1.Boost your channel loyalty
Are you looking for new ways to increase partner engagement and boost your channel loyalty? We all know that channel is more competitive than ever before and trying to keep the attention of your partners is a bit like trying to be heard above the roar of a crowd in a sold out stadium. You could try a frenzy of desperate emails or, if you have spare budget lying around, you can throw even more incentives at them. But your competitors are probably doing the same thing and none of that will foster true engagement and partner loyalty.
In fact, your partners may just start to delete your emails without reading them and begin to hold you hostage for bigger and more costly incentives to get their attention. With so much change taking place throughout the channel today and with competition for partner mindshare at fever pitch, smart channel teams need to look beyond the channel for new ideas – because traditional marketing methods for managing a channel program aren’t good enough for partners whose expectations are higher than ever before. In this eBook, we explore B2C loyalty marketing practices from 3 global brands that can be directly applied to your channel partner program that will make a difference and deliver results.
2.Think about your channel partners as customers
If you still think of your channel partner’s as some special eco-system of companies that “belong” to you, then it’s time to re-evaluate. More tech channel marketers – and B2Bmarketers in general – are coming to an important realization:
Your channel partners are customers.
Thinking about them as “customers” doesn’t mean your partners are always right! But like any good customer service organization, you need to make them feel valued (so that if they find they aren’t going to get their way, they at least feel respected). Mobile, social, cloud and big data have changed how we all interact with brands and businesses. Consumers spend a lot of time on their smartphones, tablets and computers; using social media to learn about products and services, and sharing their own experiences with products and services, and enjoying engaging content. And so do channel partners!
They want the same kind of personalized, engaging relationship with you that they have as consumers with brands they value, things like:
Mobile experience for both content and shopping.
Product reviews and ratings from their peers
Seamless, easy return policies
Use of real-time information for offers and content.
And things they aren’t expecting but value just as much – those random acts of kindness that let the customers know you are thinking about them and value their custom; something that we refer to in the marketing world as ‘surprise and delight’. A partner enrolled in your partner program is no guarantee of business and cannot be treated as an ‘extension of the vendor’s salesforce’. The reality is that, like consumers partners can walk at any time. Adopting a ‘partners as customers’ mind-set forces channel marketers to the realization that we have to continually create compelling propositions and reasons for partner-customers to remain engaged and loyal.
Achieving success in today’s market requires “strategic flexibility.”
The Boston Consulting Group
Adopting a ‘partners as customers’ mind-set will set you apart from your competitors because this is not a table stakes attitude within the channel. If you were a partnering company, who would you prefer to work with? The manufacturer who tried to tell you how to run your business and exactly how to sell their products? Or the one who recognizes that you know your industry and region, but understands that you would appreciate some help in maximizing your efforts? See? It’s all in the attitude. A customer-centric approach helps them feel appreciated for their expertise and knowledge, and still offers them additional benefits when they participate in certification classes and other activities to help them maximize their relationship with you. Now that you’re recognizing that your partners are another set of customers how do you deliver a superlative customer experience to those partner-customers?
Give your partner program a consumer facelift
Ask yourself – if my partner portal was actually a website for consumers, how would it stack up? Because with a customer oriented approach, you shouldn’t be making compromises on the experience just because you’re communicating with other businesses rather than end-customers.
How many emails does a partner receive each month? Think newsletters, product news, training and events updates. How much of it is opened and read and how tailored is the content?
How many websites and passwords does a partner need to keep track of? Does the content display well on a mobile phone and is it always up-to-date?
How much effort is required by the partner to carry out a marketing campaign? How easy is it to repair or replace faulty products?
Differentiate from competitors
When you look at your competitors programs, is anyone doing anything different? Partner programs have matured as a concept in our industry and we all know it’s pretty difficult to deliver something different from the competition. So how do you differentiate when most programs have become “table stakes” in order to attract partners? Well, it’s not all about the WHAT, but about the HOW. If you have collected your partner data then you can deliver a partner experience that is not only different but more valuable in the partner’s eyes.
When we look to the consumer world we can all point to campaigns that excite or impress us. Investing in trying to create campaigns and programs that your partners, competitors and media talk about not only create a buzz for you, but make an impact with your channel.
Use and analyze customer data to create a personalized experience
Sales data not only tells you what a partner is buying but provides recency, frequency and value (RFV) data which can be very insightful to marketers.
With online tracking tools it’s possible to track who is logging into your portal, how long they stay and the pages they visit, who is opening your emails and what they are reading.
Use the numerous opportunities available to you to build richer profiles to create more personalized experiences.
When creating new marketing campaigns be sure to build time and budget the process to analyze and segment data so you can create highly successful partner campaigns. Insights learned through analytics not only help deliver more relevant and personalized experiences for customers, they also help you track and anticipate trends so that you can continue to stay ahead of the competition.
You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology.
Steve Jobs
3.What can channel marketers learn from airline frequent flyer programs?
What do frequent flyer programs (FFPs) and channel partner programs have in common? More than you might think:
Membership and tiers
Benefits and rewards based on tiers or eligibility
Recognition and kudos by being associated as a premier member
Exclusive communications and promotions.
Like partner programs in the tech industry, FFP’s are the pinnacle of customer engagement programs in the airline industry. Loyalty, incremental revenue, and advocacy: these aren’t just goals of major airlines with their frequent flyer programs, they’re also the goals for your channel partner program!
Airline FFP’s are great success stories and offer channel marketers another view point on engagement and game mechanics. From the very beginning, airlines saw the value in customer data. They understood the more they knew about their customers, the more effective they could be at marketing to them and that’s why ‘miles’ were invented. Miles are a reward paid to the traveler for providing data and giving the airlines permission to talk to customers. As a result, airlines have created a balanced value exchange where both the airline and the customer are getting something highly desired from the relationship: customer insight for the airline and free flights and other benefits for loyal customers. Cathay Pacific Airways has consistently been voted among the best airlines globally, including the #1 position in 2014*. With customers flying to nearly 200 destinations in 51 countries/territories, Cathay Pacific’s Marco Polo Club is integral to the airline’s strategy to retain loyal customers.
A clearly defined customer communications strategy provides the framework for Cathay Pacific to deliver personalized, engaging content to more than 1 million members in over 240 cities.
Using customer data it collects through its program, Cathay Pacific can segment, target and position communications.
Can you match these open rates from Cathay Pacific?
50 – 70% on a segmented special promotion
90+% for (surprise and delight) Birthday eCard
Truly personalized messaging is how Cathay Pacific achieved such positive open rates. Never underestimate the power of A/B testing and personalization with your partner data base to yield insights into how to communicate with your partners.
Cathay Pacific didn’t get the data they use to personalize their communications by asking customers to complete a big, detailed profile prior to boarding a plane. They did use a survey approach but they asked themselves, how do we get customers to (willingly!) provide more data so we can personalize our communications to them even more? The Marco Polo Club decided to build in some fun – they used game mechanics.
Eight unique profiles were developed for the travel and flying survey – each linked to the name of a bird and married to the persona that would be used for future marketing. The end result was that customers felt they were playing a game – to learn their bird persona which they could then share via social media – and Cathay Pacific added to their insight into loyal customer behavior
18,000 participants
6.5% response rate
56% responded using mobile phones
Participants often played more than once
Played an average of 4 minutes each time.
Creating games that collect not just business, but also personal profile information helped Cathay Pacific learn more about their customers. You can do the same with your channel partners as well! After all, when is a customer more likely to provide accurate information? When they’re on question 33 of a seemingly endless survey and they are just writing down anything to make the survey go away (or abandoning in the middle)? Or when they’re having fun and feel more like they’re playing a game than taking a test like they were back at school? Why not try a gamified quiz after your next new product release with a fun incentive (intrinsic is fine!) versus sending out an official sounding mandate that partners must learn the new solution?
…Partners are placing greater value on your engagement programs, your systems, and your accessibility, not just your financial incentives. Cultivating partner loyalty today is a complex, multifaceted endeavour, one that warrants a new vision incorporating new approaches to partner engagement.
Tim Harmon, Forrester
4.Leverage your brand to create relationship value
Creating additional relationship value for loyal customers doesn’t require that you to spend boatloads of money sending customers on tropical vacations – you can create value from within your brand. Your brand, after all is something that your competitors can’t copy and creative marketers can generate innovative value from within their brand. Let’s look at how Manchester United pulled off this feat. Manchester United is one of the world’s most valuable (£2 billion) and recognized sports clubs:
659 million fans globally
100 million fans who interact digitally
66 million Facebook likes
6 million Twitter followers.
RedRewardsTM is a loyalty program designed exclusively for customers who have a Manchester United co-branded credit card – providing something unique to members and creating an addition revenue stream. Many devoted fans however obtained a co-branded card solely as a sign of their team devotion! Manchester United’s challenge was to increase active engagement and use of the card with a modest marketing budget. So how do you create a high perceived value for loyal customers without breaking the bank?
5.Rewards that money can’t buy
ICLP worked with Manchester United to develop innovative, new rewards values for RedRewardsTM card holders – value from within the brand that devoted fans couldn’t obtain anywhere else and that were highly desired by the team’s large fan base including signed photos of players, tickets to the Manchester United museum tour and access to team training session. Game mechanics increased the fun for fans – for every £50 spent using the card, a customer received an entry into the prize drawing for a unique experience with the team and brand.
The results exceeded expectations:
43% increase in cardholders in first 9 months
ROI breakeven within 6 months
Increased card usage from existing customers.
ICLP has enabled us to understand the motivations for buying behaviour within our member
base. RedRewardsTM now allows us to reward supporters who carry and use the Manchester United credit card with prizes they just can’t get anywhere else. It is a great way of saying ‘thank you’ for their support.
Steven Falk, Director of Manchester United
Financial Services
Manchester United’s RedRewardsTM promotion demonstrated that experiential rewards – rewards money can’t buy – are capable of significantly increasing customer engagement as well as brand value.
So in the channel, look at what you offer and give away to your partners today. Not all channel rewards have to be costly or generic. Yes they may all ask for pre-paid debit cards but how memorable is that? Increase partner engagement by offering opportunities for unique experiences – meet & greet’s with your company’s channel leader or CEO, attendance to an invitation-only hosted event, exclusive training activities or tours of your lab or other facility are all experiences that create relationship value.
6.Leverage your partner data to create a personalized experience
It’s all enough to make a B2B marketer’s head spin. Maximizing your data to increase customer loyalty doesn’t really have to be scary. But you do need to take it seriously because micro-segmentation of data is essential in creating a personalized experience for your customers that will increase engagement.
With a little planning and by tackling one problem at a time, you can create an “all about me” experience that will help fuel your partners’ loyalty.
The Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group’s Club Carlson loyalty program rivals even the most complex channel partner program in complexity:
10 million members
4 tiers
1,000+ hotel locations globally
And just like most partner programs, Club Carlson relies on its membership programs to increase customer engagement and tackle real business problems. Where Club Carlson and some partner programs may differ is the focus Carlson puts on data up front to unlock crucial insights that might direct the strategy.
Recently Carlson Rezidor needed to address a decline in bookings in the Nordic region. Unsure of the reason for the decline, they knew that before crafting a solution they needed to look at the data and understand what was happening in the region.
Effective data analysis requires someone who not only understands how to work with data, but knows your business as well so you can glean the maximum insights from the analysis. ICLP worked with Carlson Rezidor to look at RFV – Recency, Frequency and Value – as well as members’ engagement with Club Carlson, including their redemption activity:
Recency – how recently a customer has purchased
Frequency – how often the customer purchases
Value – how much the customer spends?
For Club Carlson that meant:
Recency – last 12 months; last 24 months
Frequency – Single stays; multiple stays
Value – number of points earned.
The surprising result? Nordic members prefer to travel within the region.
With a clearer understanding of the dynamics, ICLP crafted a campaign to increase business for target hotels in the Nordic region among existing Nordic Club Carlson members – by targeting campaign offers that were synergistic with actual customer behaviour.
Promotions and content were created for 88 campaign variants – targeted very specifically to club members. While 88 variants sounds incredibly complex this apparent complexity was easy to manage with marketing automation which most companies have access to and offers were delivered to customers with dynamic email templates.
As Club Carlson learned, creating a highly personalized campaign that also addressed a well-understood business problem – can yield some impressive results:
29.4% open rate (industry average is 21%)
17.8% click-through rate (industry average is 4.4%).
And best of all for Carlson Rezidor?
A record-breaking ROI of over 10,000%.
Plus, the 2015 Loyalty Award for Best Use of Customer Analytics/Data in a Loyalty Program!
The investment we have made in analytics and segmentation has not only enabled us to increase engagement but more importantly increase the value of our program for our members because we can be very tailor orientated with our messaging.
Teresa Comparato,
Senior Director of Global Customer Engagement,
Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group
You may not need 88 variants in your communications with partners, but if you’re currently just delivering communications on basic tiering and/or partner type levels, then you’re missing some big opportunities to convince partners that you are paying attention to what they’ve already told you – via their profiles (company and personal), their buying behavior, and their sales information. Through-partner marketing automation gets the lions’ share of attention in the channel, but making partners feel special and unique sometimes just requires a bit of micro-segmentation to help create effective to-partner communications.
7. Five things you can try with your channel program
1. “Surprise and delight” your partners with a highly personalized, unexpected communication. Perhaps celebrating an anniversary with your company or acknowledging an achievement.
2. Develop a campaign that features rewards that “money can’t buy”. Experiences with your executives or at your events or facilities that a partner would never have access to for any price.
3. Use game mechanics in your next campaign to make it fun and interesting
Such as prize draws if a partner earns a passing score on a quiz about a new product or service.
4. Learn more about your partners to help you personalize your marketing efforts
By developing a fun survey game that helps you understand their business. Participating partners can win some of those unique experiences to maximize your marketing budget. Bonus! You get insight into what concerns are driving your partner ecosystem.
5. Revisit all the data you have on partners
Company profiles, sales data, personal information – and explore how to micro-segment your partner information in your marketing automation platform to deliver content that is more relevant and personal – engaging! – to your partners.
And while you explore one or more of these, remember that your partners are customers to infuse your efforts with the mind-set that will truly help you differentiate your brand and company from the competition.