Loyalty programmes are a goldmine of valuable data, says Angelina dos Santos-Barrett, loyalty product manager at Innervation.
Tying loyalty data together with other databases can be relatively simple and inexpensive, she explains. "You don't need to pay a lot of money for data you don't already have, or hire a specialist team. You simply have to make better use of the assets already sitting around in your organisation."
Pulling together data from disparate sources is a simple matter, she adds. "It's literally just about finding a few unique pieces of information like a name, a mobile number, an e-mail address or a masked credit card number. Once you've matched these across a few databases, you can start to build a picture of your customers that can feed into your development of new products and services."
Because retailers often leave loyalty information sitting in an isolated database, this data often represents a missed opportunity, notes Dos Santos-Barrett. "You have their name, their card number and the fact that they've made at least one purchase - but are you looking at exactly how many times they've been through your tills and what they bought? Do you have an understanding of what might motivate them to come back?"
Without regular contact, customers may lose interest in the loyalty programme and forget about their cards, so the programme must be used to engage customers and provide value to maintain their loyalty.
"Your customers give you valuable information about themselves - you have to use it creatively to give them something valuable back. It's pointless having a loyalty programme, for example, if you're sending the same generic set of special offers to all your loyalty customers. If I regularly buy the same premium brand of coffee, sending me 20% off your chicory-blend house brand is helping nobody. You can only give your customers what they want when you understand who they are," Dos Santos-Barrett concludes.
"And all you need to do that is a relatively simple strategy, and a simple interface to your data. Retailers can start small and still see big results."
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