Loyalty Truth

At the beginning of each year, our publisher and customer growth agency, Hanifin Loyalty has adopted a tradition to select 3 words to define the course of loyalty marketing over the next 12 months. The 3 word approach to focusing efforts and resources for the new year was inspired by Chris Brogan, and you can read some background on the discipline as well as his 3 words for 2015 here.

In our experience, the 3 word approach is a highly efficient form of goal-setting and generates better results over the course of the year than trying to live up to a set of New Year’s resolutions. That approach is dated at best on a personal level and is an even tougher stretch to work in a business setting.

There is substance behind each word and, even if you don’t entirely identify with the word itself, the supporting explanation of each one should provide thought provoking points to take back to your office.

Here’s a summary look at Hanifin Loyalty’s 3 words for 2015. You can follow the link to the Hanifin Loyalty blog to read more detail on each word, and to gain a broader perspective on how the three link together.

Re-Evaluate

• To be successful, marketers need to firmly understand how the baseline of human behaviors are evolving and re-evaluate how we create strategies and campaigns that will have positive impact.
• If we remember that all customers are human beings – no matter what they say while on the phone with your call center – then we must agree that seeking to understand trends in human behavior is critically important to being able to connect and develop dialogue with our customers.

Re-Position

• A viable substitute for Re-position is Shift. Brands cannot fool customers anymore. There is no amount of loyalty currency that will consistently entice consumers to buy your product online or frequent your stores if the experience interacting with your brand is sub-par.
• Brands need to shift their thinking to invest first in their own employees and create a cooperative and reasonably happy culture that will foster supportive communications to customers.

Re-Calculate

• To realize the highest rate of success and return on invested marketing funds in 2015, brands should increase emphasis on program measurement.
• Think about what needs to change in order to re-calculate or measure the impact of your customer marketing efforts on a regular basis. Thorough strategic planning needs to be substantiated by data analysis.

Now that you have a taste for how we see the road ahead, go here for a detailed examination of each word. Part 1 on Re-Evaluate is waiting for you now.

Share your perspectives with us on our Facebook page or in our Twitter stream. Comparing perspectives always leads to a more productive outcome. Above all, we believe 2015 holds much promise, and we share these 3 Words as a means to help us prepare for the best that 2015 has in store for each of us.