Modern Loyalty Programmes Need to be a Living, Evolving System
It starts with clearly focusing on the organisation’s brand purpose. Everything should align with that single brand purpose. When all departments have the same North Star and are working towards ensuring that CX is above all, the loyalty programme will directly resonate across all departments, says Jad Hindy, SVP of Marketing at Expo City Dubai. […]
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It starts with clearly focusing on the organisation’s brand purpose. Everything should align with that single brand purpose. When all departments have the same North Star and are working towards ensuring that CX is above all, the loyalty programme will directly resonate across all departments, says Jad Hindy, SVP of Marketing at Expo City Dubai.
In an exclusive award ceremony in Dubai last week, Martechvibe acknowledged 30+ enterprises in two categories – retention and loyalty to celebrate the teams using marketing technologies to further their strategies.
We spoke with Jad Hindy, SVP of Marketing at Expo City Dubai, about what’s in store for loyalty strategies in 2023. Hindy is a seasoned marketing executive with over 20 years of experience in business setup, startups, marketing, communication and brand building across the Middle East and North Africa region. In his 20+ years of experience across MRM, FP7/McCann, and Leo Burnett, he was instrumental in growing his client’s businesses. He is also an expert in telecom marketing, having worked on brands like Jawwy, du, Ooredoo and STC.
Excerpts from the interview;
How have customer expectations changed your approach towards loyalty strategies in the last three years?
When we talk about business transformation these days, we do it with a focus on loyalty and how it is transforming. Customers today are empowered with technology and information. They can question and get influenced in seconds because all the information is at their fingertips.
Organisations must approach their loyalty programs to match customer expectations, or they will miss them. Deep data analytics, robust technology platforms, a strategic loyalty approach and having proper insights and understanding of the customer are essential in ensuring loyalty programs can deliver.
In today’s world, a loyalty program isn’t cast in stone and runs as is for a year or more, but it is continuously evolving. It is a living program that captures what is working and what isn’t in real-time. It is an ever-evolving program that keeps changing, with decisions driven by data and insights from how customers use the program daily. The biggest difference between loyalty today versus five years ago is that it is not a standalone program. It is a continuous process between a customer and a brand online and offline.
What advice would you give marketers to look for when choosing partners to build an ecosystem of benefits?
Keep it simple the way customers want – easy-to-understand loyalty programs. Customers wish to refrain from engaging in complex systems. They want something they understand quickly and can figure out in a minute. They don’t want systems that give them points they forget or can’t use.
Rewards and benefits should make sense from a brand purpose point of view. It is all one story that your brand is portraying, and your partner is a part of it. Think about your digital platforms and tech stacks and how easy it is for them to integrate in the backend. During this journey, customers will have a lot of touchpoints with your brand; collecting all the information and putting them to use for your next CX strategy is the key.
How can marketers ensure the loyalty program has resonance across other departments within the larger organisation’s business goal?
It all starts with clearly focusing on the organisation’s brand purpose. Everything should align with that single brand purpose. When all departments have the same North star and are working towards ensuring that customer experience is above all, the loyalty program will directly resonate across all departments.
Read the complete list of winners here.
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