For Yalcin Onur, CEO of the Istanbul-based Ketchup Group, who has 12 years of professional and entrepreneurial experience regarding business development, strategy, loyalty marketing, and sales, he believes that companies can create loyalty amid a flurry of competing technologies focused on mass acquisition of customers.
“We are always seeking to create both emotional and behavioral loyalty bonds with the consumers aligned to the products that brands offer,” Onur told Loyalty 360. “If we are talking about emotions and behaviors, then it’s imperative to know the consumers individually. There are more choices out there and we are living in a mobile world where everything moves so fast hence a consumer becomes more distracted. Once we identify our individual, data gathering comes next as the main pillar of loyalty. And this is where trust comes in because a consumer is only willing to share his/her information if he/she will receive value in exchange for sharing it. I think understanding every stage of these two pillars is far more important than creating a loyalty program and executing it.”
As long as it’s relevant for them, consumers enjoy discounts, special services, or privileges, Onur explained.
“But then we should ask ourselves time and again: How should we analyze this information we gathered?” he said. “First of all, nothing should be obtrusive in any way, yet we have to keep our consumer loyal and increase sales and market penetration. Engaging a customer does not mean making them spend every penny in their pocket. Therefore, creating a loyalty experience becomes more important. For instance, if a customer is willing to buy a product or service through mobile while going shopping, don’t turn the whole process into a hassle like asking them about the minor details. We should all remember that consumers of all ages are potential customers for life. But it is getting more difficult to keep them loyal using services or products.”
Onur believes that, since smartphones and tablets are far more popular than PCs now, brands should consider this point when creating calls to action.
“It’s important to place a call to action in the correct location and have it follow a logical progression,” he said. “Once you prove that, you become a well informed and trustworthy source, therefore the audience would feel more comfortable about the engagement. Relevancy at the right location is one of the key actors for sustainable engagement. In order to create loyal bonds through today’s technologies, it’s crucial to use the right analytics and therefore the data should be processed in detail. Using a friendly tone and creating a unique style catches the consumer’s attention most of the time as we witness with many successful mobile app cases around. Adapting all these rules to our engagement process by using mobile channels will have the greatest impact in driving more effective engagement. Other than trying to fill the customers’ wallets with stacks of loyalty cards, mobile apps such as Shopkick must be the ultimate destination for many loyalty programs. It now has more than three million registered users because its call to action grabs the customer in the correct location with a relevant message delivering a logical and fun process.”
Onur said that it’s not surprising that marketing has endured a lot in the past five years.
“It must be very frustrating for CMOs to keep up with all these technological changes and new trends popping up every other day,” he explained. “It is surely beyond doubt that most of the marketers are technically capable and experts within their areas of interests, however, it’s just becoming harder to be able to examine today’s risks and opportunities thoroughly.”
New innovations such as digital wallet (Google Wallet, Square, etc.), processing big data, and inescapable rise of mobility, curating content, and rediscovery of traditional media, intertwined with digital trends, are some of the challenges CMOs and marketers have to confront, Onur said.
“I agree that this is the most challenging time to be a CMO, yet the best since all these trends are changing the way consumers behave,” he said. “Consumer culture is becoming radically different, therefore CMOs have the opportunity to be in a bigger playground. Marketers are not more in control of the brand, but fans control brands.”
Engagement comes with excellent services and products, which are targeting today’s interconnected people, Onur added.
“With the rise of digital channels while social media being intertwined with mobile, the capacity of engagement with any service you deliver becomes a must,” he said. “Since multiple screens give customers the opportunity to consume the content in an instant, it's easier than ever to compare any piece of information at any time. If you are focused and create exceptionally the best services, it will eventually market itself. Having said that, I think CEOs are facing the greatest responsibility about how a product or a service comprises engagement. If CEOs expect only his/her teams to be innovative that will never create a strong innovative company culture hence no life-changing products or services will ever be created by that company. When a CEO actually sets the agenda and framework for breakthroughs, the company would eventually evolve into an innovative company that produces engagement at every level of production. As a result, the products and services they create will change the way we interact with the world and engagement will become the final outcome.”