Welcome to “Let’s Talk Loyalty”, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m your host, Paula Thomas, and if you work in loyalty marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas for loyalty specialists around the world.So this week marks another exciting milestone for us here. And that’s total loyalty. If show is officially two years old, 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 market tier and loyalty academy.
48s
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So to help me look back and forward at the world of loyalty in 2021, I’m chatting with Mike director of education at the loyalty academy and his partner, bill Hanafin CEO, and managing editor of the wise marketeer. So Mike, a PC and bill Harrison to celebrate the two year anniversary. I’m so excited.
1m 14s
1
Welcome back. Both of you to let’s talk loyalty.
1m 16s
2
Good day, Paula. It’s good to be here.
1m 19s
1
Wonderful guys, but listen, I actually can’t believe it’s been two years and 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. And I think as usual, we’re going to start just talking about all of our favorite statistics put 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 Ben. And now, so here we are, it’s oldest 2021. So let’s have a look at August, 2019, and I suppose essentially what’s happened between all of us in the last two years. So maybe bill, I’ll start with you. Tell me all about the wise market here then.
2m 2s
2
Great, Paul, I have to tell you 2019 seems a very long time ago, but I can tell you that there’s been tremendous progress and it’s, it’s quite amazing. Actually, I think back to about two years ago, the wise marketer was a property that we were so excited about, but then we realized that our database was maybe smaller than we had hoped for. It was around 7,500 subscriptions that we did. We found this moderate level of engagement. We, we found that a lot of people had changed jobs. And so we were really in a place of rebuilding the list and more about everybody. And today, good news. We have almost 11,000 people that are actively engaged. That’s that’s about a 38% increase if my math is correct.
2m 43s
2
And that represents people in about 115 countries. And, and when I say engaged, I really mean that the time that people are spending on page, the number of visits every month, that the way they send us questions and the way they attend podcasts, all of that collectively, I just think it was engagement, but it’s really amazing over the two year period to see it just through, through, yeah. Through our efforts, of course, but also organically just to see the audience grow and become much more
3m 12s
1
Interested for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it is the global standard bill, which is obviously why I wanted our partnership from the outset. So congratulations. I mean, and to, 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. So you must be super proud of those results.
3m 38s
2
Very proud of him. I’m also very proud, honestly, no patronizing involved with, with our relationship, because that’s the other thing that two years ago, we were talking about a podcast, this idea of a podcast. And I know that it was a long time in planning for you. Cause we had, we’d had chats here and there to think about the beginning of it. And, and maybe the courage that you had, the risks that you took to put it out there because it was at a time when there really wasn’t anything of this, of the lake out there, but to see how it’s grown and, 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, you know, it’s, it’s all yours, but we’re also so proud of you.
4m 23s
2
It’s sort of like you’re in the family. So we’re, we’re just really pleased to have a partnership with you. And then we see the traffic. That’s another place where we see tremendous traffic. So I’m sure it’s contributed to our growth as I hope it’s contributed to yours.
4m 38s
1
So undoubtedly bill, thank you for those lovely words, actually, that, that, that really means a lot. And Mr. Micah PZ, I’m sure you have some wonderful and growth in the last two years then. And now tell us all about the loyalty academy since 2019.
4m 53s
3
Well, Paula, you know, similar story, a lot of growth, a lot of success overall. I mean, we started with 26 original CLM PS and today we have over 226 different countries around the world. And most of that’s coming the last two years, we’ve also been doing these educational workshops and certification programs in person before COVID and we’ve done them in five countries now, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, and the us. And as you know, Paula, we will be conducting our inaugural workshop in the region for the MENA region in Dubai, in December.
5m 39s
3
And that will be our first in-person event in two years. So we’re very excited about that. Wow, no, COVID interrupted all of our plans. We were going to do additional workshops in 20 and 21. We’re going to go to Dublin by and we’ll probably go back. We just need to wait for the situation to get a little bit better. Yeah. But I think the interesting thing is in the last two years that CLMP has become the standard. It’s the global standard for professionalism in the loyalty industry. And we’re very, very excited about that. 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.
6m 25s
3
And we strongly believe that podcasts were going to work in our space. In fact, if we had been a little bit more together, we would’ve put one out there. There wasn’t any Paula there wasn’t that you were the first and now you’ve got, I don’t know, five imitators. So congratulations.
6m 42s
1
Thank you so much, Mike. 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. 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% of podcasts never make it past seven episodes. Now, as somebody who is guilty of, you know, starting a blog, stopping a blog, starting a book now, you know what I mean? It’s like, it’s very easy to think that’s the cool thing to be doing. And I’m, I’m not saying it just to kind of celebrate anything I’ve done, but to anyone listening, I think podcasting is an extraordinary format.
7m 24s
1
And particularly if you have good partnerships, so definitely this is really making it work for me. And, but yeah, that was the scariest statistic. Just to know how, how much hard work was going to be involved.
7m 34s
2
I’m glad your podcast made it in my book planning stage somewhere. Oh
7m 40s
1
Dear. Well, there you go. I think that’s like the rest of us. So I did a couple of statistics actually just to, to make it, I suppose, a bit more personal for me, as I said, super happy to have the two year anniversary. And we’re recording today on August the 12th and we’ll be releasing this just after the anniversary on. So the anniversary itself is August 22nd. And so that’s, I suppose the first highlight I have five quick highlights. I want to mention because everybody listening has been part of this journey all the way along. So for me am launching August 22nd was an important personally and it’s actually my mother’s anniversary. So, and that just kind of really seemed like something that the universe was kind of supporting me in, in a strange sort of way.
8m 24s
1
And then as I mentioned, getting past seven episodes, that was pretty incredible just to be able to say, okay, we’re onto the eighth and third highlights was definitely partnering with the wise marketer and loyalty academy. So complete fast onset. And then just some of the numbers from my side, for anybody who is interested. And certainly when I got past a hundred episodes, that was, that was super fun. And when we passed 50,000 plays of let’s talk, loyalty got was unbelievable. And my favorite one, which I told you guys yet, but I was told recently and I have now verified it. So let’s talk Lloyd is actually now in the top 5% of global podcasts in the world.
9m 5s
1
So there you go. That’s very proud of that. So yeah, so it is a lot of Woohoo. So enough about me now, all the self-congratulatory stuff. So I want to get back into talking about our industry. So I think we’ve all seen extraordinary growth. And as we said in the last two years in our individual businesses, but certainly I suppose what I’m hearing is that the whole industry is growing. So it’s not just the appetite for content or that we’re all doing new stuff, but I really wanted to get both of your perspectives on why is the industry of loyalty growing so much at the moment, do you think,
9m 46s
2
No, I’ll kick it off and let Mike just chime in. But I think it has a lot to do with, with two things with data. You know, when you, 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. Yeah. How do they do that? Well, they know that they have lots of data available. There are all sorts of possibilities and whether or not you like the loyalty program. I think marketers inherently knew that somehow working with data in a very efficient manner and using that to, to know their customers better would give them a good result. And there’ve been all sorts of ways to go about it. But some of them are, some of there are going away through privacy, regulation, legislations, things like that, or at least they’re being threatened certainly.
10m 32s
2
And then others potentially could go away through things like the, the changes that Google is announcing and whether it happens next month or two years from now, this the threat of losing the cookie and the ability to attract people online screens, wait a minute, how do we get to our customers? And how do we really understand what they’re doing? What their behavior is like. So I’ve seen an absolute resurgence in, in companies of all sorts and types in understanding customers through data and there. And if we, it, maybe we’ll get back to it. But if, 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 perception of brand affinity between customer and brand.
11m 22s
2
And they’ve said that marketers are dangerously disconnected from their customer’s feelings about loyalty. So the statistics district’s board out, the people surveyed said, they thought they were loyal to a brand, but then their perception of the brands, loyalty to them was much lower. 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 stock markets. And so on the investor community. That’s why I think in a way that, that, you know, loyalty call it, data-driven marketing, call it digital marketing, you know, whichever term you really prefer. Yeah, absolutely. Is getting a lot of emphasis right
12m 2s
1
Now. Absolutely. Yeah. And it really is. You’re absolutely right, bill, you know, no matter where you go, I mean the demand it’s, it’s absolutely insatiable and maybe it’s just, you know, something as simple as when there’s so few customers around is simply can’t afford to lose any, you know,
12m 17s
2
That’s right. That’s right. I mean the age old math, it sounds tried and true about the value of a customer retain versus the cost to go and acquire a new one. But that math is undeniable. People realize how important.
12m 31s
1
Absolutely. And Mike, tell us from your perspective, what do you think has driven the explosion?
12m 37s
3
I’m going to follow up on what bill was just talking about 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. And it’s all going to get worse. I can’t say that in every country, this practice will be outlawed or regulated, but we seem to be headed in that direction. So what is the best source for all first party data? Well, it’s a loyalty program. Yeah. And when I first learned this business, Paul, a long time ago, gentlemen, who was a pioneer, Rick Barlow taught me that the beauty of LOD program is the customer comes in and says, hi, here I am.
13m 28s
3
Measure me. Yeah. And they do that in return for reward and recognition. It’s simple, basic human psychology. So if we give them reward or we give them recognition and I’m defining that poly in the broadest possible context, then they will give us their data. We use it responsibly. Then we’ve got a pretty strong first party database going. And I think that’s the explosion. The other thing is that you’ll have more channels today than we’ve ever had before channels to communicate and channels to transact. We have more means and more mechanisms and more platforms.
14m 8s
3
So everything got cut in half and then the halves got cut in half and then got cut in half it’s it’s, it’s incredibly diffused and you need a way to tie it all together. And the loyalty program, again, appears to be maybe the best mechanism for doing that. 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 the loyalty program. I think it’ll continue to be a future driver and we’ll, we’ll ride the wave follow because there’s still some parts of the world where I very little penetration and other parts that are, you know, do we need another loyalty program in the United States?
14m 58s
3
Probably not. No, probably not. If we did, it would be a very, very, very small business.
15m 5s
1
Absolutely. Yeah. But it’s funny Mike, because what I’m also am I suppose, paying more attention to, and I probably even did it when naming the show when I look back, but I’m, 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 already programs get a bad rap, you know, they can be seen as expensive and you know, how do you justify and prove the return on investment, 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 royalty report recently.
15m 49s
1
I almost think that that’s really what people are really realizing once again, am I right? Do you think that that’s part of it? No.
15m 56s
3
I, I think that there’s a lot of truth to that. You know, we’ve always had this argument about loyalty has word loyalty marketing as a program. And some people want to take loyalty marketing programs and treat them like it’s loyalty, the word, and it’s not. And then, you know, these other guys run around and say, there is no loyalty. There is no loyalty. What does that say? What does that say for our industry? You know, some of this is just definitional bill and I used to make jokes years ago, we did a lot of work in central and south America. And you know, they have to, they have two words for the topic.
16m 37s
3
You know, the, the word for loyalty is different than the word for loyalty marketing. I think the Italians do that, but nobody else does it over here. We just call it loyalty. So it’s very confusing to a lot of people, but yes, I believe what you said is absolutely part of it. There’s no doubt.
16m 55s
1
Okay. Well, I think once again, I’m probably going to be quoting you Mike, because I know it was coaching you before from your last show and YouTube. So it was great to have these things to refer back to. So yeah, I think we probably need two words, but anyway, we have one and we’re doing good with those. And, but just on this whole kind of explosion of growth, I think certainly both of you have done extraordinary at developments as well, particularly within, you know, whether it’s the wise marketer or loyalty academy. So, so tell us exactly what’s been going on first of all, within the wise market bill to, you know, really, to, to support all of the people who are paying attention. Yeah. Well,
17m 32s
2
I think, you know, that our core mission is to be the voice of customer loyalty on a global basis. So we’ve tried very hard to not be perceived as just to a us or even north American, you know? So we, even though our, if you look at there, our readership and our subscriber base, we would probably cover 128 countries. 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. But when we look at the, the interest that we’re getting from sponsors and from inquiries, for those who want to have their voice out there and publish an article or white paper or something like that, it’s coming from all parts of the world.
18m 14s
2
So we, Michael tell you, before COVID came around, we had workshops planned in yes. In the UAE, in Dubai, but also in India. We’ve done them in Brazil before we’ve been in Canada. We were planning in the UK. So Mike’s been in Australia, New Zealand, New Zealand region several times. So we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re seeing the interest from all parts of the world and we’re getting inquiries from all parts. So, you know, one of the things, anybody who’s listening out there that wants to be, you know, a voice and have a partnership, all you have to do is that Mike or I know because there are a couple places in the world that we’re trying to fill in a gap or two, but for the most part, we have people on the ground, which is the beautiful thing.
18m 59s
2
You know, we’ve all done our desktop research at times. So we know how it’s yeah. Or here’s some shortcomings. Right. You know, there’s no substitute for me calling you and saying, what’s, what’s the market like in Dubai, what’s it look like? So that, that’s the kind of network that we have in place right now in so many of these markets. And that allows us the ability to get some really solid news and be timely and get some great case studies and examples. And so that, yeah, the, the global aspect of the business is really coming to fruition, which is really great to see.
19m 30s
1
Yeah. And just to pick up on the, the, the, the writing and contributions, bill, anybody listening to this show and presumably if they do want to send contributions to the wise marketer, you’re again, happy to receive them and, and publish them if they’re relevant for the audience.
19m 46s
2
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I would invite people to do that. We surely we’re always interested to know what’s happening. You know, market reports are, are interesting programs, challenges that you’ve solved, just a great story that you want to share with the marketplace. That that’s what we that’s, that’s what we think other marketers want to hear. So as long as you don’t preach or try to sell your, your products,
20m 7s
1
You know, we’ll, we’ll edit that out, but we’d love to have your materials. And at some point you’ll have to check for his bill, just, just the sheer size of your archive. Because I don’t know if you know, off the top of your head, like how many articles the wise marketers published over the year, but I’m guessing it’s tens of thousands at this point. It,
20m 25s
2
It, it’s, it’s probably over 15,000 actually reviewed inclusive of all. But Mike will tell you that even a more interesting statistic is the, the vault something we call the vault, which we think is a singular, very unique asset in this industry, but we’ve accumulated resources, assets, which can be white papers or research reports. And it’s part of the loyalty academy right now. We’ll, we’ll probably make it accessible to people as part of our CLMP community very soon. But Mike can tell you there that, I mean the quantity and the quality of reports and information there is fantastic.
21m 6s
1
It sure is. Absolutely. I can testify to that. And Mike, back to you, and, and even before you answer, actually I meant to, just for anyone who doesn’t know, CLNP, Joe’s to explain it’s a certified law team marketing professional. And so, and something I’m very proud to hold as, as one of my title. So just in case anybody isn’t aware, obviously loyalty academy is easy enough to find, but I think CLMP is also a brand that deserves a huge amount of recognition. Thank you. So tell us about this volt.
21m 41s
3
The loyalty academy has been collecting, I’d say mostly research reports. So if somebody someplace in the world puts out a research report and it’s, you know, a verifiable source and it’s a good study of something that is in our industry around our space, we’ll categorize it and put it in the library. The library is digital. We call it the vault because you can’t get in there unless you’ve got the combination, the combinations, you’ve got to be a member of the loyalty academy community of which all the CLN piece, of course they’re members for life, but you can go in there and look for something. Now we’re real strong on general research and pretty strong on things from north America, not bad in Australia or, or South Africa, not bad.
22m 29s
3
Most of the English speaking countries, Paula, 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. So we just try to build a repository of research reports. We also have presentations and then some what we call thought leadership, we laugh and we say, earning a CLM P is like getting a PhD in loyalty and you have to write a dissertation. Substation is a piece of thought leadership. And that goes into the vault. So we have a lot of fun with it, but the research alone over 200 research reports are in there already, and they’re in their chronological order, but anybody who’s a member of our community can access and maybe use that research report in their daily life.
23m 21s
3
That was the original intention. Brilliant.
23m 23s
1
Brilliant. Yeah, no, and I should talk about that more as well, Mike, so I’m glad you reminded me. And because every so often people do come to me and said, you know, where can I find the latest research on reports? So, so I need to make sure now that we, we direct them always to that role. So, and tell me about the, the Delphi reports as well, Mike, because your previous appearance on let’s talk loyalty, we about some amazing research that you’d done yourself with us as a community of loyalty experts around the world as CLMP. So, so tell us a bit more about where’s the Delphi report out?
23m 57s
3
Well, we did two and in 2020, we were going to do a third. We collected all the raw material you participated and COVID came about and kind of ruined everything. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, it’s the raw data was sitting there earlier this year. 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. We just haven’t been able to do that yet. Excuse me. And then the there’s a new one. We just put a report out the other day, 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.
24m 44s
3
And there are a couple of ways that this can be done today in e-commerce land. Okay. You see very, very, very little action to do this at any point of sale, especially brick and mortar. So in essence, I could walk into my favorite store, any store, and I can say, if I use this particular card, it’ll be card length. Of course, I’ve got 20,000 points over here that I haven’t used. Let me use them today to buy that new shirt I want, or my groceries for my gasoline, et cetera, but any point of sale, as long as I use that payment card, we would call that pay with points. It was identified in Adelphi in 2019 as a trend that would be in the future of loyalty marketing and it starting to happen.
25m 33s
3
So we just published our first report on a topic the other day, we went out and interviewed card issuers and got some pretty good results back about the concept qualitative sample. Now we’re going out to consumers in the U S and we’re going to ask them what they think about the idea. And then we’re going to contrast in a new Delphi report, we’re going to contrast what the consumer says versus what the issuer said. And I’ll run that by some members of the panel. So people that are very payment savvy, you know, Nick chambers and Simon rolls and guys like that, they know the payment space really well.
26m 15s
3
They know the loading space. So we’ll have that before the year’s out. We could do one a month. There’s so many topics Paula what’s starting to happen is we’ve started to do wise marketer research for clients. And that’s been taking up a lot of our research endeavors, you know, clients paying us to conduct market research for them. We think that’s going to grow because people want, we know a lot about the industry and we have a lot of connections to people in the industry and people want to know what’s going on. And sometimes they’ll go to a regular marketing research shop and start talking loyalty, and nobody knows what you’re talking about.
26m 60s
3
Sure. Yeah. So we outsource the actual collection of the data, but the design of the surveys, the interpretation of the results we do ourselves. So that’s going to continue to grow in the future.
27m 14s
1
Okay. Yeah. Well, that’s the very definition to me of a high quality problem, Mike, then as you know, people keep asking us to do more work, you know, and, and it’s great work. So, and you’ll have to make sure to send me all of those links so we can put them in the show notes as well. And as in when you publish them, for sure, we’ll share them with the audience. Wonderful. Okay. So am I, 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 and which is all about all of us women in loyalty. So tell us all about the inspiration for this. Cause I think it’s lovely what you’re doing and super inspiring. I’ve watched a plenty of them myself.
27m 55s
1
So tell us all about women and loyalty.
27m 57s
2
It’s very exciting, very exciting. Thanks, Paula it’s women in loyalty was an inspiration from just a reality check that we did 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? And did you ever notice that when you went to a large conference that, you know, half the room was female. And so it’s, it’s such a, it’s just strong representation of women in the business and there’s so much brilliance about, and oftentimes you don’t get to hear it, you know? And so we thought we really needed to have some kind of a venue it’s it’s recognition is the first stage. And I was thinking about women and loyalty in three ways.
28m 39s
2
So recognition is kind of the stage that we’re in right now. And I think we’re up to maybe episode number six, something like that. We’ve got next Wednesday. We have Leslie Saida from impact 21. Who’s a lady that literally her story is amazing. You have to listen to it, but she was selling chemical lubricants back in the, in the early stages of her career where she will readily tell you she was the only female in a room, drug suits and other treated her, as you can imagine. So, you know, she, she she’s progressed to be probably the, one of the most well-known people in customer loyalty and the convenience and fuel space, as you know, so, but there’s, there’s so many good stories and we, you know, we’re fortunate that sponsorship, of course we were seeking sponsorship for some of these, but it didn’t really take much of a, of a reach, an outreach effort because we had companies like FIS and to narrative and loyalty one almost immediately.
29m 38s
2
And now I think Epsilon, but immediately stepping up and yeah, we love this idea. We want to support it. So yeah, we, we have, we have probably a calendar that’s assigned all the way through, probably January of next year. So we, we have, and we’re probably about every three weeks. We’ll have an episode because we’re trying to put people in, but, you know, just to recognize the contributions of people and on a career level, kind of looking at career highlights, but then the conversations, as you probably heard, really also delve into what kind of challenges did you face as a person coming, you know, building your career, you know, reaching this level where you are.
30m 20s
2
And then there’s a bit of mentorship in there too. So we think that’s incredibly valuable. And what we’re really thinking is recognition for now, but then community. So we, we have a plan to create community and it could very well be a community that we lovingly, you know, push off from the dock, like a, like a ship you said sail, and we’ll let the community guide itself. We’ll see how it all works out. But a community where we’re everybody in women in loyalty can talk to each other, share ideas,
30m 54s
1
You know? Yeah. We looked at as women build, I don’t need to tell you, we women, we love to talk to each other.
31m 1s
2
That’s right. So the collaboration and the community, all of that, I think there’s this, as it’s not a campaign, that’s what I wanted to tell you. It’s not a campaign, but it’s something that really, I think there’s a life and we’ll go on and we’ve, so we’re just very, very excited about it. And we’ve gotten a great response. And every, every one of the episodes I’ve listened to, I’ve made little notes, like I’m reading some leadership book or I’m reading a business book and I’ve said, oh my gosh. But she said, look what you just said.
31m 28s
1
Yeah. Amazing. And like that absolutely as well. And it was one of your early guests and forgive me, I can’t remember the lady’s name, but she specifically talked about the idea of taking an adult gap here. And it was between two big jobs. And I was just, I honestly, I haven’t stopped thinking about that bill. So I don’t know about you, but I never took a gap here when I went to, when I left school and started working. So I keep kind of going, when, when can I do that? I think this is a genius idea, 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.
32m 2s
2
That’s right. No, absolutely, absolutely. Right. So yeah, it’s been wonderful and we have some extensions in mind. We’ll probably, we’ll probably continue on with some other ideas, cause there’s some other segments within the industry that probably deserve recognition as well. But this woman in loyalty, it’s been just fantastic. Yeah. Very happy with it going to highlight these ladies.
32m 23s
1
Of course. 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. I know it comes up in your own articles as well on the wise marketer. And, and I think we all do crave that. And again, I think the pandemic has only the demand for people to be able to connect with people they trust. And you know, for me, certainly, you know, 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 and I really want to have the same with loyalty. So I think it’s extraordinary what you’re doing. Right.
33m 2s
2
Thanks so much. And that’s the word, that’s the other word trust, right? It’s so necessary for us to be able to talk to people. It’s the idea of having a personal board of advisors, you know, century. You probably have that group, small group of people that you go to and I do myself and it’s bending. It’s incredibly important, but you have to have that small group that you can trust. And so that’s what we’re hoping we can foster it as part of that community, as people that just naturally mind affinity for one for another. And they ended up helping each
33m 30s
1
Other. Wonderful. Yeah. I think it’s always the case. We don’t know what we don’t know. And it’s only then when a client asks or a colleague or something, you go one moment please, and you go off and, you know, as he said, check in with the community. Brilliant. So the last section that I wanted to touch on guys was what’s coming next. So future developments, and I might start Mike with you on the loyalty academy side. I know you’re extremely ambitious and very excited particularly that you’re coming to Dubai in December. So, so let’s have a chat about that. What exactly is the plan for later in the year?
34m 6s
3
Well, we are going to run a full-scale certification workshop. It will take a two and a half to three days. We’re going to run it in Dubai, working on hotel contracts as we speak, but I’ve got two very good friends of yours who are professionals, who are knowledgeable about the marketplace throughout the Gulf region. And that would be a manna Fernandez and Jaya bossy, who was on your show a couple of weeks ago, Matt, Matt, Evan Shaya run a consulting firm called quick brown Fox. A man of himself has been certified. He went through the whole thing on his own.
34m 47s
3
He did. And they’ve got to help me from a faculty point of view, make sure we deliver context that is relevant to the region in addition to standard principles and practices of what all be marketing that we always go through. So that’ll be December six, seven and eight. Okay. We’ve got everything figured out except for the hotel contract, but I’ll tell you this and we’ve done this before Paula, you know, we’ve, we, we continue to invest back into our industry. We believe in that we believe in the industry. A lot of people say they do and they believe in their brand. And again, I go back to the way I learned this space, you’ve got to invest back into the entire industry.
35m 32s
3
So we’ve been giving away scholarships. So we did some with you on your first, second anniversary and we’re coming to Dubai. Right. All right. So I’ll put a link in after the podcast. So you can include it in the notes. Anybody who listens to this podcast when it becomes live, which I think you said was in two weeks. Exactly. Yes. August 26. Yeah. Who listens can use a special polyatomics code and one of them will be not tell you what will make it better rather than making it one scholarship. We’ll give them all a discount to the event in Dubai.
36m 13s
3
So they don’t have to pay retail price.
36m 15s
1
Wonderful. Okay. It’s an exclusive, let’s talk loyalty, loyalty discount code. Oh, I love that mic. Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay.
36m 25s
3
We’re going to do that in December in 2022, if the travel situation improves Paula, and it isn’t some places than it isn’t and then like, you know, Ireland, you know that well, and you were there the summer one week we’re in one week, we’re out one week. And then, you know, I talked with the amount of partners over there and they said, yeah, we could do an event, but you can only have 50 people, which means you can’t make any money. Yeah. We’re gonna go to Dublin. We want to go to India really badly. We have good partner over there and they’re probably in the worst go. We’ve got some people in Southeast Asia, most notably Vietnam and Singapore who would like to license our material translated into, into native tongue and deliberate to their respective communities.
37m 18s
3
But they can’t, they can’t go in person either. So it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a problem, but it’s a temporary problem. I think that travel ban will be lifted at some point and we’ll be able to go, yeah, gosh, that’s a big part of the future. We’re always looking for new ways to collaborate. We put out a lot of new courses the last two years and you know, we’re up to 25 courses. We had 15, two years ago. And then we bring in, we keep bringing in this guest lecture to co-create and deliver brand new material. So we’ve done it on mobile payments, liability, gamification, Welty fraud.
37m 59s
3
These were all guests lecturers. And you know, they’re people that are coming from different markets of the world. Oop, seven different markets represented as well as our board. Our board has got, you know, four from the U S one from Canada, one from the UK, one from New Zealand. Yeah. And the participation helps us drive new course development. So we’re going to continue to do that. The space is changing Paula. It changes every day, it gets more advanced. It gets something new. We’ve got to cover these topics. And even if it’s just a, an elective course and some time in the future, we might have enough courses that we’ll actually sit down and go to the beach and write a book.
38m 46s
1
There we go. We all been talking about that. Huh? We’ve got a lot of writing to do between us all. Well,
38m 51s
3
You know, bill would write a story book. I would write a textbook. That’s the difference between the two. It’s why we’re such great partners. So I telling everybody about all this stuff, that way 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. And if you put it into a, into a guide, into a book, I think more programs would look better. And some of this criticism that, you know, loyalty is bribery of some of this criticism would just kind of go away or we have to do things the right way and it’s changing.
39m 36s
3
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.
39m 45s
1
Wonderful. Yeah. You’ve reminded me of, of the book where you know, that I should be writing and let’s see where I am on my third anniversary. 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. 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. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s on the, on the to-do list. What can I tell you? A lot of possibilities, a lot of possibilities and bill from your perspective, then what’s, what’s next for the wise marketer
40m 23s
2
Quite a bit. You’ll see. One thing that you did right around the corner that you may not notice is a new website. So we’ve, we’ve been working on a new website format for quite a while. So a little bit of sprucing up on the inside as much as it is on the outside, but that’s essentially something that you’ll see very soon. 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. So the whole experience around learning is going to change. It’s going to be what it should be. We’ve always felt like the content is so strong and we just wish that the experience was just a tad bit more modern.
41m 4s
2
So anyway, that’s happening. But probably the big thing is we’re, we’re just officially announcing the wise market or research group. So we felt like with the accumulation of knowledge with the, the vault, it might talk 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 for the benefit of the marketplace in general, but also we have so many companies, organizations coming to and saying, you know, I really I’m trying to figure out, I’m trying to answer this question. And so, you know, I dare say we’re probably the, the the least bias most independent, you know, sort of, I hope trustworthy.
41m 47s
2
Right. So, yeah. So I think that it’s, it’s a natural thing. So we’re, we’re satisfying a natural market demand there with people just saying, gee, I’d like to know what is the trend here, what’s happening. What’s what are the opinions? So why is market research? We’ll, we’ll be able to provide this kind of research projects probably also just do related work around that if there are other kind of market in or competitive information surveys, all those sort of geographic comparison. So that’ll all be part and parcel of wise market research. And then, you know, the other thing I just wanted to mention, because Mike just triggered a thought, we’ve been blessed with a wonderful host.
42m 27s
2
Her name is Cindy Faust who stepped up to become our, our host are women in loyalty and naturally, you know, we thought there’d be a commercial arrangement there. And so we talked to her about that, and I don’t know if Cindy is, was formerly a senior officer with AMIA and north America instrumental in that business and just a wonderful person. So she, you know, it’s, it’s what we’ve run into that makes us love this business so much. She came back to us and said, you know what? I, I like women in loyalty so much. I really don’t want any compensation from whatever efforts I have. I’d rather see you take some equivalency and put it into a scholarship fund. So that’s something else that I’m not quite ready to announce the exact the way it works, but yeah, but that is going to be a reality.
43m 13s
2
Thanks to Cindy, that we’re going to create a little scholarship in women and loyalty and we’ll acknowledge her as part of it because she’s been so gracious in that. So now these are the kinds of things that make you feel like you’re doing the right thing. You know, when people, when people give back
43m 27s
1
Like that, so wonderful. Well, well done, Cindy, that’s extraordinary. So on that note bill and with all of that incredible stuff, as we’ve said, the wise marketers being on an extraordinary journey already about 15,000 articles available for people and, and obviously every single week, fabulous new content being added. So if people do want to reach out to you bill first and foremost, where can they reach you
43m 51s
2
Really? The best thing. Of course, my personal email address, which is bill h@thewisemarketer.com, but there’s also a contact us page there and that circulates amongst all of us. 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 their contact us page.
44m 16s
1
Yeah. Wonderful, wonderful. And Mr. KPC, where can people find you if they have any questions or comments on the loyalty academy?
44m 23s
3
Same thing. The best way is to fill out a contact us form on the law academy website. I read those every day. We get requests every day. Margaret is also a great resource for us. Paul, I think, you know, that she kind of runs all things faculty, and she reads those as well, if I’m traveling or something. So just contact us form it loyalty academy and, you know, subscribe to the wise marketer people it’s free. It is. It’s amazing. And don’t forget to follow the loyalty academy on LinkedIn.
44m 60s
1
Perfect. 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. So just want to say so happy on my second birthday to be joined by both of you guys really means a lot that you’re here today. So Mike at peasy at director of education at the loyalty academy and of course, bill Hannifin chief executive officer to the wise marketer. Thank you so much from let’s talk loyalty, happy birthday power happy anniversary.
45m 31s
0
This show is sponsored by “The Wise Marketer”, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights and research. The Wise Marketer also offers loyalty marketing training, both online and in workshops around the world through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 150 executives in 18 countries as Certified Loyalty Marketing Professionals. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of “Let’s Talk Loyalty”. If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on Let’s Talk Loyalty.com and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox every Thursday, or just head to your favorite podcast platform, find “Let’s Talk Loyalty” and subscribe. Now, of course I’d love your feedback and reviews and thanks again for supporting the show.
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