For the past six months, Paul Lacap, who is the Director, Product Innovation & Marketing Services at IC Group has worked with Pollard Banknote, a global leader for instant lottery tickets. Lacap has worked closely with Nancy Bettcher, Vice President of Product Development and Innovation at Pollard Banknote, on a joint product offering called the PlayOn™ VIP Lottery Program.
PlayOn™ brings the exclusivity of an exciting members-only experience to the instant game market. After registering on the site, ticket buyers can enter into second chance draws, gather news about new ticket concepts, and gain access to unique invitations and opportunities. PlayOn™ also allows for the collection of unique and valuable information from users, such as demographics and buying patterns.
Lacap participated in a fascinating interview with Loyalty360, touching on a wide range of topics related to customer loyalty, customer experience, customer engagement, and expectation matching.
Engaging experiences are the baseline for creating loyal customers. How should brands create the culture by which engaging experiences (even though they may be more expensive to put in place and more difficult to measure) are table stakes for brands?
Lotteries are all about creating engagement with consumers – from picking their lucky games, enjoying the play experience, dreaming about winning, and telling their friends about their wins. But lotteries are facing increasing levels of competition for consumer’s discretionary dollars from online gaming options, casinos, promotions from other FMCGs and other entertainment/impulse items. So the need for engaging products and content is more critical than ever if lotteries are to develop and maintain a loyal customer base.
How can we influence the employees in the channel / process to make sure they are bought in and engaged in the loyalty methodology for the consumer?
Effective communication is key. Establish a solid communication plan with all employees. Share information at all stages in the channel/process. They need to understand the strategy and thinking behind I so they can ensure their part of the process contributes to the engagement goals. Effective communication is also critical for other parties involved in these programs. Any marketing initiatives, including loyalty, are closely reviewed by multiple interest groups including lottery retailers, other government agencies, and other lotteries. A focused communication plan for all stakeholders (employees and beyond) will ensure everyone is aligned to any methodology chosen, and the results that are expected.
Marketers are tasked to be more data-centric than ever before, yet the challenge of creating actionable insight from data is more challenging than before. What is your advice for marketers?
Lotteries, like many FMCGs have operated for decades without hard data on their customers’ preferences or behavior. Loyalty programs provide rich sources of data that help us better understand consumers’ needs. Advice for marketers–it’s important to start collecting relevant data, whether the efforts are small scale or larger and more sophisticated. It’s important to be selective about the specific data collected, and if necessary, limiting it to only what’s critical to decision making. And if the organization doesn’t have internal resources to analyze the data and draw business insights, choose carefully an external partner for this key function.
In traditional push marketing we measured effectiveness by response rates and CPM’s and the ability to hit as many eyeballs as possible to increase trial and conversion rates? How is today different? How do you effect change with a CMO who still may be “push” focused?
As lotteries shift into the loyalty space, conversations around lifetime value of a customer and share of wallet/discretionary spend (when compared to other impulse buys at a cash register) will become more and more common place. As with any other industry, effective change will come with proven results. The first lotteries to shift their thinking will make big impression on everyone else.
Give us a high level overview of your customer philosophy and share how this perspective helps drive more effective engagement and therefore better marketing outcomes?
Instant lottery tickets are Impulse purchases, motivated by such factors as luck, fate, superstition and visual appeal of the tickets. Instant ticket players are generally interested in a fun diversion that potentially changes their day, not necessarily a life-changing win. So games have to provide many winning experiences of small and mid-tier prizes (in addition to some high tier prizes) that give players something to talk about. Hearing about a win, or better yet, experiencing a win firsthand, is the best form of engagement. Customers need to hear about others’ winning experiences to understand they too have an equal chance of winning on any ticket purchased. And if they don’t win, someone benefits from their purchase through the support that lotteries provide to good causes in their jurisdiction. The games need to be easily understood, with clear outcomes regarding the winning status. Effective engagement does not mean more complicated game play styles–it’s all about easy-to-understand, fun play experiences, and the ability for anyone to win on any ticket purchased anywhere. Tickets need to be visually engaging to capture consumers’ attention in the cluttered retail environment to trigger the impulse.
In the move toward customer-centricity; if you could give one piece of advice to a brand to help them increase loyalty and engagement with their customers; what would it be?
It’s important for brands to experience fully what a consumer experiences when they seek out, purchase and consume your product. All the best product development, manufacturing and marketing efforts will be diminished by flawed execution at retail. A poor buying experience can undermine engagement efforts.
What are the challenges you see with multichannel communication for today’s marketers and how do we best address this opportunity for increased engagement?
For lotteries, there are still many regulations that were created before technology was in the picture. These might include how we talk about a specific marketing initiative, which budget that initiative can be funded from and the speed at which any of these existing regulations can change. For lotteries, strong leaders and an aligned team will make the biggest difference in the final outcome of any program.
We believe in a process of expectation matching; the understanding that the consumer’s expectation change based on their engagement with a brand and the stage of the customer lifecycle. Brands struggle with this dynamic and this idea; yet want to see it put in practice? What is your advice to marketers?
We believe that in order to understand a consumer’s expectation, an investment in consumer data is required. This might come from a loyalty program or other marketing activities directed toward consumers. As we are able to engage consumers and understand their behavior, we are also able to define next actions that tie to every part of a consumer’s journey with a lottery. Our advice to marketers is to know what data is important to the results they are looking to achieve. Big data only works if marketers are able to refine it to support their desired results.