Loyalty Truth

One of the blogs I enjoy reading is written by Chris Brogan. He’s got some interesting takes on social media and a huge following.

Today he stepped in the Loyalty Marketing sandbox with his post The Myth of Brand Loyalty. I won’t recount the story here and encourage you to read it as well as take in the comment stream which follows. There are a few good ones and you can read my take as well in which I reference how Airlines Take Flight Without Data.

To be fair, the airlines and Apple (Chris’ example) aren’t alone. We see it all the time….companies that have accumulated tremendous stores of data and are not using it to market efficiently and effectively. Or, as I witnessed this week in client meetings, there are banks with reams of customer satisfaction research, customer profile information, and transaction history that have studied it all, developed recommendations, but inexplicably have not put into action a measurable marketing campaign based on this information.

It’s not about capacity, it’s all about willpower. Corporate commitment to Customer Loyalty from the top down is needed for success and, where I can identify that commitment, I would personally invest in the related equity issues. These will be the winners in the market over the next 10 years.