Marketing
Maximizing customer loyalty through owned channels
In today’s marketing era, loyalty programs aren’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Investing in owned channels is the most effective way to achieve continued success in building repeat customers.
December 10, 2024 by Keri McGhee — Chief Marketing Officer, Attentive
In marketing, the balance between gaining new customers and nurturing existing ones is crucial for maintaining business growth, though retention can be more cost-effective.
Acquiring a new customer can be up to five times more expensive than retaining an existing one.
However, now with AI, personalizing every step of the customer journey is now possible which can authentically boost both acquisition and retention. In particular, marketers can unlock the power of data in their owned channels to capture lifetime value and foster brand loyalty, ultimately reducing costs and boosting profitability.
Driving loyalty on owned channels
Marketers are navigating privacy rules and regulations that are reshaping the landscape. While these changes are important for consumer privacy, they can limit the effectiveness of traditional digital advertising. A well-designed loyalty program can ensure engagement and help create repeat customers by providing personalized experiences, exclusive offers, and direct communication.
These outcomes can be best achieved using owned digital marketing channels such as email and SMS that require consumers to opt-in. Owned channels can collect first-party cookie data, enabling personalized loyalty programs based on each customer's behavior and preferences.
With the right solutions partner, SMS and email can create a VIP customer experience through tailored messaging, segmentation, and personalized offers. This is especially effective when leveraging AI tools to analyze customer data, ensuring every message resonates with the subscriber.
Each customer is unique — and looks for different things from each channel, so combining SMS and email with AI-driven insights for a cohesive marketing strategy can lead to better engagement and increased revenue. Brands with the highest ROI often strategically pair these channels, using AI to unify data, to build a stronger customer profile and effectively target audiences accurately and improve efficiency.
For example, clothing brand Boston Proper uses several methods that pair SMS and email to nurture existing customer relationships and drive repeat purchases. When customers do not click through certain products on the website, targeted messaging offers discounts and links to top-selling items through SMS and email, encouraging faster sales. To date, this approach has garnered Boston Proper a 177x ROI.
Unlock the AI potential of your data
Where exactly can marketers tap into the power of AI? By integrating AI into revenue-driving owned channels, marketers can unlock and activate their troves of data to anticipate customer needs and behaviors, find new audiences, and deliver unique messages — without any additional workflows or resources. AI marketing platforms optimize every aspect of message delivery for the highest performance, taking the guesswork out of delivering exceptional customer experiences.This streamlined workflow unlocks the possibility for true 1:1 engagement, at scale, that manual methods can't match. With the right AI platform, it can effectively gather and analyze comprehensive, real-time data to capture and identify patterns, enabling highly targeted and effective campaigns that resonate with your customers' preferences, behaviors, and needs.
For instance, vitamin and supplement brand OLLY integrated AI into its marketing strategy to create an email series that sends subscribers personalized recommendations at regular intervals. The AI-influenced messages immediately generated over 40% of a typical month's email revenue, as customers received tailored choices that reduced their scrolling time. Not only does AI increase the brand's likelihood of securing loyal customers through enhanced engagement and conversions, it also reduces opt-out rates, ultimately driving long term loyalty.
In today's marketing era, loyalty programs aren't a one-size-fits-all approach. Investing in owned channels is the most effective way to achieve continued success in building repeat customers. And by harnessing AI, retailers can create even more personalized experiences that turn browsers into repeat buyers.
About Keri McGhee
Keri is a results-oriented strategist with a wide range of expertise in business development and strategic alliances with top industry partners in technology, insurance, and real estate. She has experience in marketing and corporate communications, including innovative strategy development and program execution of partner and frontline enablement along with growth and retention-focused event strategies. Before Attentive, Keri was a Senior Director at Zillow, where she led the B2B marketing team, and was responsible for strengthening partner loyalty for over 60,000 real estate partners.
