Email Marketing Trends for 2020: Proven Essentials

In the ever-changing world of email marketing, it can be difficult to know where to invest your time and energy. To help you prioritize your email marketing efforts this year, we surveyed Oracle CX Marketing Consulting’s more than 500 digital marketing experts, asking them to rate the current adoption of a range of email marketing technologies and tactics as well as their predicted impact during 2020. We then mapped the results into adoption-impact quadrants.

Today, we’re going to look at the Proven Essentials, which are those tactics and technologies in the high adoption–high impact quadrant. The technologies and tactics in this quadrant are mature, but still deliver tremendous results.

Our Proven Essentials stand in stark contrast to our Unproven Opportunities, which still have significant risks associated with them and benefits that haven’t fully materialized. Our Proven Essentials also have a risk profile that’s the inverse of our Competitive Differentiators: Where our Competitive Differentiators offer a competitive advantage to early adopters, our Proven Essentials put late adopters at a competitive disadvantage.

Of the 26 trends we surveyed our digital marketing consultants about, they put 8 of them in the high adoption–high impact quadrant for 2020. Let’s talk about each of them in turn…

S. Inactivity Management

It’s not enough to have subscribers that tolerate receiving your marketing emails. If you want to avoid serious deliverability problems, they have to engage with those emails. 

“Sophisticated mailbox providers—hello, Gmail—will increasingly prioritize inbox placement based on engagement,” says Brian V. Sullivan, Strategic Director of Email Deliverability Services at Oracle CX Marketing. 

On the simplest level, that means that marketers have to stop mailing subscribers who haven’t opened or clicked in a long time. However, smart marketers are using reengagement and re-permission campaigns to reduce the number of chronically inactive subscribers that they have to suppress mailings to.

“Reengagement and re-permission programs are a great way to get more out of the subscribers you already have,” says Monica McClure, Senior Copywriter for Creative Services at Oracle CX Marketing Consulting. “Compared to trying to capture new audiences, working with those who are already on your list produces more certain outcomes with a smaller investment of effort.”

T. Animated Gifs & CSS Animation

Along with their more technical CSS-based cousins, animated gifs are surging in usage for three main reasons:

First, video is huge, and animation is a natural way to promote video and to show snippets of video.

Second, more B2B brands are realizing that animation has serious business use cases and isn’t just for B2C brands to have fun with. B2B brands can use animation to efficiently demonstrate products, show how their app works, and help customers navigate multi-step processes.

And third, social media’s love of the gif has spurred their popularity among Millennials and Gen Z. “Younger generations love using gifs for everything,” says Nick Rozell, Senior Account Manager at Oracle CX Marketing Consulting. “Animated gifs will be a large trend in 2020.”

U. Email Personalization

Like several other of our Proven Essentials, dynamic content within emails isn’t remotely new. However, the ability to personalize email messages has progressively become more sophisticated and easier to execute and manage.

“Personalization has always been a hot and savvy way to engage customers,” says Cathie Richter, Designer at Creative Services, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting. “With even more creative and interesting ways to integrate personalization technology, the trend will only continue.”

Along with segmentation and automation, personalization is one of the key ways that marketers can create relevant messages, getting the right content to the right subscribers at the right time.

V. Modular Email Architectures

One of the key reasons that email personalization has become easier is the adoption of modular email architectures. Rather than having a bunch of different templates for different situations, modular build systems allow you to create a variety of content blocks that you then stack to create a particular email. It speeds up email build times and supports personalization through its modularity.

“Setting up an agile modular email architecture is key to delivering persona-based personalized messages,” says Jason Witt, Senior Director of Creative Services at Oracle CX Marketing Consulting. “The modular system helps to drive personalized and real-time content customers care about and allows for one-to-one storytelling.”

W. Email Segmentation

Personalization has replaced some instances where you might have traditionally used segmentation to do a full-file send—for example, sending to your full-file by sending a segmented email to your customers and another to your non-customers. However, there are an increasing number of instances where companies are sending segmented messages to get more emails in front of particular personas or their more-engaged subscribers while avoiding sending additional email to their less-engaged subscribers.

“Using data to target and message individuals will always be the most effective way to create a positive experience for the customer,” says Helen Lillard, Principal B2C Consultant at Oracle CX Marketing Consulting.

X. Legal Compliance with CCPA, GDPR, Etc.

The groundswell of stronger privacy regulations is undeniable and likely to continue as lawmakers struggle to catch up how their constituents feel about the effect that technology is having on them. First it was CASL in 2014, then GDPR in 2018, and now it’s the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

“CCPA went into effect on Jan. 1, 2020, and other US legislation will follow,” says Daniel Deneweth, Head of Email Deliverability Services at Oracle CX Marketing Consulting. “Many brands are not prepared. Thankfully, California has indicated that they won’t pursue enforcements of the law until July 1, so companies have some additional time to comply. This will be a major focus during 2020.”

The CCPA brings many of GDPR’s requirements to the US, including informed consent on data collection, the ability to opt out of having your personal data sold, and the right to be forgotten. Other states are also considering passing stricter privacy laws, which may prompt a new federal law to simplify legal compliance.

Y. Responsive Email Design

Responsive design is the status quo in email design. While not universally supported, it is widely supported and a graceful way of creating experiences that are appropriate for widely different sized screens. It’s the gold standard for both email and web, where Google penalizes the search authority of companies whose websites aren’t responsive.

That said, responsive design is more work, both in terms of coding and troubleshooting. Some brands who are seeing the vast majority of their emails opened on mobile devices are starting to consider mobile-only email design. In a way, it’s a return to simpler times when marketers design a single email rendering—but this time it’s optimized for mobile devices, not desktops.

Responsive will continue to dominate, but as the mobile internet becomes the only internet for more people and as mobile screen sizes continue to increase—hello, folding screens—then we’ll likely see fringe adoption of mobile-only email design grow.

Z. Automated or Triggered Emails


Whether they’re triggered by an action, inaction, date, or internet-connected IoT machine, automated emails deliver just the right messages to customers and subscribers at just the right times. And they’re only becoming more powerful.

“Triggered and automated campaigns should already be a staple of any email program,” says Reed Pankratz, Senior Strategic Consultant for Strategic Services at Oracle CX Marketing Consulting. “However, more understanding at the customer level will lead to more complex customer journeys. This will also lead to the further incorporation of AI, personalization, RFM, and analytics.”

Automation and personalization continue to be a power combination that most brands want to improve upon, says Jennifer Lancaster Dana, VP of Oracle CX Marketing and Customer Experience Consulting. “Personalization improves the customer experience,” she says, “and automation decreases manual effort to free up time to drive strategy.”

These are just a few of the email marketing trends to watch for in 2020. For a look at more technologies and tactics, check out our posts that examine our... 

• Unproven Opportunities, which are low-impact trends with low adoption

• Competitive Differentiators, with are high-impact trends with low adoption

—————

Need help exploring these email marketing trends? Oracle CX Marketing Consulting has more than 500 of the leading marketing minds ready to help you to achieve more with the leading marketing cloud, including teams dedicated to Strategic Services, Email Deliverability Services, and Creative Services.

Learn more or reach out to us at CXMconsulting_ww@oracle.com

For more insights into email marketing, visit us at Oracle CX Marketing.

 

 

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Brands Need to Be Prepared For Political Advertisers Crowding Them Out in 2020

Get ready for your social media feeds to be inundated by political advertising content as we head into the peak of the 2020 election cycle. According to preliminary estimates released by Kantar Media, political ad spending by candidates could reach $6 billion for the 2020 election cycle, with a sizable chunk of that ad spend dedicated to digital channels such as social media and search. In fact, as much as $1.2 billion of that figure (about 20 percent overall) could be earmarked for digital. And this estimate does not even include spending by PACs or Super PACs, so get ready for a lot of ad content being distributed across digital channels.

Taking a big picture view, that $6 billion political ad spending figure represents a notable increase from the 2018 election cycle, when political ad spending reached $5.25 billion. And the figure of $6 billion represents a more than doubling of all political ad spending in 2014. Remember those kinder, gentler days when former President Barack Obama seemed to be the only politician who “got” social media? Well, those days are over. These days, every top candidate recognizes the enormous power of digital and social to drive election results, gain credibility, push out a message, and motivate the base.

Ad spending in battleground states

The competition for digital eyeballs will be greatest in the so-called “battleground states” where the election results are so close and hard to call that they could be decided by, well, a single hanging chad. According to Kantar Media, in states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina, as much as 32 percent of the local ad time on TV is going to be political. In other words, 1 in 3 ads you see on TV during the 2020 election will likely be for one of the presidential candidates.

Implications for brands

A big factor here will be the “crowding out” of traditional advertisers by political advertisers. A lot of this has to do with available inventory – many of the traditional advertising outlets will have more demand than they know what to do with in 2020. And another big factor has to do with brands keeping a low profile during a potential dogfight of an election. Now’s not the time for brands to throw their weight behind one candidate or the other. Far better to take the high road and run some sort of PSA along the lines of, “Brand X supports the right of every legal American to vote. Get out and vote for your favorite candidate on Election Day…”

Staying top of mind with consumers throughout the election

That being said, what’s the best way for brands to stay top-of-mind with consumers during a long, protracted election cycle? If you assume that one-third of all ads shown on broadcast or cable TV will be political in nature, it’s only natural to assume that brands will migrate to some of the less popular social media platforms where there is actual ad inventory. Instead of focusing on Facebook, for example, why not explore other social media platforms where your fans and followers are hanging out? Now might be a good time to rekindle your love affair with Pinterest or check out what interesting things an upstart social network like TikTok can offer.

One thing is certain: now is the time for brands to start considering some non-traditional advertising options. In 2020, it appears, the only thing that people will be talking about on most online platforms is the 2020 presidential election. If you want your brand to stay top of mind during the year, it’s worth exploring how to leverage other social media platforms beyond just Facebook and YouTube.

                                                                                                                                   

One marketing method that mixed new and old could try is tactile marketing automaton. Customer actions still dictate an automated response, but instead of an email or other digital reply, they receive something physical, which can really make you stand out. See how you can “Do More with Tactile Marketing Automation.”

 

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Trends and Technology Impacting Consumer Shopping Habits

Consumer expectations are constantly evolving and transforming due to the continuous wave of new technologies and platforms entering the market. It’s certainly an exciting time for marketers to explore new ways to connect and engage with existing and future customers. Let’s take a look at the trends and technologies that will provide the maximum opportunity for marketers to sell to consumers, impact business, and drive retention in 2018.

Retailers are investing in the in-store experience

In the face of such fierce competition from online-only retailers, many retailers with physical locations are exploring ways to invest in their competitive advantage: brick and mortar stores. Retailers are finding value in improving the in-store experience and incentivizing people for coming through the door.  Steve Madden made an investment in loyalty in 2017 in an effort to drive greater foot traffic to their stores. Their newly launched SM PASS loyalty program features storewide points promotions, and personalized geotargeted bonus campaigns designed to incentivize customers into the store, drive a better in-store experience and encourage customers to make a purchase.

Despite the boom and continued growth of ecommerce stores, previously online-only brands are also investing in brick-and-mortar stores. Boll & Branch, Allbirds, Away, ModCloth, Glossier and Madison Reed, for instance, have all opened their own physical stores in the past year. This has become an almost necessary investment considering 84 percent of Americans prefer to shop at brick-and-mortar stores or at a combination of online and in-store retailers. Many these brands are also finding ways to provide greater value and better in-store experiences. For example, at ModCloth’s Austin store, shoppers can have their measurements taken which they can then enter into ModCloth’s “Fit For Me” app to receive personalized clothing recommendations. Improving the in-store experience will be a huge priority for marketers this year as bridging online and offline shopping experiences becomes crucial in providing a seamless shopping experience.

Consumers are more likely to purchase from responsible brands

Millennials are driving the change for brands to become socially and environmentally responsible, so much so that it’s a major influence in their purchase decisions. The Shelton Group, a marketing company specializing in sustainability, found 90% of millennials will buy from a brand whose social and environmental practices they trust, and are thus more likely to recommend their purchase to friends. Therefore, demonstrating social and environmental responsibility can have a major impact on sales and customer loyalty. And it’s not just millennials who are influenced – the research also finds that half of Americans remember a time when they’ve purchased or not purchased a product because of the environmental reputation of the manufacturer.

Brands such as TOMs have pioneered the trend by offering members of TOMS Passport Rewards the option to redeem points on a donation to a charitable cause or initiative. More and more, brands are demonstrating their commitment to social and environmental responsibility in their loyalty initiatives. For example, Best Western Hotels & Resorts’ hoteliers just announced that have committed approximately $1 million towards charitable donations over the next five years. Their loyalty program Best Western Rewards® supported disaster relief efforts in 2017 through the donation of BWR points, contributing $250,000 to the American Red Cross to bolster relief efforts associated with Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. Brands that take a responsible stance and make it easy for customers to support causes that are important to them are going to be more attractive to the growing socially conscious population of consumers.

Social commerce will drive more sales

PwC conducted a global survey of nearly 23,000 people and found that 78% of consumers are influenced by social media when shopping online. Social commerce is a powerful tool brand marketers should be tapping into in 2018.  Facebook, Pinterest, and Snapchat are making it easier for brands to not only advertise on their platforms, but sell directly to the consumer.

Facebook allows brands to build stores on their site from which customers can browse products and make purchases. Brands are able to advertise and promote products and get insights on those promotions. The entire commerce experience can be fulfilled from advertising, to order processing, and to managing the customer experience.

On Pinterest, brands can attach buyable pins to product images so when shoppers select “Buy It” they can make an instant purchase with Apple Pay or a credit card.

Brands can advertise on Snapchat and direct consumers to swipe up on the screen to learn more and make a purchase. Brands with verified accounts on Instagram can post videos and photos to the app’s Stories feature that prompt users to do the same. This is called deep linking.

Michael Kors launched an #InstaKors hashtag campaign on Instagram to create a more seamless shopping experience for its 8.2 million followers, according to Luxury Daily. Similar to MVMT, followers can click on hyperlinks contained within the images of products for sale which directs them to the Michael Kors store. The #InstaKors website mirrors the Instagram feed and allow online shoppers to click and purchase products depicted in its Instagram pictures. The #InstaKors feature was launched with a view to turn into a social loyalty program. The program is designed to offer Instagram followers unique deals on products, as well as the opportunity to purchase exclusive merchandise before they are made available in retail stores.

Emerging technology is the future of customer service

Emerging technology such as machine-learning applications, chatbots, and mobile messaging will play a bigger role in customer service this year. We’re starting to see the rise of chatbots, virtual digital assistants, and artificial intelligence (AI) agents employed to answer basic queries, solve common customer problems faster and even take orders.

Chatbot technology made waves in 2017, with plenty of companies becoming early adopters of the technology. By 2020 chatbots are expected to become the norm. According to a survey by Oracle of 800 decision makers including chief marketing officers, chief strategy officers, senior marketers, and senior sales executives, 80% of respondents said they already used or are planning to use chatbots by 2020. Brands, such as Marriot, la Quinta, and Columbia Sportswear, are integrating chatbot capabilities into their loyalty programs to more relevantly respond to customers, drive higher engagement, increase rates of conversion, spend per visit and frequency of spend.

Voice activation technology presents a huge opportunity for brands, especially in the CPG industry. Experts forecast that voice-activated assistants will help drive the ordering of everyday purchases, such as milk and toilet paper because most consumers know their brand preferences and their cost points. Using loyalty program data and predictive personalization technology, brands and retailers can leverage voice assistants to make product recommendations to consumers and alert them of special promotions or remind them to make repurchases.

Conclusion

Retailers in 2018 need to provide seamless offline and online shopping experiences. They should maximize investments in the technology and trends that make it easy for consumers to make a purchase. Consumers also expect brands to represent the values and support the causes that are meaningful to them.  Retailers need to find new ways to engage and communicate with their customers, loyalty programs continue to add value in this competitive space.

                                                     

What new technologies are propelling the future of marketing, customer loyalty, and the customer experience? Take a look at “Emerging MarTech Technologies: Marketing Wins and Woes.”

 

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6 Customer Loyalty Tactics to Increase Retention and Acquisition

The cost of acquiring a new customer can range from five to seven times the expense of keeping an existing one. However, an estimated 44% of brands focus on acquisition rather than retention. Acquisition strategies often include investment in expensive advertising, marketing materials, events, and social and email marketing.

Perhaps one of the reasons retailers focus on acquisition is that it seems like an effective indication of growth and provides a quick-win for a commission-based in-store staff. In contrast, retention requires ongoing relationship nurturing and a longer-term view of customer lifetime value.

In reality, successful brands need to establish both effective acquisition and retention strategies. Loyalty is the answer. Brands investing in customer loyalty can help drive engagement and retention and attract new customers simply by designing a program that rewards existing customers and appeals to new ones.

Let’s take a look at some of the tactics brands can use when strategizing their loyalty initiatives.

1. Feature Relevant Content

Encourage your customers to learn more about your brand by incentivizing them to watch videos or read blog posts. The more useful or insightful the content is, the greater brand affinity it will build. This strategy can help promote new product offerings or help position your brand as an expert. It can even serve to educate your customers during the buying process. For example, beauty consumers are turning to user-generated content before they make buying decisions. Beauty brands should encourage and leverage content like video tutorials, selfies, and online reviews for a competitive advantage. tarte rewards members of its “tarte <3 rewards” program not only for spending money with the brand but for sharing content on social media, referring friends and reading emails. This not only keeps members engaged and informed about products, it also helps promote the brand to a wider audience.

2. Ask for Feedback

When customers feel heard, they feel valued. Reviews not only help you educate new customers about your brand, but let you hear directly from your core users. Good reviews help boost your brand’s profile and win the attention from new customers. ASUS encourages its best customers to write product reviews as a point earning activity their ROG Elite Rewards program.

3. Surprise & Delight Your Customers

Surprise & delight is an effective tactic to employ as part of your loyalty initiative. It can spark new activity from inactive customers, or help devoted customers celebrate milestones and special occasions to make them feel even more connected to your brand. For example, Dunkin’ Donuts’ loyalty program, DD Perks, rewards members with a free, any-size beverage to enjoy during the month of their birthday. Surprising customers with an unexpected gift or a perk has the potential to turn them into lifelong loyal advocates. These advocates are more likely to recommend a brand to friends and family.

4. Offer Exclusive Perks

Customers expect special treatment in exchange for their loyalty. From elite status to VIP events and unique experiences, it’s essential to offer one-of-a-kind rewards and experiences that make members feel special, valued, and appreciated. Brands can achieve this by inviting loyalty program members to exclusive member-only events and rewards and by providing them with early access to sales. For example, Budweiser’s loyalty program, Budweiser Rewards, offers members the chance to win once-in-a-lifetime sports and music experiences by redeeming points for participation in sweepstakes. Perks like this help set your brand apart from the competition and attract new customers.

5. Be Everywhere

Brands need to be omnipresent, connecting customers to the brand across all touchpoints. For example, Zumiez’ loyalty program, The Zumiez Stash, provides members with the opportunity to earn points for activities across every channel including in-store or online purchases, social media interactions, and live events, and redeem them for exclusive rewards and one-of-a-kind experiences. This approach goes beyond one-dimensional discounts, offering deeply personal and authentic customer experiences that will yield stronger engagement and higher spend among customers.

6. Customer Referrals

Incentivizing customers for their referrals encourages word-of-the-mouth marketing, which is a great tactic for promoting your brand. Referral bonuses have the potential to bring in more customers at a fraction of the cost, making it a win-win for the brand and for the customer! For example, Sleep Number’s loyalty program incentivizes members to refer friends and family. For sharing a referral link they are given points, and for each successful referral they are credited with $100. After 10 successful referrals, Insiders receive an additional $799!

Using Data to Drive Retention and Acquisition Strategies

By incorporating and rewarding for both spend and engagement activities as part of a loyalty program, you can collect more information on your current customers and use this insight to drive personalized experiences and relevant communications and promotions. Brands can also use this insight to understand how best to market to prospective customers by creating look-a-like segments, creating marketing experiences that resonate with both existing and prospective customers.

                                                                       

Track your results and see where the data leads you in regards to tweaking, revising, and optimizing your marketing. Find out how to “Go Further with Digital Analytics.”

 

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B2B Audience Building & Segmentation Best Practices, Part 2: Centralizing Data and Speaking ...

Building out your audience and then segmenting that audience to ensure you’re delivering the right message to the right people is critical. However, it can be confusing to determine how best to improve your efforts. 

Oracle’s Marketing Maturity Model can help you determine where your organization is in developing its various capabilities and what should be done to enhance them. In Part 1 of this series, we talked about how to uplevel your capabilities to Stage 2. Let’s quickly review what B2B audience building and segmentations looks like at that stage.

Stage 2: Cross-Channel 

Businesses at this level have data that’s still largely siloed within systems and departments, but they’ve put some manual integrations in place that allow them to see the bigger picture in terms of behaviors and trends. Data privacy and governance is siloed as well. 

Marketing, commerce, sales, service, and other departments augment their first-party data with second- and third-party data, giving them a better understanding of their customers across channels. Aggregate-level performance dashboards are available, and decisions are based on historical data. Customer experience efforts are marketing-centric and don’t involve other departments in a significant way.

If your business doesn’t operate at that level yet, then let’s take a step back and look at how to enable cross-channel B2B audience building and segmentation. But if your business is already achieving that, then let’s talk about…

How to Uplevel to Stage 3: Data-Driven

Moving up to a data-driven approach entails centralizing your data from all channels and departments so you can ask WHY questions, not just WHAT questions. It also means having access to enriched and real-time data, so your analytics and targeting efforts become more flexible and actionable.

Let’s look at how your organization might level up its audience building and segmentation efforts.

Audience Building

The major shift here is that you’re moving from having an audience for each of your channels to having a single audience for your company. With the silos broken down, you have much better visibility into customer behavior and trends across your engagement touchpoints.

Centralizing Data Sources. Transforming your business into a data-driven organization starts with centralizing data and having platforms that speak to each other in a common language. Disparate data sources often lead to a wide range of challenges, including siloed teams and misrepresented data points.

Start by identifying sources of critical customer information that you need to drive your key performance indicators (KPIs). Having connected IDs or a shared Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) across platforms will provide you with a more comprehensive view of your contact and accounts. 

Centralized Data Governance. Centralizing your data isn’t just a technological change. It’s an organizational change. Create accountability for your data’s accuracy, privacy, and governance by naming a head of data. The exact title doesn’t matter—we’ve seen a huge range of titles!—but having someone be responsible for your data management is key.

Without that, data inaccuracies, improper data access, and other issues will continue to be a problem. We work with our clients on not only building a single source of truth to manage data across all their systems, but also on delivering a single version of the truth where they can consolidate analytics across various systems.  

Segmentation

Having better audience-building capabilities, powered by a centralized data pool, sets you up to be able to demonstrate to your audience that you understand them and their needs on a deeper level. Now that most of your manual data aggregation has been replaced by an integrated central repository, segmentation is easier and faster than ever.

Dynamic and Connected Customer Profiles. Having a synchronized database that’s integrated with new applications and systems provides you with access to a richer set of data. Having first-, second-, and third-party data and information from both back- and front-office sources gives your company the ability to send segmented messages to increasingly sophisticated target audiences.

You aren’t yet able to address audiences based on predictive scoring such as the propensity to churn or purchase, but you have access to a rich view of your audience and their historical behaviors. Leveraging this data from across the organization will give you the opportunity to implement new A/B testing strategies, identify new insights, and ultimately build more engaging content.

Real-Time Data. Historical data is great, but adding real-time data allows you to respond to trends of the moment. This kind of data is incredibly valuable during peak selling seasons, product launches, and other times when audience behavior is unpredictable and fluid. 

Cross-Departmental Behavior. Orchestrating your messaging across your marketing channels was the first step. Now you’re expanding that orchestration across at least one other department, whether it’s sales, service, or something else. You’re developing a voice that’s a little less marketing-centric and one that does a better job of speaking for your entire company and the interactions that your customers have with it as a whole.

                                                               

Data equals success in modern marketing, especially when you use real-time data and digital analytics to inform your campaigns. See how you can “Go Further with Digital Analytics.”

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How Travel and Hospitality Brands Can Go the Extra Mile for Customers

In order to attract new customers and encourage repeat business, travel and hospitality brands should differentiate on more than just price by creating personalized customer experiences.

Loyalty programs in the travel industry have been around since the 1970s, when American Airlines pioneered the Advantage Frequent Flyer program. Since then, many hospitality brands have followed suit and developed their own loyalty programs. But decades later, many of these programs have failed to evolve to meet the ever-changing consumer trends.

Successful loyalty programs encourage users to engage with the brand across multiple channels and provide a variety of ways to interact, share their preferences, and build emotional connections. Travel should be fun, and so should a loyalty program!

Here are a few ways that travel and hospitality companies can go the extra mile for their customers through a loyalty & engagement program.

Personalize the experience

Leverage customer profile and purchase data to create personalized experiences. Whether for business or leisure, travelers have vastly different preferences, and without engaging on a deeper level to learn more, brands will struggle to provide the most relevant offers and rewards. The more you engage with your customers, the more you can learn about the contexts of their trips and personalize travel offers for them. For example, those who extend business trips into leisure have formed a whole new category of “bleisure” travelers who brands need to cater to. In fact, 76% of business travelers say they would prolong a trip for leisure if their hotels offered an incentive. Armed with this insight, brands can provide greater value for customers by targeting them with promotions that make it easy to extend their stay.

Generational differences create another opportunity for personalization in travel and hospitality loyalty programs. For example, Expedia cited that 86% of millennials opt to redeem reward points earned from business for leisure purposes, compared to 72% of those aged 46-65. Brands can leverage this data to create deeper connections across each generation.

Some travel and hospitality brands are realizing the value of investing in improving personalization capabilities, citing artificial intelligence as a key to this. Choice Hotels recently brought on a new Chief Technology Officer who is focused on improving digital customer engagement and using AI and analytics to improve personalization and increase repeat bookings through the Choice Privileges program. They are even partnering with Amazon to learn how to integrate the best machine learning and predictive analytics tools to make experiences more personal.

Offer unique rewards

Rewards like discounted flights and hotel rooms sometimes fall short of satisfying diverse travel preferences. Instead of only offering discounts, brands should aim to accommodate 89% of consumers that view “alternative” rewards like access to Wi-Fi and exclusive events as highly valuable. These member-only benefits are a great way to mitigate risk at a corporate level while creating desirable, tailored experiences on a customer level.

The Wyndham Rewards program partners with companies like Starbucks, Caesars Entertainment, and United Airlines so users can earn and redeem points in various ways. In addition, members can redeem points for Best Buy gift cards, Apple TVs, or even donate points to support charitable organizations.

Brands that keep their programs fresh by continually offering personalized, authentic opportunities to earn and burn points keep customers engaged and coming back trip after trip.

Provide an exceptional level of support

Loyalty programs are a great tool to entice new customers and increase customer satisfaction, but they are only effective if the brand helps its users understand and navigate the program. Surprisingly, only 9% of brands are effective at helping members make the most of their loyalty program membership. To differentiate and provide superior support, brands should consistently engage with users across different channels to provide customized updates, request feedback, and create dialogue with customers.

When customers know that your program offers special support and that you genuinely care about creating positive experiences, you can incentivize repeat business and differentiate from more generic programs. JetBlue has worked to modernize the way its customer service supports travelers by integrating new channels like email, Twitter, and Facebook all into one central customer service feed. This creates a more seamless user experience while allowing JetBlue to consolidate its backend support.

Encourage digital advocacy

Incentivize and reward users for sharing positive experiences and inviting others to join in. Travel brings people together and is one of the most emotionally fulfilling subjects to share with family, friends and colleagues. It has also become incredibly easy to share travel reviews online and on social media. Reviews are like currency because 96% of consumers read reviews before booking travel, and 88% of travelers filter out hotels with low average ratings.

Travel and hospitality brands should encourage customer advocacy through their loyalty programs by encouraging users to complete reviews and refer friends. Customer referrals are often more cost effective and impactful than advertising. Social Media Today cited that 92% of customers trust suggestions from friends and family more than advertisements. So, when a loyalty program can successfully encourage customer reviews and advocacy, a brand gains credibility and becomes more attractive to new prospective customers.

Make it mobile

Leverage technology to provide unique, multichannel experiences and reach customers with different digital appetites. 91% of loyalty program members say they prefer to engage with brands using emerging technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and card-on-file. By connecting mobile apps and integrations, a loyalty program becomes more valuable, seamless, and fun.

For example, Marriott invested in PlacePass, which lets users search and compare prices when booking travel. With a commitment to personalizing experiences, Marriott tailors user searches based on previous stays and other purchasing behavior. The Hyatt Hotels app allows users to hail an Uber from their hotel location or connect with a Hyatt employee using Facebook Messenger or Twitter.

Conclusion

While many travel and hospitality companies already have loyalty programs in place, they often lack the thoughtful engagement necessary to make their programs truly effective and rewarding for users. Brands can differentiate in the crowded travel and hospitality marketplace by offering unique personal experiences and integrating the most cutting-edge technology to make members feel valued. By providing fun, mobile ways for travelers to earn points and share experiences, brands can turn a first-time customer into a lifelong traveler.

                                       

Marketers must pay attention to mobile, since everyone is on their phones all the time now. You can’t write an email as you regularly would for the web as for mobile then. You have to adapt and adjust. Learn “5 Pro Tips for Optimizing an Email for Mobile.”

 

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