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info@m—wise.euFemia Smit, our Insights Team Lead, guides you through adding marketing intelligence to your loyalty strategy, from program set-up to long-term success.
Marketing intelligence is really a catch-all term for data analysis focusing on your market and performance. This is vital for your loyalty strategy as it enables strong decision-making and helps you spot new growth opportunities. The key is knowing what to look for and when.
Did you know that something as simple as your registration form can impact on your success? Take a step back and think about the data you will need in the future.
Want to send personalised emails? Make sure you have separate first and last name fields. Planning to send direct mails? Make sure the house number and street name are separate. Why not add a related question like date of birth too? This means you can surprise your customers with a birthday voucher or perk.
Now is the time to dig deep into the data on registrations (inflow). This lets you see exactly how your program is performing and how your base is developing. Thanks to your solid registration form, you also have the high-quality data you need to investigate your base demographics like age, gender, location etc. This is crucial as any areas of concern can be picked up early. That gives you a chance to put strategies in place to widen your base or target the right customers.
Are registrations slowing in general? How about publicising a special welcome discount for new members or adding an in-store iPad for on-the-spot sign-ups? Perhaps registrations aren’t as high in a certain region. You can reach potential members by thinking up initiatives like location-based social media targeting or in-store promotions. 
Now it’s time to really focus on the outflow (inactive customers) and improving retention (making them stay). This is where profiling and segmentation come in. Try building subgroups of customers based on shared demographics or characteristics. It could be age, purchase habits, email open rates, click behaviour — you name it. You’re looking for anything that lets you create segments of similar customers so you can send them highly relevant messages.
Segment customers into those who are more style sensitive and those who are discount sensitive (and a mixture of both). In other words, find out if the customers engage more with messaging about new items or about offers. This way you can develop a more relevant contact strategy.
Now your program has built up a significant amount of data, you can actually start using predictive technology to forecast future performance. Each month you can see the expected inflow, retention and outflow. This lets you put strategies in place before a significant drop in your program even happens. Expect to see the start of a drop and be prepared to think about which target group you need to approach.
Set a timeframe of inactivity like 30 days/60 days/90 days and think up ways to encourage those members to participate in your program whenever they are about to reach that point. Be creative – the opportunities are endless! If you really want to supercharge your sales, go one step further and profile customers by purchase behaviour. For example, customers that buy items predominantly in one color could get emails with recommendations for relevant items. Your loyalty program will seem totally tailor-made for each customer. Something as simple as a special discount voucher is a great incentive to re-engage with your brand. It’s also a signifier that you really value your customers and, of course, a reminder that your program is full of rewards, perks and benefits. 
Constant improvement is the name of the game. Monitor the overall performance of your campaigns, app or website as often as possible. When you know where new efforts could make an impact, your loyalty strategy becomes so much more effective.
By Femia Smit, Insights Team Lead (m—wise)
