In order to win approval of loyalty programs, advocates need to understand what C-suite executives are seeking, Ron DiNella, president of DiNella Hospitality, said during a webinar on securing C-suite support for your loyalty program hosted by Loyalty 360.
“The C suite wants same things as everyone else,” DiNella said. “They want revenues to increase, margins to increase and share to increase.”
Identify a champion on the executive team, DiNella recommended. “Who is going to be the champion? Is it going to be the marketing folks, the executive leadership, financial leadership?”
Dinella added: “If you are an internal marketing person, don’t start down the loyalty path just because a salesperson has been persistent. If you don’t believe in it, don’t bother moving it forward.”
Advocating a loyalty program requires passion, DiNella added. “Everyone is in hand-to-hand combat every single day. You need to need to believe in your process. You need to build a solid business case with realistic, but compelling metrics. Be specific and precise with the cost and the financial. The return piece is going to be a best guess or projection, but the investment piece shouldn’t be a guess. You should know what the costs are going to be. You will get eaten alive in those meetings if you don’t know your facts.”
Loyalty program advocates need to know how the program will affect other parts of the company, according to DiNella. “For example, will the program require IT to rewrite some code, do operations need to change something. Anticipate the possible pushback. Be prepared with alternatives and solutions. You’re going to get challenged. Know your stuff. Be prepared.”
If a marketer is promoting a loyalty program, he or she has to understand that C-suite executives see marketing as a zero sum game. If marketing is going to spend resources on a loyalty program, marketing needs to be willing to take those sources from another part of its budget.
“Capital is precious,” DiNella explaind. “Executives want to use it wisely.”
DiNella also discussed the “three Ps” of communicating with the C-suite:
· Be prepared: Know what’s going on in the business and in the industry. Be armed with opinion-leader research and statistics.
· Be persistent: Stay focused on what you want, even if you do not get immediate results. Make any requested updates, added financials and program changes quickly and thoroughly.
· Be patient. Build a realistic timeline for approvals. Respect the budgeting cycle and other financial milestones (i.e., earnings announcements).
For a limited time, access playback to the webinar, Securing C-suite Support for your Loyalty Program. Click here to watch now.