Acquiring new customers is great. But keeping them and growing your relationship with them is even better. One of the best ways to do that is to establish a loyalty program for your most loyal customers.

Loyalty programs can be as simple as a repeat buying program and as complicated as one that establishes a new form of currency. It could be executed with paper tickets and hole punchers, or with robust data capture, barcoding and other CRM techniques.

But if you aren’t careful, your loyalty program could be a giant waste of money. Here are 5 steps to creating a good loyalty program: Read more…

If you could leverage the vast memberships of social networking sites and marry it up to the interest of top local and national merchants, would you do it? Would you want to provide that type of opportunity for special deals and instant rewards for your community? Of course you would.

That is exactly what One Big Planet is doing. With their proposed “Acquire, Generate, and Retain” life cycle, they may just change the way people think about loyalty programs. According to this article in DM News, “The platform creates branded portals for organizations and online communities through which members can shop, make dining reservations, print coupons and book flights, among a host of other commerce tools. OneBigPlanet also incorporates social networking tools, which allow members to add each other as friends, make recommendations and rate merchants. The company tracks user preferences to target e-mail and on-site offers.”

Will communities and companies embrace this all-in-one hub of great deals and instant savings? Is this a situation where you need universal participation to truly make this site worthwhile for the majority of users? There is no question One Big Planet can scale up. But can it exist in its infancy stage?

The launch of One Big Planet is an interesting one and on paper, a good one. So good, in fact, that there is bound to be competitor sites that come up with similar offerings. Then, the real question will not be whether people embrace this new all-in-one portal model, it will be which one do they like best?

I cannot imagine Google, with their iGoogle, AdSense, and GMail products, not to mention their involvement with Open Social, would miss an opportunity like this.

One summer when I was home from college, I took a job as a telemarketer. It was the most stressful job I have ever had in my life. I had a quota to fill every week. And if I didn’t deliver, I would be let go.

But, for as stressful as it was, it taught me quite a bit about persuasion. Our product was a publication for board members of non-proft organizations. It was a monthly publication that provided content that would allow non-profit organizations operate more cost-effectively and efficient both in their internal processes and in how they raise money through donations and sponsorships.

The sales pitch was something like this: Read more…

Go and review the latest piece of communication you sent out to your broad audience of customers. Is it a clear, concise message? Is it filled with concepts that are consistent with your brand voice? Or is it riddles with disclaimers, sensationalism, and legal information? Do you gear your messaging to your best or your worst customers?

The reason I bring this up is because I just had 2 experiences that span the spectrum of that question. On one hand, you have a big utility company that treated me like a criminal. On the other hand you have a retailer who treated me like a king.

I recently took a winter coat back to L.L. Bean. My son had worn it for a full winter and my daughter for 2 winters before him. And this winter, the fourth year of use, the velcro on the zipper ripped off. I took it to the local L.L. Bean store and asked if it could get sewn back on. Instead, I got a gift card equivalent to the full price I paid for it over 4 years ago. This was by far the best service I have ever received. So much in fact, that I felt almost criminal taking the full refund and walking out with a brand new winter coat for my son. This, after having a small tear on the velcro. Read more…

We live in an instant society. At least that’s what people say. People want instant gratification. They want to be in the know as soon as possible. They want to be wowed before the paint dries. But one should be careful to not provide instant gratification for the sake of speed. Because sometimes people will sacrifice speed for quality. This is especially true of Polaroid.

One could argue that with Polaroid, speed is was relative but quality was not. Besides a small niche market of users, instant gratification (which Polaroid seemed to base their entire business after) was sacrificed in the eyes of the consumer to the higher quality of digital photography.

In the end, what was once a fun, social activity of taking pictures and enjoying them instantly was passed over for taking pictures and enjoying them that night. Polaroid was dealing with “minutes” while the appetite of photographers was more in the “hour” range. Read more…