Mending Gaps in the Dynamic Customer Journey

By Bob Fetter, SVP of Pluris Marketing, a company with expertise in cross-channel offer optimization, loyalty, database marketing and advanced analytics

It’s not easy being a consumer-facing brand these days. After years building a company based on one consumer pathway, the mobile, app, email, social, geo-located, connected TV, real-time bargain hungry consumer is now touching brands in more ways and with more diverse behavior patterns than any company can keep up with. That’s 100 years of organizational design shot to hell.

Sign of Apocalypse: Merchants Pay Good Money to Give Away Their Customer Loyalty

We all know over the last several years, a growing need for cutting corners – and coupons – has paved the way for sites like Groupon, LivingSocial and others to offer attractive discounts to consumers and – as their salespeople pitch it – equally attractive perks to participating businesses. It’s changed consumer behaviors, disrupted business models on the local level and it’s made a few people very wealthy. 

Loyalty is Not a Game, or Is It?

With all the new entrants and a different playing field, loyalty marketers are not ruing as they did in the good old days when they had the consumer gaming dynamic all to themselves. Quite the contrary -- there is palpable excitement surrounding what the growing shift in consumer behavior means for their programs. Armed with a seemingly endless choice of game mechanics, technology platforms and social networks to enable new programs and a new set of consumer experiences, the loyalty sector is now more relevant than ever.