Loyalty Marketing, the winning touch
Few people realize that in the Business Event field :
Then
- why do most advertising budgets encourage trial purchase?
- why do most promotions encourage quick, one-time discount sales?
- why don’t sales promotions and advertising add long-term value to the sale?
- why do you promote to an untargeted audience?
Around the world are:
- approximately 1000 Incentive Houses, but 200 control 85 % of the incentive travel business
- more or less 20,000 International Associations but only 1,500 have business for Asian destinations
- roughly 2000 Exhibition Organizers, yet only 250 arrange trade fairs in Asia
Rule No 1:
Don't spend your time worrying about why you can't win some accounts.
Concentrate your thoughts on how you can win others
The best way to promote your destination, and only then your own company, towards the Business Event marketplace is loyalty marketing, supporting the classic 80/20 business concept and providing a vehicle for recognizing the destination’s and the company’s best customers, the legendary 20% that account for 80% of the sales !
Loyalty marketing also offers a way to motivate potential heavy users to increase purchases and, by using a more strategic, targeted approach, it allows you to build a personal relationship with your repeat and/or high potential customers.
Rule No 2 :
Winning business deals is important, but winning friends means more business
If we examine the typical loyalty marketing approach, it is made up of a number of components:
- building a database
- communicating effectively with that database
- building a personal relationship
The first step in developing a loyalty program is to build a database of your customers. Through tracking of their purchase behavior in the Asian region, you can segment the database and find out who the “ heavy users “ are.
Communicating regularly with those accounts is an important part of building a relationship with them, since continued performance observation encourages additional activity and further achievement. It also provides a positive communications link with your customers.
Rule No 3:
When you add the right attitude to confidence and competence, you've got a winning combination
The loyalty approach is an effective marketing strategy to use when the product or service is a commodity, such as airline seats and hotel rooms. MICE organizers and buyers need to use these services often and their choice of service is influenced by issues such as price and value for money. Loyalty marketing can provide added value and take the pressure off pricing by focusing the customer on product benefits and how to get the best value for money !
Loyalty marketing can also provide an important point of difference in a highly competitive market place. With very little differentiation between products, offering customers recognition and understanding can affect buying behavior and influence buyers to remain loyal to your product.
It is attitude in the form of competence and loyalty that gets you the business, gets you through life and makes you a winner !
Rule No 4:
Winners don't do different things, they do things differently, loyalty holds the key to being a winner
There are benefits for both the selling and the buying organizations in a well structured loyalty marketing system. The benefits for the seller include:
- encourages repeat business
- offsets price sensitivity
- creates a competitive point of difference
- allows for segmentation and long term strategic opportunities
- builds a positive communications link with the best customers
- provides a method for responding quickly to competitive moves
- increases the average sale value.
Feedback from the database will give a profile of the customer and why and when they buy. With this understanding of who your customers are and why they buy, you can target them with specific products and service of special interest to them. It is also possible to respond quickly to market forces and competitive activity by sending them a message literally in a few seconds through the data base.
The loyalty marketing approach provides a method of recognizing your best customers, they know they’ll receive special treatment. There is a certain ego appeal from this level of recognition and it encourages people to remain loyal in the long term.
The benefits to the customer include:
- recognition for loyalty
- opportunity to earn special treatment
- regular and relevant communication
- targeted offers
- more knowledgeable partners
- more comfortable with your product
Honest and open feedback will help in formulating better and more appropriate product offers. Customers can gain more knowledge about you product and will tend to use it more often and, in the process, become better buyers. If they feel that they are valued customers and are handled properly they will remain your most loyal and best customers.
Rule No 5:
Winners do what losers don't want to do
Emulate the habits of the winners, not the also-rans and ask yourself : If I were my own competitor, how would I win over my present accounts?
Growth comes through the process of adding customers, but also partners in existing loyalty MICE marketing programs. It is a natural progression for the airlines and hospitality industries and Destination Management Companies ( DMC ) or Professional Conference Organizers ( PCO ) to align themselves, as they often shared the same potential customers.
