Loyalty… Frequency… Are these new concepts?
Its the 1950′s…. Imagine a kid licking the lucky green stamps that Mom brought home from the supermarket, and sticking them into a catalog book, all the while staring at that picture of a doll or train set that they were saving the stamps for. If junior had any influence, Mom and Dad would spend every spare dime they had at the supermarket to get more stamps. S&H Solutions
Now, fast forward to the recent acquisition by Pay By Touch of S&H – one of the originators of "rewarding consumers
for their purchases to keep them coming back." Pay By Touch is merging payments and loyalty with the touch of a thumb. "Pay By Touch is the leading biometric authentication network for
loyalty and payments, and the only company that integrates biometric
authentication, payments, personalized marketing, and payment
processing. The company’s mission is to liberate consumers through
biometrics and beyond by providing the most secure, convenient, and
cost-effective electronic transaction solutions available."  Pay By Touch My sister saved up lucky green stamps for one of these "hot numbers" (above) from Loblaws in the 1950s. Nice hairdo and the outfit looks a lot like the uniform worn by the  ladies behind the  deli counter…  How many pounds of ground round was that ma’am? The answer is no… Loyalty and frequency are not new concepts, and I would venture to say that nostalgia for these programs is not misguided – THEY WORKED!

According to Jim

Jim Barnes, a fellow Canadian and a guru at Customer Think discusses research results from Colloquy…

Research results such as these indicate that consumers perceive a ton
of value in loyalty programs and use them often to earn rewards. But,
they have precious little to do with loyalty.

Jim goes on to caution about developing a loyalty program to get customer loyalty. Do loyalty programs influence customer behavior? Of course they do.
But, if you are looking to build long-term customer loyalty, the kind
of loyalty that is grounded in an emotional connection, don’t go
running off to start a loyalty program.

Jim’s full comments are here.

link to Business Week article

excerpt:
By luring employees into a network, companies hope to leverage their
skills and contacts. But they also hope that all that collaboration
will cut out time that’s now spent mailing documents and e-mailing
comments.

excerpt: SharePoint, the
Microsoft software that lets companies set up MySpace-like profiles,
blogs, and collaborative Web sites known as wikis within the confines
of their firewalls, is one of the fastest-growing server products in
the company’s history. "At first people were slow to adopt this; they
were nervous. But now we’re seeing a bunch of adoption," says Rob
Curry, director of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server software.
Both Microsoft and IBM are using their own offices as labs for their
products.

excerpt: The whole "open"
ethos of the social Net–sharing pictures and music and letting
"friends" know your every activity–goes against the instincts of
big-company chief information officers.

OK some of this is heavy if you are not into marketing and analytics. But if you are interested in loyalty programs and CRM, this 2 part knowledge sharing from Fulcrum’s CEO David King is worth a read .

In part1, the discussion is about how "database marketing technology is finally catching up to the real-world need to manage customer relationships over time. Finite state machines are being adapted to marketing and provide an entire new set of capabilities."

In part 2, KIng talks about optimizing marketing around particular strategic goals and in the face of real-world constraints… "extend the concept of state machines with a
technique used for optimizing processes in many other industries – a
Markov Decision Process (MDP) — here the transitions are a set of probabilities."

Here is a "wireless loyalty card" that  shoppers carry with them in the store on their key fob.  Do I think it  will fly?  Not sure – because of the infrastructure needed to read and write special offers to these fobs throughout the stores. But, I think the idea is in the right direction  Scansave (company I founded) is working on an alternate approach where your points/loyalty/credit card in your wallet has a special surface that  prints, erases and reprints offers right onto your card.  Imagine visiting Costco, Sam’s Club or BJ’s and when you take out your card, you show it like you do today, then you swipe it, and your card is imprinted with offers… JUST FOR YOU! 

Scansave offers PVC loyalty card solutions with re-printable surface

Weird Science! Google’s brand value 50% more than Coca Cola.Double the value of either Toyota or McDonalds. Give me  a  break today! According to agency Millward Brown, authors of the annual "Brandz 100" study … "Brand value is the financial value of a brand – defined as the sum of all earnings that a brand is expected to generate" But, they use their own brand contribution multiplier, based on intangibles,  to get the total. You know what they say about 50% of advertising being a waste, but no one knows which 50% it is.Too much of marketing is intangible.

http://www.millwardbrown.com/Sites/optimor/Media/Pdfs/en/BrandZ/BrandZ-2007-RankingReport.pdf

Remember this National Lampoon Cover? Maybe this is the best way to monetize blogging? Threats! No? well then I’d love some ideas and direction, because I’m back at this after a break of 3 years and would like to know how, where, and who can teach me about how to effectively use the blog to build business. That’s really what its about isn’t it?! Be honest!
If I just wanted a friend I would keep the dog, and shut down the blog
Which is the best host? I have a few days left in the trial period to decide to keep typepad. Is wordpress better?

Over 3,000 facebook apps! I have been looking for an app that would let me tie in this new blog, a facebook group, websites and my facebook profile. I chose "blog friends" and we’ll see how that goes. Most of the apps for RSS I looked at, were reviewed by users and most had bug complaints. I really didn’t see a clear leader in this "category"   

I know one thing I hate on facebook is being forced to get an app to see what someone is trying to send/give/share. I’m a hypocrite… I like shoebox and have sent non-users special gifts that they need shoebox to see – GUILTY as charged!

I see VCs raising funds just for facebook app companies,  websites that review facebook apps. It seems like the 3rd wave of the Internet is now underway and facebook is right in the centre! Watch out google!

I have to admit this first post is not something I have looked forward to. I maintained a blog for a few years with Blogger, and although the links and content were IMO excellent, it was a sinkhole for time (and likely ahead of its time).

4 or 5 years later and I’m giving it another shot to integrate  my thinking on target marketing, to learn, to connect,  and provide a focused outlet for those interested in all the issues around target marketing and promotion optimization.  You are welcome to contribute, promote and sell as long as you are on "target". If you can help teach me how to promote the blog too, that would be a gift!

One area I am interested in, and want to learn about is… Privacy and Target Marketing.