Loyalty 360 had the opportunity to hear from John Bartold, Vice President, Loyalty Solutions and Eric Stein EVP of Online Solutions, at Epsilon. John and Eric share their perspective and philosophies on current trends, data insights, loyalty and engagement.
Loyalty 360: Tell us first a bit about yourself and your history in loyalty marketing …
John Bartold: Loyalty became my professional focus around 1991 although how people interact and behave has always been intriguing. I’ve been fortunate over the years to work with a wide range of industry verticals and organizations. Meet a lot of people. And, see a lot of changes in the methods and tools to apply to loyalty efforts. Overall, we are better positioned today to build loyalty than ever.
Eric Stein: I’ve been involved in Online marketing since 1997 and have worked for some of the leading companies in the space, from DoubleClick to Google. Leading loyalty marketers are starting to take advantage of some of the recent trends and capabilities in the online arena and, at Epsilon, we have the opportunity to work with many of them as they engage their members online.
L360: What is your loyalty & engagement philosophy?
Bartold: Loyalty is about relationships. To me, the underpinnings of loyalty to a brand aren’t that different from relationships we build in our everyday lives. Yet, we seem to get distracted by the tools, tactics, terminology, buzz of the day or new revelation behind the secrets of loyalty. While these things are important, we seem to lose sight of the basics around understanding customers and when, how and why to engage.
Stein: I start from the position that a client’s own data is the best data and loyalty is pre-eminent within that sphere. As companies want to engage their consumers in new channels with new programs, loyalty is a great place to start because you’ll get the most feedback from loyal customers and be able to build from there.
L360: What trend or technology do you feel is having the largest impact on loyalty and engagement today?
Bartold: Here we are…back at trends(buzz) or technology. Actually, our ability to analyze information and have access to new technologies to apply the information and connect with consumers is accelerating many relationship mechanics. The advances enable us to achieve more in the loyalty arena because we can have brand to people interaction that more closely mimics people to people interaction. This includes one-to-one communication as well as group or social interaction. At the same time, these new abilities have radically increased the complexity because of the many channels, touch points, options for consumers to connect and the reality more interaction happens in real time. We need to rethink our approach and processes to really take advantage of what is in front of us. Our processes need to help us understand and anticipate so we can apply tools to listen and respond with consumers in milliseconds.
Stein: I obviously approach this from an online perspective, but I would say the use of data across more and more media channels is a trend that presents enormous opportunities for loyalty marketers. They can make their programs more attractive, emotionally fulfilling for their members and attract new members that they might not have realized were even prospects before.
L360: Where are the opportunities for out of the box ideas in utilizing customer data?
Bartold: The opportunities for applying information or data are limitless just as they are in our personal day-to-day relationships. The key is determining what information you need, where is the best place to gain the information and then once you have the information how to use it. Today, we have more opportunities than ever to collect information directly from our customers as well as indirectly through their activity in various channels. For me, the key question isn’t about utilizing data as much as it is around the processes to define the information needed, identify sources, how we will further develop the relationship and then actually apply the data.
Stein: Given the early stages of the trend I mentioned, there really are a lot of ideas that would probably fit the headline of “out of the box.” One in particular that I think is very attractive is creating private data exchanges among existing offline partners to drive customer insight.
L360: What would you say, is the most common marketer mistake in consumer data collection and analytics efforts today, and why is this occurring?
Bartold: For loyalty, data collection and the analysis of the data is done in snapshots or a point in time rather than over longer horizons. We are focused on the list selection for a campaign based on a well defined set of criteria. Yet, we have the ability to look at interaction models and understand how interactions flow. With today’s real time channels, new points in time are established every second. We don’t have days, weeks or months to analyze data for a specific purpose to support a specific campaign. Rather, we need to analyze to understand the patterns of interaction, develop rules to respond and continually recalibrate with every second of new learning.
Stein: Marketers have had a hard time adapting their organizations to the ever-increasing speed with which new channels are adopted by consumers. On the data side this has meant that important pieces of data have been silo’ed and unavailable for use by important constituencies at the company. One of the exciting things about loyalty organizations is that they have a unique and complete set of data and usually some more autonomy and flexibility in being able to use it and teach the rest of the organization in the meantime.
L360: What would you like to see develop in the market’s approach to customer engagement and loyalty?
Bartold: To understand we are not in control. While we have for years wanted the opportunity to interact more with consumers on a more regular, frequent basis, we never anticipated the consumer would gain as much control as we see today in our networked world. We need to understand what we have gained as well as what we have lost as marketers. We need to develop new philosophies and processes to become part of the fabric that is now our brands.
Stein: Ideally, I would like to see marketers truly take a cross-channel and persistent approach to consumer engagement, not just exiting customers. Prospects as well as consumers need to be engaged on an individual level and traditional, episodic ad campaigns are less and less able to fit that bill. How you incorporate data into your marketing programs will drive a lot of this and deliver real value for consumers and marketers alike.
Join loyalty and data experts John Bartold and Eric Stein of Epsilon, on October 6th at 1:00PM EST, for an interactive discussion of the future state of loyalty, and learn how external data can take your loyalty programs to the next level. Register now for the free webinar, “An Interactive Discussion - The Future State of Loyalty and the Role of External Data.”