Three Ways To Increase ROI For Your Food/Beverage Industry Loyalty Program

by Anil Kaul, AbsolutdataPosted: Friday, July 24, 2015 at 3:27PM EDT Businesses in the food and beverage sector have always faced fierce battles with their competitors for profits and market-share, though as of late these conflicts have become more intense. The increasing influence of social networking, smartphone usage and a cost-conscious sentiment among consumers has raised the stakes amongst rival food and beverage companies. These factors have resulted in consumer-dominant markets, where the opinion of the average consumer has much more power than it did just a decade ago; the customer journey is played out in real-time, on sites like Facebook and Twitter, where potentially millions can read about a customer's interaction with a business, for good or for ill. In the past, loyalty programs were the way to attract and keep customers, and this is true now too, albeit with a few tweaks for the digital age. A modern loyalty program for a company in the food and beverage industry must have depth. It can't simply be a “buy four get one free” affair, but instead something that keeps customers involved while at the same time feeding the organization with a continuous stream of information about consumer trends and demographics. The goal of a modern loyalty program is two-fold; to encourage customers to shift from single-period decision making to multi-period decision making and to capture and track customer-level data. If there is an end-goal or reward track that the consumer believes is eventually obtainable via a loyalty program, it is that much easier for them to utilize it. Ultimately, the collection of data will benefit the consumer by providing a tailored experience. Information to be captured includes customer demographics, purchase habits, satisfaction levels and psychographics. The information collected via the loyalty program can be used to create a single 360-degree view of an individual customer. The aggregate data can be used in targeted promotional activities to foster customer relationships with the brand and over time help drive a noticeable return on investment. Another important matter is social media and what it means for the loyalty program. Social media is more than trivial matters and ephemeral events; instead, it is a valuable source of information about consumers in their own words. The larger companies in the food and beverage industry have become aware of this, as a recent Wall Street Journal article noted that Procter & Gamble has set aside a third of its US marketing budget to focus on social media. Consumers talk about products very often on social media, discussing their experiences and seeking recommendations with friends and family. If the loyalty program can be linked to these digital brand interactions in a meaningful way, then it is that much easier to understand the customer on the individual level and reward them appropriately. Once they are infused into the loyalty program, the customer drivers revealed by social media can influence purchasing decisions and result in an improved return on investment. Any company can collect information on consumer behavior via a loyalty program, but what matters is how they harness it, especially in a competitive sector like the food and beverage industry. Loyalty campaigns must be based on the analytics gathered from customers, so that business decisions act in harmony with consumer behavior. Rather than being just a hunch about how consumers feel, the collected insights can tell you about how the average customer's views of a brand in their own words. Based on the analytics, marketers will be able to design and test how a loyalty campaign performs while accurately measuring the results. These campaigns can help in locating and engaging customers who provide ample business and targeting them with tailor-made offers. In the age of social media, it is important to know that the consumer has a voice, revealing what they want as long as you will listen.