Loyalty Marketing Blog Blog on Loyalty Marketing, Internet Marketing, Advertising and technology Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 78 3859

Articles from Loyalty Marketing Blog

Online retail loyalty can drive repeat customers 2007-08-03 16:33:44 In a study by COLLOQUY, a loyalty industry rag, it was found that online loyalty programs can actually drive repeat customer business for retailers. That’s some pretty good news for the online e-commerce industry, since they saw a reduction in online shopping this past quarter. The key here is that loyalty programs need to be done “right” and that retailers need to jump on board this band waggon quickly before the market becomes flooded and consumers start to develop indifference to online loyalty initiatives. That is also great news for the multitude of online rewards programs, online malls, affiliate marketers and others who strive to drive repeat business for their retail merchants by marketing shopping offers to their members. These programs act as coalition loyalty programs, such that they aim to drive loyalty to a coalition of different retailers. The COLLOQUY report was focused around single-brand loyalty programs, like Macy’s.com for example. However, I ...

Fundraising resources on Squidoo.com 2007-08-02 14:16:02 I recently gave in to various peer pressures and joined Squidoo.com, an Web 2.0 website that lets people create web pages focusing on specific passions or areas of expertise that they want to share with the world over the internet. What I realized upon closer examination was that Squidoo is actually a giant affinity organization. Thousands of people have joined Squidoo to be part of a community of experts on a multitude of topics. The common theme among all users seems to be passion, whether it’s passion for charity, athletics, baby stuff etc. These people love sharing their passions with others and many are truly experts in their field. With that said, I have harnessed my passion for charitable fundraising and providing tools/advice to people looking for creative and new fundraising ideas and have created a Lens on Squidoo. A Lens for those who don’t know the lingo is basically the web page I mentioned above where users can share their expertise or passion on a specific to ...

Grassroots Fundraising Resource Guide on Squidoo 2007-08-02 12:38:26 This is a great Squidoo Lens focused on helping small and large organizations with clearn fundraising ideas for any budget or size read more | digg story ...

BountyZoo having problems with member pay-outs 2007-07-29 18:48:52 Based on a report by CompareRewards.com, which can be found here, BountyZoo, one of the many online rewards program, has been facing problems with member repayment. Simply put, people are complaining that they aren’t receiving their rewards. To make matters more interesting, in the storm of all these criticisms, they have “unknowingly” redirected their website URL to a major competitor’s site, JellyFish.com. BountyZoo needs to realize they can’t hold members’ cash hostage or there will be hell to pay. In these days of online reporting etc., the watchdogs can take immediate action against companies who don’t act properly. Who knows, it might just be a technical glitch in their payments software. Then again, probably not. This is hysterical that BountyZoo just redirected the links to jellyfish. not a bad idea to take the heat off… ...

Grad Gold by Little Grad - Interesting twist to college savings 2007-07-29 18:37:42 CompareRewards.com mentioned an interesting new development with online rebate programs. Click here to read the post. Little Grad, who is a little sibling of Upromise, the huge and successful rewards program that allows parents to show and put their cash-back into a 529 plan for the child’s education, recently launched a new program called Grad Gold, which gives college kids the ability to apply their cash-back rewards towards paying down their college loans. This is a great post. I wasn’t aware that Little Grad had launched this secondary program. It does seem a bit ironic that one program helps you save and another program helps you pay back the loans that were primarily due to the fact that you couldn’t save enough in the first place. I think that this is a great idea however because the initial savings program is for parents, and the loan pay-back program is for graduates. Two different demographics that give the program continuity pre-college to post-college. Le ...

Missing The Mark: Loyalty & The Unbanked, part 3 2007-07-19 12:58:46 To read the first two parts of this article click here for part 1, and here for part 2… Two places – prepaid debit cards and remittance products. For those of you who aren’t in the industry, remittances are payments sent home by immigrant workers. According to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), in 2003 Latin America received $38 billion of those payments, up from $32 billion in 2002. Of that sum, immigrants in the United States sent approximately 75 percent. Interestingly enough, many of the largest players in prepaid debit cards and remittance products aren’t banking titans like Citigroup and Chase, but are instead third parties like Next Estate Communications and myriad of more nimble and entrepreneurial companies. So what does this mean for the loyalty industry? It’s time to expand from just thinking about the 35 year old suburban white mom who drives a mini-van and uses Upromise® to shop for her groceries. The industry needs to take best practices from the c ... Amp

Seth Sarelson published in CRM Buyer 2007-07-18 15:56:28 Congrats to Seth Sarelson, my Co-Founder at OnCard Marketing. One of his pieces, titled Missing the Mark: Loyalty and the Unbanked, was published today by CRM Buyer publication. Congrats Seth! To read the complete article on CRM Buyer, click here ...

Missing The Mark: Loyalty & The Unbanked, part 2 2007-07-17 14:14:59 To read part 1 of this article click here… I spotted the card on the shelf near the cash register and asked the teenage cashier to activate my card and load on $50, which I paid in cash. I paid the $9.95 activation fee and left the store ($40 remaining). I used that card for another $10 purchase ($30 remaining) and forgot about it for two months, while unknowingly paying the $4.95 monthly card maintenance fee ($20 remaining). After checking my balance online, I became frustrated and went to the ATM to withdraw my remaining funds, where I encountered a $2.50 ATM fee and a $10.00 card liquidation fee. The ATM dispensed the remaining $7.50 and I shook my head. After starting with $50, all I got was a $10 purchase and $7.50 in cash. Green Dot made about $32.50 on my $50 and I’m a little bit poorer than when I started. If I was an unbanked individual and that was my last $50, I’d be outraged. With great pain, however, comes great opportunity (and a great case study). Green Dot is ... Amp

iBakeSale.com widgets/badges now available 2007-07-17 13:41:11 iBakeSale.com has just released two new widgets/badges to help members promote the program and their fundraising group to the blog and internet community. If you want the code for your blog or website copy it from below: 160×50 Badge Code: <a href=”http://www.ibakesale.com”><img src=”http://www.oncardmarketing.com/banners/Widgets/Widget160×50.gif” width=”160″ height=”50″ border=”0″ alt=”Join our group with iBakeSale” /></a> 140×25 Badge Code: <a href=”http://www.ibakesale.com”><img src=”http://www.oncardmarketing.com/banners/Widgets/Widget.gif” width=”140″ height=”25″ border=”0″ alt=”Join our group with iBakeSale” /></a> ...

Missing The Mark: Loyalty & The Unbanked, part 1 2007-07-16 17:38:24 By Seth Sarelson Seth Sarelson is Chief Operating Officer & Co-Founder of OnCard Marketing, a loyalty marketing solutions provider. The company recently launched the iBakeSale fundraising rewards program. Previously, Seth held management roles for Citigroup, one of the world’s largest credit card issuers, where he helped run the company’s Global Commercial Cards business in brand management for the Purchasing Card, Fleet Card, and Electronic Account products. According to a recent household survey, the Federal Reserve concluded that 9.1% of families in the U.S. do not have a deposit account of any type. This market segment lives check to check and typically avoids opening bank accounts because of a lack of funds combined with a deep distrust of banks. For the unbanked, even a simple transaction, such as getting a cell phone or a cable line installed can be a daunting task because the individual has no credit history and no credit card. This consumer pain has been the ... Amp

A $47,800 iPod?, part 2 2007-07-15 21:12:20 To read the first part of this article, click here… …Every marketer is looking for something a bit different – some want to drive spend with third party partners, some want consumers to spread the word about a product, and some just want to collect data. If you provide the right incentive, consumers will respond. Every day, consumers use Coca Cola’s “My Coke Rewards” program to report on their purchasing and consumption behavior of Coke’s products. Coke now has the ability to individually profile each consumer and engage in one-to-one marketing by leveraging this data. Say goodbye to messaging that is targeted to a particular demographic and say hello to a direct conversation between the consumer and the marketer. At OnCard Marketing, we build loyalty programs for these third parties as well as support our own proprietary programs, such as iBakeSale (www.iBakeSale.com), our fundraising program where we are focused on using the loyalty that consumers have f ... Ipod

A $47,800 iPod?, part 1 2007-07-14 11:47:01 By Seth Sarelson, COO of OnCard Marketing (Contact: seth@oncardmarketing.com ) Spending nearly $50,000 for my new 80GB iPod means one of three things: A) I should have bought more stock in Apple B) Inflation is getting out of control C) My Citi card with “Thank You” points isn’t all that rewarding Let’s go with (C). At a dollar per point on most purchases (47,800 points for the iPod), the average consumer will never earn enough rewards to get anything meaningful. The points will sit unredeemed for a while and the bank will capture some serious breakage. How does this scenario build loyalty? It doesn’t. Consumers don’t appreciate black-out periods on airline miles, credit cards that cap the cash-back rewards, and a plethora of other inconveniences that make this game less than rewarding. The truth is that most issuing banks just don’t have the margins or incentives to run an incredibly successful rewards program that builds loyalty between the bank, the consumer, and the ... Ipod

iBakeSale Beta Roll-out 2007-07-09 09:30:22 Hi All, We’ve launched the new version of our site that incorporates local organization search (among many other changes). I can now search by state. Search results now include city, state, and non-profit status. Please take a moment to click around the site and let us know what you think. Additionally, we’ve put together two alternate versions of the homepage that will appeal toward different groups. We will use these for targeted online advertising to younger women and faith-based organizations. See links below: Young Women Home Page Click Here Church Homepage Click Here ...

When Paid Search Doesn’t Pay, part 2 2007-07-09 09:13:48 To view the first part of this post, click here …For an advertiser that isn’t directly selling something, like our iBakeSale fundraising rewards program that is targeting sign-ups, these paid search prices can spell disaster. The biggest question that marketers like us need to ask ourselves is “What is my cost of customer acquisition through each channel and how long will it take for me to make my investment back?” Let’s assume that, on average, a company that is targeting sign-ups pays $2/click. If we figure that only 10% of those who click actually sign up, we’re already looking at $20/sign-up. Once you exclude those who signed up with incomplete or incorrect information and other unfortunate occurrences, the cost of customer acquisition rises even higher. Assuming that sign-up is free and the revenue comes a little later on down the line, the advertiser is left holding the bag on a significant investment in each customer that may not pay off. So what is an advertise ...

When Paid Search Doesn’t Pay, part 1 2007-07-08 10:52:36 By Seth Sarelson Seth Sarelson is Chief Operating Officer & Co-Founder of OnCard Marketing, a loyalty marketing solutions provider. The company recently launched the iBakeSale fundraising rewards program. Previously, Seth held management roles for Citigroup, one of the world’s largest credit card issuers, where he helped run the company’s Global Commercial Cards business in brand management for the Purchasing Card, Fleet Card, and Electronic Account products. Who doesn’t love pay-per-click advertising? It’s easy to use, targeted, and completely measurable. If it doesn’t deliver, I don’t pay a dime. I’ve been extolling the virtues of Google AdWords for years. The self-service platform is dummy-proof and when I combine AdWords with Google Analytics, I can measure just about anything. The problem is that AdWords has become too successful for its own good. Google’s auction-based pricing has led the marketplace to behave in a completely irrational way. Paying $10 ...