Loyalty Email Marketing (I)

This post is part of a series of posts dedicated to the loyalty email marketing as a tactic in the development of loyalty programmes in general. Before explaining to what extent and under what circumstances loyalty email marketing can add value in this type of programme, we consider it appropriate to establish some concepts.
Loyalty marketingLoyalty marketing is a strategic and tactical approach whereby an organisation focuses part of its resources on growing and retaining its existing customers. From a more holistic point of view, loyalty marketing forms part of the organisation's value proposition, alongside branding and marketing.
Customer loyalty: describes the behaviour whereby a consumer chooses to buy a product or service from a brand or company repeatedly and sustainably over time rather than from a competitor. Two types of motivations explain this behaviour: rational (value for money, convenience, usability, etc.) and emotional (service, brand values and attributes, experience, etc.).
Loyalty programme: Loyalty programmes bring together a series of techniques and tools from Relationship Marketing and are aimed at increasing customer loyalty. This is normally achieved by offering customers certain benefits to encourage them to return and make new purchases. The most common example is the accumulation of points to later exchange them for services, discounts, gifts or other benefits. The means of implementing a points system for each customer is through loyalty cards. Loyalty cards work in conjunction with the businesses' computerised sales systems and specific software, and are topped up with points each time the customer makes a purchase. Customers can later redeem the accumulated points for prizes, discounts on purchases, services, etc.
 
               
Today, simply having a loyalty programme no longer makes a "strong" competitive difference, rather, brands must take on the challenge of elevating their loyalty programmes to create a positive and unique customer experience at every interaction. This is where email marketing can add value.
What is the email usage in loyalty programmes in Spain? In order to answer this question, we have taken the data collected in PSM Carlson's Loyalty Monitor, about the communication channels used by the users of some of the main loyalty programmes in Spain to receive communications linked to the card:

Source: PSM Carlson: Loyalty Monitor 
We believe that greater use of email marketing to communicate with users of loyalty programmes can provide significant value, both from the point of view of engagement and from the point of view of repeat business and user participation. To this end, some of the possibilities we can deploy through email marketing include:
– Personalisation of user data (declarative, points, contact information)
– Personalisation of content based on business rules such as cross-selling, referrals, locations.
– Designing and automating communication sequences based on user behaviour with respect to email, loyalty programme usage, points level, etc.
- "Notify"The user is informed of the imminent receipt of the gift catalogue at his or her postal address.
- Communicate to the user the possibility of update your contact details and preferences online.
2nd part of "Loyalty email marketing".