New Approach for CPG Loyalty

MINNEAPOLIS--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Improvements in consumer packaged goods (CPG) sales and marketing used to simply mean spending more money through advertising and promotion to achieve the desired lift. But a new white paper from Carlson Marketing finds that there just might be some trouble in paradise.

“New and Improved: A Futuristic Approach to CPG Loyalty”

As detailed in “New and Improved: A Futuristic Approach to CPG Loyalty,” the mid-term and long-term growth prospects are not the lock they once were for CPG companies. Change is needed to keep marketing costs down as well as to deal with other challenges. Those challenges are customer-centricity, private label competition, price erosion and lack of media efficiency.

The solution can be found in a new approach to customer loyalty. Using direct-to-consumer transaction tracking techniques, new approaches to analyzing customer data and using digital marketing have taken loyalty programs and relationship marketing to a new level. This new technology and customer relationship focus have given loyalty marketing a bright new future and can give tired marketing – and weary marketers – new juice for their brands and customers.

That technology, especially the proper use of barcodes to generate and track critical customer data across channels, can make a brighter future attainable for CPG brands and for CPG brand managers.

“CPG as a category has relied on traditional marketing strategies for a short-term win, thus overlooking the customer experience in favor of product tweaks. It favors message over dialogue,” says Suzy Cox, vice president, Carlson Marketing. “It leaves the customer’s attachment to the brand at a slim margin when loyalty is threatened by private label brands, struggling retailers and desperate competitors.”

The white paper illustrates the following loyalty issues and solutions for CPG brands:

• Determining specific loyalty program details – One size does not fit all brands. CPG brands must favor long-term innovation vs. episodic experimentation. “The biggest difference between CPG loyalty circa 2000 and CPG loyalty future are market networks of partners,” the paper states. “If a brand can rely on one partner for planning, execution, tracking, and automation that program is more likely to strengthen customer relationships and become as sustainable and valuable as any series of network TV spots.”
• Identifying partners – When identifying and designing a coalition partnership, it is important to consider infrastructure, promotion and continuous marketing campaigns. Loyalty programs live and die on the ability to generate and manage customer data. Without the proper infrastructure, money is wasted and customers can be alienated by a poor redemption or reward experience. Customer data warehouses and analytics are a key part of infrastructure.
• Barcode technology – Barcode technology also has advanced to the point where it can predictably feed that customer data engine and automatically administrate points and rewards. Barcodes do this by tying the physical product sold at stores to the brand headquarters. That is an essential part of loyalty infrastructure that CPG brands may have overlooked.

“With customer loyalty on the line in a $2.2 trillion business, it deserves a new approach: a long-term commitment and partners committed to making it a long-term strategy,” said Cox.

The white paper is available at http://carlsonmarketing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=55.

About Carlson Marketing Worldwide

Carlson Marketing, the world’s leading relationship building company, designs and delivers loyalty and engagement programs for some of the world’s best known brands across several vertical markets: Airline, Hotel, Auto, Finance/Insurance, Retail, and Consumer Packaged Goods. Carlson Marketing’s two global service offerings – Brand Loyalty and Engagement & Events – are supported by six core capabilities: Strategy & Brand Planning; Creative and Communications; Decision Sciences; Award Services; Technology Services and Customer Service. Carlson Marketing – owned by Groupe Aeroplan, a global leader in loyalty management – employs more than 2,200 marketing professionals across 15 countries.

www.carlsonmarketing.com