That was the theme of VeraCentra’s workshop session at the 7th Annual Loyalty Expo, presented by Loyalty360 – The Loyalty Marketer’s Association.
Connie Hill (left), President & Founder, VeraCentra; and David Resnick (right), Vice President Data and Technology Solutions, VeraCentra led the session.
“People are investing in Big Data, but where’s the ROI?” Hill said.
Resnick told attendees a test and learn environment is crucial to achieving ROI.
“Have a target ROI and agree to what success looks like,” he said. “You can’t get to ROI unless you take action.”
Hill and Resnick offered three major themes for achieving ROI:
Integrate real insight into customer communications
Achieve real relevancy in a cost efficient manner
Gain real profits that contribute to customer data ROI
Hill and Resnick (who said there is no “silver bullet” to ROI) recommended the following tactics in pursuit of ROI:
Gain real loyalty: analytics, insight, segmentation
Foster real growth: strategy, programs
Achieve real profitability: creative, execution, analysis
You can’t get to real ROI unless you integrate multiple tactics
What’s more, they unveiled six ways companies can achieve ROI:
Actionable insight
Gradual approach
Automation systems
Smart decisions
Customer metrics
Fast start blueprint
The competition for data resources in most organizations is fierce, Resnick said, and the challenges include: no easy access to data, multiple data source owners, data not centralized, and long, long waits for data support.
The 5 Ws of real loyalty insight include:
Who are my customers? Frequency/value. What drives them? Understand what they bring to your company
What are they worth?
What makes them different?
What do they buy?
What’s their path to loyalty?
Resnick and Hill offered the following quote:
“Having easy access to our customer data allows us to gain the actionable insight we need to improve marketing’s contribution,” Dave Hacker, Director of Marketing, Sport Chalet.
It’s time to get real about complexity, Resnick said, because “you can’t get granular overnight.”
Challenges include: opportunities unknown, no tools in place to support high levels of personalization, overwhelming … prioritizing the possibilities.
Resnick said to increase granularity over time: Address immediate potential and find sweet spot opportunities (i.e. buys twice a year)
Create plan to increase loyalty and extend lifetime value among customer segments (new, repeat, loyalty, lapsing, and gone)
Have a communication strategy: customize your messages, increase value over time
Centralizing and organizing your data is vital through message automation, and linking insight to message execution.
“Customer loyalty is a major company objective. Our marketing team is really thin and automation enables us to cost-effectively execute across multiple channels,” Sally Wassink, Vice President, Marketing, COIT, said.
Brands can’t improve real profitability unless they make smarter decisions,” Resnick said.
Which customers do I invest in?
Budget for retention
Invest in loyalty
Test and learn environment and build the foundation
Investing in messages:
Offer value, channels, and cadence
“You can’t demonstrate ROI unless you tie insight to REAL CUSTOMER VALUE improvements,” Resnick and Hill said.
Challenges:
What does success look like?
Keeping everyone on the same page
Unable to make fast adjustments
Some key customer metrics include: customer value, path to loyalty, value migration
Path to loyalty metrics: new converting loyal customers, loyal customer count
Segment by lifestyle stage and have data defined segments in place, Resnick said.
“Have a target ROI and agree to what success looks like,” he said.
Loyalty Expo was held March 17-19, 2014, at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando, Florida.