ve also been doing these educational workshops and certification programs in person for COVID.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: And we’ve done in five countries now, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, and the US.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: And as you know, Paula, we will be conducting our inaugural workshop in the region for the MENA region in Dubai in December.

MIKE: And that’ll be our first in-person event in two years.

MIKE: So we’re very excited about that.

MIKE: And COVID interrupted all of our plans.

MIKE: We were going to do additional workshops in 2021.

MIKE: We’re going to go to Dublin, Mumbai, and we’ll probably go back.

MIKE: We just need to wait for the situation to get a little bit better.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: But I think the interesting thing is in the last two years that CLMP has become the standard.

MIKE: It’s the global standard for professionalism in the loyalty industry.

MIKE: And we’re very, very excited about that.

MIKE: And I’d echo Bill’s comments about Let’s Talk Loyalty because we knew you would do a fantastic job and you were a CLMP and you supported us from the very, very, very beginning.

MIKE: And we strongly believe that podcasts are going to work in our space.

MIKE: In fact, if we had been a little bit more together, we would have put one out there.

MIKE: Sure.

MIKE: Yeah.

MIKE: There wasn’t any, Paula.

MIKE: There wasn’t any.

MIKE: You were the first.

MIKE: And now you’ve got, I don’t know, five imitators.

PAULA: Thank you so much, Mike.

PAULA: You know, and as Bill said, it is terrifying and was terrifying and actually one of the most terrifying statistics because today I’ll share a few of my statistics as well.

PAULA: But one of the ones that I really took to heart was when I did my own kind of podcast training, they said that 90 percent of podcasts never make it past seven episodes.

PAULA: Now as somebody who is guilty of, you know, starting a blog, stopping a blog, starting a book, you know what I mean?

PAULA: It’s like it’s very easy to think that’s the cool thing to be doing.

PAULA: And I’m not saying it just to kind of celebrate anything I’ve done.

PAULA: But to anyone listening, I think podcasting is an extraordinary format, particularly if you have good partnerships.

PAULA: So definitely this is really making it work for me.

PAULA: But yeah, that was a scary statistic just to know how much hard work was going to be involved.

BILL: I’m glad your podcast made it further than my book.

BILL: My book’s still in that planning stage somewhere.

PAULA: Oh dear.

PAULA: Well, there you go.

PAULA: I think that’s like the rest of us.

PAULA: So I’ll add in a couple of statistics actually just to make it, I suppose, a bit more personal for me, as I said, super happy to have the two-year anniversary.

PAULA: We’re recording today on August the 12th and we’ll be releasing this just after the anniversary.

PAULA: So the anniversary itself is August 22nd.

PAULA: So that’s, I suppose, the first highlight.

PAULA: I have five quick highlights I want to mention because everybody listening has been part of this journey all the way along.

PAULA: So for me, launching August 22nd was important personally, it’s actually my mother’s anniversary.

PAULA: So that just kind of really seemed like something that the universe was kind of supporting me in a strange sort of way.

PAULA: Then as I mentioned, getting past seven episodes, that was pretty incredible.

PAULA: Just to be able to say, okay, we’re on to the eighth.

PAULA: Third highlight was definitely partnering with The Wise Marketer and Loyalty Academy.

PAULA: So can’t leave that unsaid.

PAULA: And then just some of the numbers from my side for anybody who is interested.

PAULA: Certainly, when I got past 100 episodes, that was super fun.

PAULA: When we passed 50,000 plays of Let’s Talk Loyalty, that was unbelievable.

PAULA: And my favorite one, which I haven’t told you guys is yet, but I was told recently and I have now verified it.

PAULA: So Let’s Talk Loyalty is actually now in the top 5% of global podcasts in the world.

PAULA: There you go.

PAULA: That’s my little woo-hoo.

PAULA: Very proud of that.

PAULA: It is a lot of woo-hoo.

PAULA: So enough about me now, all the self congratulatory stuff.

PAULA: So I want to get back into talking about our industry.

PAULA: So I think we’ve all seen extraordinary growth, as we said in the last two years, in our individual businesses.

PAULA: But certainly, I suppose, what I’m hearing is that the whole industry is growing.

PAULA: So it’s not just the appetite for content or that we’re all doing new stuff, but I really want to get both of your perspectives on why is the industry of loyalty growing so much at the moment, do you think?

BILL: I’ll kick it off and let Mike just chime in.

BILL: But I think it has a lot to do with two things, with data.

BILL: If you came down to one word, it’s probably data and I think that companies have been talking for a long time about becoming customer centric.

PAULA: Yeah.

BILL: How do they do that?

BILL: Well, they know that they have lots of data available.

BILL: There are all sorts of possibilities in whether or not you like the loyalty program.

BILL: I think marketers inherently knew that somehow working with data in a very efficient manner and using that to know their customers better, would give them a good result.

BILL: There have been all sorts of ways to go about it, but some of them are going away through privacy, regulation, legislations, things like that, or at least they’re being threatened, certainly.

BILL: And then others potentially could go away through things like the changes that Google is announcing.

BILL: And whether it happens next month or two years from now, this is the threat of losing the cookie ability to track people online.

BILL: It means, wait a minute, how do we get to our customers?

BILL: And how do we really understand what they’re doing, what their behavior is like?

BILL: So I’ve seen an absolute resurgence in companies of all sorts and types in understanding customers through data.

BILL: And maybe we’ll get back to it, but if you have looked at The Bond, the loyalty report, their latest edition, which is the 11th edition that just came out recently, they’ve talked about one of the key findings that they highlighted was this disconnect between brand, this perception of brand affinity between customer and brand.

BILL: And they’ve said that marketers are dangerously disconnected from their customers’ feelings about loyalty.

BILL: The statistics board out that people surveyed said they thought they were loyal to a brand, but then their perception of the brand’s loyalty to them was much lower.

BILL: So if you think about that, this potential disconnect, the desperation on the part of brands to try to make good on a promise they’ve made to shareholders and the stock markets and so on, the investor community, that’s why I think in a way that the loyalty, you call it data-driven marketing, call it digital marketing, whichever term you really prefer, absolutely is getting a lot of emphasis right now.

PAULA: Absolutely.

PAULA: Yeah.

PAULA: And it really is.

PAULA: You’re absolutely right, Bill.

PAULA: No matter where you go, the demand, it’s absolutely insatiable.

PAULA: And maybe it’s just something as simple as when there’s so few customers around, you simply can’t afford to lose any.

BILL: That’s right.

BILL: I mean, the age-old math, it sounds tried and true about the value of a customer retained versus the cost to go and acquire a new one.

BILL: But that math is undeniable.

PAULA: Yes, absolutely.

BILL: People realize how important.

PAULA: Absolutely.

PAULA: And Mike, tell us from your perspective, what do you think has driven the explosion?

MIKE: Well, I’m going to follow up on what Bill was just talking about.

MIKE: Everywhere around the world today, Paula, there is an attack against those kinds of systems and platforms that use data in a second party or third party way.

MIKE: And it’s only going to get worse.

MIKE: I can’t say that in every country this practice will be outlawed or regulated, but we seem to be headed in that direction.

MIKE: So what is the best source for all first party data?

MIKE: Well, it’s a loyalty program.

MIKE: You know, when I first learned this business, Paul, a long time ago, a gentleman who was a pioneer, Rick Barlow, taught me that the beauty of a loyalty program is the customer comes in and says, Hi, here I am.

MIKE: Measure me.

BILL: Yeah.

MIKE: And they do that in return for reward and recognition.

BILL: It’s simple.

MIKE: It’s basic human psychology.

MIKE: So we give them reward or we give them recognition.

MIKE: And I’m defining that, Paula, in the broadest possible context.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: Then they will give us their data.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: If we use it responsibly, then we’ve got a pretty strong first-party database going.

MIKE: And I think that’s the explosion.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: The other thing is that we have more channels today than we’ve ever had before.

MIKE: Channels to communicate and channels to transact.

MIKE: We have more means and more mechanisms and more platforms.

MIKE: So everything got cut in half, and then the halves got cut in half, and then what was left got cut in half.

MIKE: It’s incredibly diffuse, and you need a way to tie it all together.

MIKE: And the loyalty program, again, appears to be maybe the best mechanism for doing that.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: So with all this competition and all these channels proliferating, I need a way to have regular understanding of what my customers are saying and doing.

MIKE: And the loyalty program, I think it will continue to be a future driver.

MIKE: And we’ll ride the wave, follow, because there’s still some parts of the world where I see very little penetration.

MIKE: And other parts that are, you know, do we need another loyalty program in the United States?

MIKE: Probably not.

PAULA: No.

MIKE: Probably not.

MIKE: If we did, it would be a very, very, very small business.

PAULA: Absolutely.

PAULA: Yeah.

PAULA: But it’s funny, Mike, because what I’m also, I suppose, paying more attention to, and I probably even did it when naming the show when I look back.

PAULA: But I’m starting increasingly to differentiate between the mindset of loyalty and the mechanics of loyalty, because what I really feel is that, you know, sometimes loyalty programs get a bad rap.

PAULA: You know, they can be seen as expensive.

PAULA: And, you know, how do you justify and prove the return on investment?

PAULA: But actually, when the company goes back to basics, which I think the pandemic has really required us to, then I think that the mindset of being loyal to your customers, which, to your point, Bill, absolutely came out in that Bond Loyalty Report recently.

PAULA: I almost think that that’s really what people are really realizing once again.

PAULA: Am I right?

PAULA: Do you think that that’s part of it?

MIKE: No, I think that there’s a lot of truth to that.

MIKE: You know, we’ve always had this argument about loyalty as a word, loyalty marketing as a program.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: And some people want to take loyalty marketing programs and treat them like it’s loyalty, the word, and it’s not.

MIKE: Yeah.

MIKE: Then, you know, these other guys run around and say there is no loyalty.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: There is no loyalty.

MIKE: What does that say?

MIKE: What does that say for our industry?

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: So some of this is just definitional.

MIKE: Bill and I used to make jokes years ago.

MIKE: We did a lot of work in Central and South America.

MIKE: And, you know, they have two words for the topic.

MIKE: You know, the word for loyalty is different than the word for loyalty marketing.

PAULA: Oh, great.

MIKE: The French do that.

MIKE: I think the Italians do that.

MIKE: But nobody else does it.

MIKE: Over here, we just call it loyalty.

MIKE: So it’s very confusing to a lot of people.

MIKE: But yes, I believe what you said is absolutely part of it.

MIKE: No doubt.

PAULA: Well, I think once again, I’m probably going to be quoting you, Mike, because I know I was quoting you before from your last show and you too, Bill.

PAULA: It’s always great to have these things to refer back to.

PAULA: So, yeah, I think we probably need two words.

PAULA: But anyway, we have one and we’re doing good with those.

PAULA: But just on this whole kind of explosion of growth, I think certainly both of you have done extraordinary developments as well, particularly within, you know, whether it’s the Wise Marketer or Loyalty Academy.

PAULA: So, tell us exactly what’s been going on, first of all, within the Wise Marketer, Bill, to, you know, really to support all of the people who are paying attention.

BILL: Yeah, well, I think, you know, that our core mission is to be the voice of customer loyalty on a global basis.

PAULA: Totally.

BILL: So we’ve tried very hard to not be perceived as just a US voice piece.

BILL: Love that.

BILL: Or even North American, you know.

BILL: So even though our, if you look at our readership and our subscriber base, we probably cover 128 countries.

BILL: And there is a skewing towards North America and then the UK and Australia, and then a very long tail through the rest of those countries.

BILL: But when we look at the interest that we’re getting from sponsors and from inquiries for those who want to have their voice out there, publish an article or white paper or something like that, it’s coming from all parts of the world.

BILL: So we, Mike will tell you, before COVID came around, we had workshops planned in.

BILL: Yes, in the UAE in Dubai, but also in India.

BILL: We’ve done them in Brazil before we’ve been in Canada.

BILL: We were planning in the UK.

BILL: So Mike’s been in Australia, New Zealand, New Zealand region several times.

BILL: So we’re seeing the interest from all parts of the world and we’re getting inquiries from all parts.

BILL: So, you know, one of the things that anybody who’s listening out there that wants to be, you know, a voice and have a partnership.

BILL: All you have to do is let Mike or I know because there are a couple places in the world that we’re trying to fill in a gap or two.

BILL: But for the most part, we have people on the ground, which is the beautiful thing.

BILL: We’ve all done our desktop research at times.

BILL: So we know how it has some shortcomings, right?

BILL: You know, there’s no substitute for me calling you and saying, what’s the market like in Dubai?

BILL: What’s it look like?

BILL: So that’s the kind of network that we have in place right now in so many of these markets.

BILL: And that allows us the ability to get some really solid news and be timely and get some great case studies and examples.

BILL: So yeah, the global aspect of the business is really coming to fruition, which is really great to see.

PAULA: Yeah.

PAULA: And just to pick up on the writing and contributions, Bill, anybody listening to this show, presumably if they do want to send contributions to The Wise Marketer, you’re again happy to receive them and publish them if they’re relevant for the audience.

BILL: Yes, absolutely.

BILL: Yeah, I would invite people to do that.

BILL: We surely were always interested to know what’s happening.

BILL: Market reports or interesting programs, challenges that you’ve solved.

BILL: Just a great story that you want to share with the marketplace.

BILL: That’s what we think other marketers want to hear.

PAULA: Totally.

BILL: As long as you don’t preach or try to sell your product, we’ll edit that out.

BILL: Otherwise, we’d love to have your material.

PAULA: At some point, you’ll have to check first, Bill, just the sheer size of your archive.

PAULA: I don’t know if you know off the top of your head how many articles The Wise Marketer has published over the year, but I’m guessing it’s tens of thousands at this point, is it?

BILL: It’s probably over 15,000, actually, inclusive of all.

BILL: But Mike will tell you that even a more interesting statistic is the vault, something we call the vault, which we think is a singular, very unique asset in this industry.

BILL: But we’ve accumulated resources, assets, which can be white papers or research reports.

BILL: And it’s part of the Loyalty Academy right now.

BILL: We’ll probably make it accessible to people as part of our CLMP community very soon.

BILL: But Mike can tell you there that, I mean, the quantity and the quality of reports and information there is fantastic.

PAULA: It sure is.

PAULA: Absolutely.

PAULA: I can testify to that.

PAULA: And Mike, back to you.

PAULA: And even before you answer, actually, I meant to just, for anyone who doesn’t know CLMP, just to explain it’s a certified loyalty marketing professional.

PAULA: So something I’m very proud to hold as one of my titles.

PAULA: So just in case anybody isn’t aware, obviously Loyalty Academy is easy enough to find.

PAULA: But I think CLMP is also a brand that deserves a huge amount of recognition.

MIKE: Thank you.

PAULA: So tell us about this vault.

MIKE: Well, the Loyalty Academy has been collecting, I’d say mostly research reports.

MIKE: So somebody someplace in the world puts out a research report.

MIKE: And it’s a verifiable source.

MIKE: And it’s a good study of something that is in our industry, around our space.

MIKE: We’ll categorize it and put it in the library.

MIKE: The library is digital.

MIKE: We call it the vault because you can’t get in there unless you’ve got the combination.

MIKE: The combination is you’ve got to be a member of the Loyalty Academy community, of which all the CLMPs, of course, they’re members for life.

MIKE: You can go in there and look for something.

MIKE: Now, we’re real strong on general research and pretty strong on things from North America.

MIKE: Not bad in Australia or South Africa.

MIKE: Not bad.

MIKE: Most of the English speaking countries, Paula.

MIKE: But as we move around the world, we see less research coming out of, you know, markets in Eastern Europe or in Asia Pacific and very, very little coming out of South America.

MIKE: So we’re just trying to build a repository of research reports.

MIKE: We also have presentations and then some what we call thought leadership.

MIKE: We laugh and we say earning a CLMP is like getting a Ph.D.

MIKE: in Loyalty.

MIKE: And you have to write a dissertation.

MIKE: A dissertation is a piece of thought leadership and that goes into the vault.

MIKE: So we have a lot of fun with it, but the research alone, over 200 research reports are in there already.

MIKE: And they’re in their chronological order.

MIKE: But anybody who’s a member of our community can access and maybe use that research report in their daily life.

MIKE: That was the original intention.

PAULA: Brilliant, brilliant.

PAULA: And I should talk about that more as well, Mike.

PAULA: So I’m glad you’ve reminded me because every so often people do come to me and said, you know, where can I find the latest research and reports?

PAULA: So I need to make sure now that we direct them always to that vault.

PAULA: And tell me about the Delphi report as well, Mike, because your previous appearance on Let’s Talk Loyalty, we talked about some amazing research that you’ve done yourself with us as a community of loyalty experts around the world as CLMP.

PAULA: So tell us a bit more about where is the Delphi report at?

MIKE: Well, we did too.

MIKE: And in 2020, we were going to do a third.

MIKE: We collected all the raw material.

MIKE: You participated.

MIKE: And COVID came about and kind of ruined everything.

PAULA: Here we go again.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: Yeah.

MIKE: And it’s the raw data was sitting there earlier this year.

MIKE: And Bill and I took a look at it and said, we might have to go back and refresh some of this because of what happened.

MIKE: We just haven’t been able to do that yet.

MIKE: Excuse me.

MIKE: And then there’s a new one.

MIKE: We just put a report out the other day.

MIKE: You know, around the world, there is this concept that we can take, say, points from a loyalty program and turn it into cash immediately at point of sale.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: And there are a couple of ways that this can be done today in e-commerce land.

MIKE: We see very, very, very little action to do this at any point of sale, especially brick and mortar.

MIKE: So, in essence, I could walk into my favorite store, any store, and I could say, if I use this particular card, it’ll be card length, of course.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: I’ve got 20,000 points over here that I haven’t used.

MIKE: Let me use them today to buy that new shirt I want or my groceries or my gasoline, et cetera.

MIKE: But any point of sale, as long as I use that payment card.

MIKE: We would call that Pay With Points.

MIKE: It was identified in Delphi in 2019 as a trend that would be in the future of loyalty marketing.

MIKE: And it’s starting to happen.

MIKE: So we just published our first report on a topic the other day.

MIKE: We went out and interviewed card issuers and got some pretty good results back about this concept, qualitative sample.

MIKE: Now we’re going out to consumers in the US and we’re going to ask them what they think about the idea.

MIKE: Then we’re going to contrast in a new Delphi report.

MIKE: We’re going to contrast what the consumer says versus what the issuer said.

MIKE: And I’ll run that by some members of the panel.

MIKE: Some people that are very payment savvy, Nick Chambers and Simon Rolls and guys like that.

MIKE: They know the payment space really well.

MIKE: They know the loyalty space.

MIKE: So we’ll have that before the year’s out.

MIKE: We could do one a month.

MIKE: There’s so many topics, Paula.

MIKE: What’s starting to happen is that we’ve started to do wise marketer research for clients.

PAULA: Oh, nice.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: And that’s been taking up a lot of our research endeavors.

MIKE: You know, clients pinning us to conduct market research for them.

MIKE: We think that’s going to grow because people want.

MIKE: We know a lot about the industry and we have a lot of connections to people in the industry.

MIKE: And people want to know what’s going on.

MIKE: Sometimes they’ll go to a regular marketing research shop and start talking loyalty and nobody knows what they’re talking about.

PAULA: Sure.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: So we outsource the actual collection of the data, but the design of the surveys, the interpretation of the results, we do ourselves.

MIKE: So that’s going to continue to grow in the future.

PAULA: OK.

PAULA: Yeah.

PAULA: Well, that’s the very definition to me of a high quality problem, Mike, then.

PAULA: People keep asking us to do more work, you know, and it’s great work.

PAULA: So you’ll have to make sure to send me all of those links so we can put them in the show notes as well.

PAULA: And as and when you publish them, for sure, we’ll share them with the audience.

PAULA: Wonderful.

PAULA: So and actually, Bill, I wanted to ask you about something I know you’ve been working very hard on for the last couple of months, which is all about all of us women in loyalty.

PAULA: So tell us all about the inspiration for this, because I think it’s lovely what you’re doing and super inspiring.

PAULA: I’ve watched plenty of them myself.

PAULA: So tell us all about Women In Loyalty.

BILL: It’s very exciting, very exciting.

BILL: Thanks, Paula.

BILL: It’s Women In Loyalty was an inspiration from just a reality check that we did.

BILL: Maybe walking in so many rooms, we said Mike and I and some others on our team looked at each other and said, did you ever notice that most of our clients are female?

BILL: And did you ever notice that when you went to a large conference that half the room was female?

BILL: And so it’s such a strong representation of women in the business.

BILL: And there’s so much brilliance about and oftentimes you don’t get to hear it.

BILL: And so we thought we really needed to have some kind of a venue.

BILL: It’s recognition is the first stage.

BILL: And I was thinking about women in loyalty in three ways.

BILL: So recognition is kind of the stage that we’re in right now.

BILL: And I think we’re up to maybe episode number six, something like that.

BILL: We’ve got next Wednesday, we have Leslie Seda from Impact 21, who’s a lady that literally her story is amazing.

BILL: You have to listen to it.

BILL: But she was selling chemical lubricants back in the early stages of her career, where she will readily tell you she was the only female in a room for dark suits.

BILL: And I treated her as you can imagine.

BILL: But she’s progressed to be probably one of the most well-known people in customer loyalty and the convenience and fuel space, as you know.

BILL: But there’s so many good stories.

BILL: And we’re fortunate that sponsorship, of course, we were seeking sponsorship for some of these.

BILL: But it didn’t really take much of an outreach effort because we had companies like FIS and Tenarity and Loyalty One almost immediately.

BILL: And now I think Epsilon, but immediately stepping up and saying, we love this idea.

BILL: We want to support it.

BILL: So we have probably a calendar that’s assigned all the way through probably January of next year.

BILL: So we have and we’re probably about every three weeks we’ll have an episode because we’re trying to put people in.

BILL: But just to recognize the contributions of people on a career level, kind of looking at career highlights.

BILL: But then the conversations, as you probably heard, really also delve into what kind of challenges should you face as a person coming, building your career, reaching this level where you are.

BILL: And then there’s a bit of mentorship in there, too.

BILL: We think that’s incredibly valuable.

BILL: And what we’re really thinking is recognition for now, but then community.

BILL: So we have a plan to create a community.

BILL: And it could very well be a community that we lovingly push off from the dock, like a ship you said, sail, and we’ll let the community guide itself.

BILL: We’ll see how it all works out, but a community where everybody in women and loyalty can talk to each other, share ideas.

PAULA: We love that as women, Bill.

PAULA: I don’t need to tell you, we women, we love to talk to each other.

BILL: So the collaboration, the community, all of that, I think this is not a campaign.

BILL: That’s what I wanted to tell you.

BILL: It’s not a campaign, but it’s something that really I think has a life and will go on.

BILL: And we’re just very, very excited about it.

BILL: And we’ve gotten a great response.

BILL: And every one of the episodes I’ve listened to, I’ve made little notes.

BILL: Like I’m reading some leadership book or I’m reading a business book.

BILL: And I’ve said, oh my gosh, look what she said.

BILL: Look what she said.

PAULA: Amazing.

PAULA: And like that, absolutely as well.

PAULA: And it was one of your early guests.

PAULA: And forgive me, I can’t remember the lady’s name, but she specifically talked about the idea of taking an adult gap year.

PAULA: And it was between two big jobs.

PAULA: And I was just, honestly, I haven’t stopped thinking about that, Bill.

PAULA: So I don’t know about you, but I never took a gap year when I went to, you know, when I left school and started working.

PAULA: So I keep kind of going, when can I do that?

PAULA: I think this is a genius idea.

PAULA: But that’s all you need is one big idea just to kind of change, you know, the whole way you look at your career.

BILL: That’s right.

BILL: No, absolutely.

BILL: Absolutely right.

BILL: So yeah, it’s been wonderful.

BILL: We have some extensions in mind.

BILL: We’ll probably continue on with some other ideas because there’s some other segments within our industry that probably deserve recognition as well.

BILL: But this Women In Loyalty, it’s been fantastic.

PAULA: Yeah.

PAULA: Yeah.

BILL: I’m very happy with it.

BILL: Please be able to highlight these ladies.

PAULA: Of course.

PAULA: And I think you’re right as well to pick up on Community Bill because it’s a topic that comes up on this show all of the time.

PAULA: I know it comes up in your own articles as well on The Wise Marketer.

PAULA: And I think we all do crave that.

PAULA: And again, I think the pandemic has only accelerated the demand for people to be able to connect with people they trust.

PAULA: And for me, certainly, with my podcasting hat on, I go to those podcasting groups that I know connect with each other, say, for example, on Facebook, because I can get great answers and I can trust people.

PAULA: And I really want to have the same with loyalty.

PAULA: So I think it’s extraordinary what you’re doing.

BILL: Thanks so much.

BILL: And that’s the word.

BILL: That’s the other word, trust.

PAULA: Right.

PAULA: Yeah.

PAULA: Exactly.

BILL: It’s so necessary for us to be able to talk to people.

BILL: It’s, you know, the idea of having a personal board of advisors, you know, you probably have that group, small group of people that you go to and I do myself.

BILL: And it’s been it’s incredibly important, but you have to have that small group that you can trust.

BILL: And so that’s what we’re hoping we can foster as part of that community is people that just naturally find affinity for one for another and they end up helping each other.

PAULA: Wonderful.

PAULA: Yeah.

PAULA: I think it’s always the case we don’t know what we don’t know.

PAULA: And it’s only then when a client asks or a colleague or something, you go one moment please.

PAULA: And you go off and you know, as you said, check in with the community.

PAULA: Brilliant.

PAULA: So the last section that I wanted to touch on guys was what’s coming next.

PAULA: So future developments and I might start Mike with you on the loyalty Academy side.

PAULA: I know you’re extremely ambitious and very excited, particularly that you’re coming to Dubai in December.

PAULA: So let’s have a chat about that.

PAULA: What exactly is the plan for later in the year?

MIKE: Well, we are going to run a full scale certification workshop.

MIKE: It will take two and a half to three days.

PAULA: Okay.

MIKE: We’re going to run it in Dubai working on hotel contracts as we speak.

MIKE: But I’ve got two very good friends of yours who are professionals who are knowledgeable about the marketplace throughout the Gulf region.

PAULA: Sure.

MIKE: And that would be Manna Fernandez and Chaya Basi who was on your show a couple weeks ago, I think.

PAULA: She sure was.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: Manna and Chaya run a consulting firm called Quick Brown Fox.

MIKE: Manna himself has been certified.

MIKE: He went through the whole thing on his own.

PAULA: Yes, he did.

MIKE: And they’re going to help me from a faculty point of view.

MIKE: Make sure we deliver context that is relevant to the region in addition to standard principles and practices of loyalty marketing that we always go through.

MIKE: So that’ll be December 6, 7 and 8.

MIKE: We’ve got everything figured out except for the hotel contract.

MIKE: But I’ll tell you this, and we’ve done this before, Paula.

MIKE: We continue to invest back into our industry.

MIKE: We believe in that.

MIKE: We believe in the industry.

MIKE: A lot of people say they do and they believe in their brand.

MIKE: And again, I go back to the way I learned this space.

MIKE: You’ve got to invest back into the entire industry.

MIKE: So we’ve been giving away scholarships.

MIKE: We did some with you on your first anniversary.

PAULA: Yes, last year.

MIKE: Well, it’s your second anniversary and we’re coming to Dubai.

PAULA: Right?

PAULA: Yeah.

PAULA: All right.

MIKE: So I’ll put a link in after the podcast.

MIKE: So you can include it in the notes.

MIKE: Anybody who listens to this podcast when it becomes live, which I think you said was in two weeks.

PAULA: Exactly.

PAULA: Yes.

PAULA: August 26th.

MIKE: Anybody who listens can use a special Paula Thomas code.

PAULA: Okay.

MIKE: And one of them will be, no, I’ll tell you what, we’ll make it better rather than making it one scholarship.

MIKE: We’ll give them all a discount to do to the event in Dubai so they don’t have to pay retail price.

PAULA: Oh, wonderful.

PAULA: Okay.

PAULA: It’s an exclusive Let’s Talk Loyalty, Loyalty Discount.

MIKE: Yeah, it’s the Paula code.

PAULA: Oh, I love that, Mike.

PAULA: Brilliant.

MIKE: Okay.

MIKE: We’re going to do that in December.

MIKE: In 2022, if the travel situation improves, Paula, and it isn’t some places and it isn’t.

MIKE: Yeah.

MIKE: Then like, you know, Ireland, you know that well, and you were there this summer.

MIKE: But one week, we’re in one week, we’re out one week, we’re in and then, you know, I talked with the partners over there and they said, yeah, we can do an event, but we can only have 50 people, which means you can’t make any money.

MIKE: They can’t.

MIKE: That’s impossible.

MIKE: So we’re going to go to Dublin.

MIKE: We want to go to India really badly.

MIKE: We have a good partner over there and they’re probably in the worst go.

MIKE: We’ve got some people in Southeast Asia, most notably Vietnam and Singapore, who would like to license our material translated into native tongue and deliver it to their respective communities.

MIKE: But they can’t go in person either, so it’s a problem, but it’s a temporary problem.

MIKE: I think that travel bans will be lifted at some point, and we’ll be able to go.

MIKE: That’s a big part of the future.

MIKE: We’re always looking for new ways to collaborate.

MIKE: We put out a lot of new courses the last two years, and we’re up to 25 courses.

MIKE: We had 15 two years ago, and then we keep bringing in this guest lecture to co-create and deliver brand new material.

MIKE: So we’ve done it on mobile, payments, liability, gamification, loyalty fraud.

MIKE: These were all guest lecturers.

PAULA: Wonderful.

MIKE: And there are people that are coming from different markets of the world, seven different markets represented, as well as our board.

MIKE: Our board has got four from the US, one from Canada, one from the UK, one from New Zealand.

MIKE: And the participation helps us drive new course development.

MIKE: So we’re going to continue to do that.

MIKE: The space is changing, Paula.

MIKE: It changes every day.

MIKE: It gets more advanced.

MIKE: It gets something new.

MIKE: We’ve got to cover these topics.

MIKE: And even if it’s just an elective course.

MIKE: And sometime in the future, we might have enough courses that will actually sit down and go to the beach and write a book.

PAULA: There we go.

PAULA: We’ve all been talking about that, huh?

PAULA: We’ve got a lot of writing to do between us, huh?

MIKE: Well, you know, Bill would write a story book.

MIKE: I would write a textbook.

MIKE: That’s the difference between the two.

MIKE: That’s why we’re such great partners.

MIKE: I’m interested in telling everybody about all this stuff that way.

MIKE: I’m interested in laying down basic principles, practices, accelerated schemes, if you will, the use, proper use of data, as well as all the communication tactics and reward tactics that exist.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: And if you put it into a guide, into a book, I think more programs would look better.

MIKE: And some of this criticism that, you know, loyalty is bribery, some of this criticism would just kind of go away.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: We have to do things the right way and it’s changing.

MIKE: So I look forward to the next couple of years because I think you’re going to see a rapid pace of change just as we have seen in the last couple of years.

PAULA: Wonderful.

PAULA: Yeah.

PAULA: You’ve reminded me of the book, you know, that I should be writing.

PAULA: Let’s see where I am on my third anniversary.

PAULA: But a few people have said to me because, you know, obviously we opened this show with a favorite loyalty statistic that actually there’s been some really good ones shared over the last two years.

PAULA: So at some point when I have, you know, five minutes to spare, I should probably sit down and go, okay, let’s write a book on, you know, favorite loyalty statistics over two years.

PAULA: I don’t know.

PAULA: Anyway, it’s on the on the to do list.

PAULA: What can I tell you?

PAULA: A lot of possibilities, a lot of possibilities.

PAULA: And Bill, from your perspective, then what’s what’s next for the wise marketer?

BILL: Quite a bit.

BILL: You’ll one thing you’ll that you did right around the corner that you may not notice is a new website.

BILL: So we’ve been working on a new website format for quite a while.

BILL: So a little bit of sprucing up on the inside as much as it is on the outside.

BILL: But that’s essentially something that you’ll see very soon.

BILL: And then Mike didn’t mention it probably only because it’s a work in progress, but we’ll also see a new learning management system that we’re planning to put into the Loyalty Academy.

BILL: So the whole experience around learning is going to change.

BILL: It’s going to be what it should be.

BILL: So we’ve always felt like the content is so strong and we just wish the experience was just a tad bit more modern.

BILL: So anyway, that’s happening.

BILL: But probably the big thing is we’re just officially announcing the Wise Marketer Research Group.

BILL: So we felt like with the accumulation of knowledge with the vault, Mike talked about that there was an opportunity for us to do a couple of different types of research, some just for on our own account that we can publish so that the for the benefit of the marketplace in general.

BILL: But also we have so many companies, organizations coming to us and saying, you know, I really am trying to figure out I’m trying to answer this question.

BILL: And so, you know, I dare say we’re probably the least biased, most independent, you know, sort of, I hope trustworthy, right?

BILL: So I think that it’s a natural thing.

BILL: So we’re satisfying a natural market demand there with people just saying, gee, I’d like to know what is the trend here?

BILL: What’s happening?

BILL: What are the opinions?

BILL: So Wise Marketer Research will be able to provide those kind of research projects, probably also just do related work around that if there are other kind of market intelligence or competitive information surveys, all those sort of geographic comparisons.

BILL: So that’ll all be part and parcel of Wise Marketer Research.

BILL: And then the other thing I just wanted to mention because Mike just triggered a thought.

BILL: We’ve been blessed with a wonderful host, her name is Cindy Faust, who stepped up to become our host for Women In Loyalty.

BILL: And naturally, we thought there’d be a commercial arrangement there.

BILL: And so we talked to her about that.

BILL: And I don’t know if Cindy was formerly a senior officer with AMIA in North America, instrumental in that business and just a wonderful person.

BILL: And so it’s what we’ve run into that makes us love this business so much.

BILL: She came back to us and said, you know what, I like Women In Loyalty so much.

BILL: I really don’t want any compensation from whatever efforts I have.

BILL: I’d rather see you take some equivalency and put it into a scholarship fund.

BILL: So that’s something else that I’m not quite ready to announce the exact way it works.

BILL: But that is going to be a reality, thanks to Cindy, that we’re going to create a little scholarship in Women In Loyalty and we’ll acknowledge her as part of it because she’s been so gracious in that.

BILL: So these are the kind of things that make you feel like you’re doing the right thing when people give back like that.

PAULA: Wonderful.

PAULA: Well, well done, Cindy.

PAULA: That’s extraordinary.

PAULA: So on that note, Bill, with all of that incredible stuff, as we’ve said, The Wise Marketer has been on an extraordinary journey already, about 15,000 articles available for people and obviously every single week, fabulous new content being added.

PAULA: So if people do want to reach out to you, Bill, first and foremost, where can they reach you?

BILL: Really, the best thing, of course, my personal email address, which is Bill H at the wisemarketer.com.

BILL: But there’s also a contact us page there.

BILL: And yeah, that circulates amongst all of us.

BILL: So anything, whether you’re interested in submitting some content or asking about research or interested in participating in an event, anything like that, Women In Loyalty, just go right to that contact us page.

PAULA: Wonderful.

PAULA: Wonderful.

PAULA: And Mr.

PAULA: Capizzi, where can people find you if they have any questions or comments on the Loyalty Academy?

MIKE: Same thing.

MIKE: The best way is to fill out a contact us form on the Loyalty Academy website.

MIKE: I read those every day.

MIKE: We get requests every day.

PAULA: Wonderful.

MIKE: Margaret is also a great resource for us, Paula.

MIKE: I think you know that.

PAULA: Yeah.

MIKE: She kind of runs all things faculty and she reads those as well if I’m traveling or something.

MIKE: So just contact us form at the Loyalty Academy and subscribe to The Wise Marketer people.

MIKE: It’s free.

PAULA: It is.

PAULA: It’s amazing.

MIKE: Yeah.

MIKE: And don’t forget to follow the Loyalty Academy on LinkedIn.

PAULA: Okay, perfect.

PAULA: Well, listen, I will make sure to put links to both of you and all of the fantastic assets that we’ve talked about today.

PAULA: So just want to say, so happy on my second birthday to be joined by both of you guys.

PAULA: Really means a lot that you’re here today.

PAULA: So Mike Capizzi, Director of Education at the Loyalty Academy and of course, Bill Hanifin, Chief Executive Officer at The Wise Marketer.

PAULA: Thank you so much from Let’s Talk Loyalty.

MIKE: Happy birthday, Paula.

PAULA: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights and research.

PAULA: The Wise Marketer 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 thewisemarketer.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.

PAULA: And thanks again for supporting the show.