Loyalty 360 is pleased to hear from Bob Fetter, Senior Vice President of Pluris Marketing. We asked Bob to share personal insights on marketplace trends, loyalty, and social strategy philosophies.
Loyalty 360: Tell us first a bit about yourself and your history in loyalty marketing …
Bob Fetter: I have been involved in direct and database marketing for over 20 years. I have worked with nearly 200 companies on their marketing and loyalty strategies. My background is in management information systems, computer science, marketing and statistics. I love working with companies to leverage their customer data in new and interesting ways across the entire customer experience.
How is the customer loyalty and engagement landscape changing? As a result, what key element do marketers need to be addressing to adapt to this shift?
Fetter: The main change is the power shift to the consumer. The implications of this are extraordinary. The whole notion of what is loyalty is affected. As customers take journeys with companies, companies must learn to engage those customers as individuals. And, the relationship can break down for a myriad of unforeseen reasons, from a poor point of sale experience to a poorly worded blast email. Customers want to be loyal to brands, buy they will refuse to accept inferior experiences.
How has data access, collection & insight changed as a result of the new social marketplace?
Fetter: As Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google has said, “We are generating more data every two days than from human inception through 2003.” This explosion of data has been hard for companies to get on top of, rather the data is getting on top of companies. And, data growth will continue to accelerate with the widespread adoption of sensor technologies. Since much of this data is unstructured, a whole new generation of analysts and analytic techniques is needed.
What are your favorite new technologies or leading thought innovations in the marketplace today?
Fetter: Without a doubt the advances in data visualization tools and techniques. Simply, providing marketers the ability to “see” meaningful data represents a tremendous breakthrough in their ability to process, understand and apply data in new and meaningful ways.
What is the most unique or innovative social strategy you have seen used to engage today’s consumer?
Fetter: Nike + wins hands down. By integrating new technologies with their runners, they have been able to create a unique social running and training experience. This loyalty strategy has the beauty of being neutral to the balance sheet (no points need to be tracked and managed), it is very sticky to the member of the program and creates tons of user generated content for Nike to analyze and use. Every new loyalty program under design should study Nike + and steal whatever innovations they can.
What is your customer loyalty and engagement philosophy?
Fetter: Customers want to be loyal to brands, and they are loyal for reasons of geographic proximity, the rewards offered, and their perception of the brand itself. However, without a truly sticky loyalty philosophy, this loyalty can be fleeting, and lost with a single bad experience.
Any predictions for the next stage in the evolution of loyalty?
Fetter: All loyalty will converge to mobile internet devices. As the device takes over for the wallet, consumers will want their loyalty programs, payment methodologies and loyalty gamification accessed anywhere by any mobile internet device they choose, at any point in time.
On Tuesday, October 25th at 1:00PM Eastern, industry veterans, Bob Fetter of Pluris Marketing and Zach Hofer-Shall of Forrester Research Inc., will be presenting the webinar, “Integrating Social Media and Traditional Marketing: Challenges for the CMO and CIO.” Marketers today, and loyalty marketers in particular, are struggling with integrating the avalanche of new data and new technologies provided by the social media marketplace. Join Bob and Zach for key insights and takeaways designed to help ease the process.
For more information visit here or Register Now.