Welcome to the weekly roundup: a compilation of news, ideas and learnings from the SessionM world.
Quote of the week: “The world of retail has become democratized. It’s not just about driving transactions within the physical and virtual four walls, but it’s increasingly about pushing the brand wherever consumers are shopping” -Rob Garf, VP of Retail Strategy and Insights at Salesforce
The Big Show
This week was a busy one! On Sunday, the SessionM team ventured out of Boston to attend the National Retail Federation conference, or popularly known as the “Big Show” in New York City. Our CTO Scott Weller presented about how we’re working with Skechers alongside our partners at Salesforce, to help them re-imagine customer loyalty. As a quick overview, Skechers came to SessionM and Salesforce with a desire to reboot Skechers Elite Rewards, which was a pretty standard spend X, get Y loyalty program. With legacy systems in place, they did not have the ability to execute personalized loyalty offers, target customers based on their status or tier, and overall were not driving enough incremental spend. Now, with the SessionM CDP, Skechers has a real-time, single customer view enriched with data analytics, and the ability to deliver hyper-personalized offers and messaging through Marketing Cloud. From there, we are helping Skechers take a more below the line loyalty approach, by leveraging the collected data to deliver personalized promotions and tailored incentives designed to drive incremental value and profit on a per customer basis. By doing so, Skechers is shifting their focus to drive incremental value, instead of potentially rewarding consumers for purchases they were going to make anyway!
Loyalty is changing
People are always talking about today’s loyalty landscape. In a recent Loyalty360 article, it goes into how brands need to think about a long-term plan to create and maintain their customer loyalty, and that it’s not just about acquisition anymore. Speaking our language! At SessionM, we like to call it Loyalty.X, when loyalty doesn’t just come from points, status and tiers, but rather from delivering a highly personalized, 1:1 customer experience. The article mentions “a cookie-cutter approach towards customer rewards is no longer effective” and the key is to know your customer and tailor offers that give them a unique experience. You can imagine we have a lot to say on this subject, like our blog on Incentives That Motivate Customer Behavior, for example. It goes into how you can keep your customers engaged beyond just your standard loyalty program. Check it out!
Customer Experience Gone Wrong
Airbnb is a brand we have all come to love. However, when you work at SessionM, you know what a great customer experience looks like, and that it’s possible. When that doesn’t happen… you write a blog about it! Check out Katherine’s Airbnb: Customer Service Gone Wrong post to learn how they could have benefitted from utilizing a CDP to make her feel more valued as a customer. Hint: it has to do with knowing who she is across channels, and better leveraging the data they have collected about her to deliver a more seamless experience. As a long time loyal customer, it’s the least she can ask for!
Personalization vs. Privacy battle
Every marketer’s goal is to get closer to their customers. However, at the same time it is their biggest challenge. In 2018, we all saw top companies like Facebook and Marriott take a big hit from data privacy scandals, and in turn giving consumers a wake up call about how their data is being collected. In a recent Cheddar interview with Tiffani Bova, Salesforce growth and innovation evangelist, she goes into how even after the multiple public privacy violations in the last year, “consumers are still willing to surrender personal data to improve their shopping experience – but only if that data is handled responsibly”. It’s about a fair exchange. Our CMO Patrick Reynolds wrote on this topic last fall. He posted about The Right to be Remembered, explaining that your customers will give your more information, provided they like the experience. The more they give you, the better experience you can (and should) deliver, to ultimately increase their lifetime value and brand loyalty. That’s what we are here to help you with.
Because one quote wasn’t enough
“We’ll see marketers begin to understand that customers don’t really want personalization for personalization’s sake, and instead want personalization that provides specific benefits such as special offers or discounts.” – David Raab, Customer Data Platform Institute
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