The Loyalty Hammer

Thank you to our friends at Hanley Wood for a terrific piece in the April Issue of Remodeling. Check out the article here: Pledge of Allegiance: Contractor Rewards Pay You Back …

By Dick Dunn

A number of years ago when I was with Carlson Marketing Group (now AIMIA), I commissioned a study around loyalty programs; favorite programs, favorite benefits, etc. Guess what program got the most “my favorite program” rating….Airline? Nope. Hotel? Nope. Credit card? Nope. It was the Subway punch card program. Pay for nine sandwiches, get nine manual punches on your card, and your next sandwich was free. Millions of consumers earned millions of sandwiches.

Eventually Subway discontinued the program. It slowed down the checkout process. There was little fraud control. And their research indicated it wasn’t really creating loyal customers; it was creating customers who came to expect, in effect, a ten percent discount. And they were giving away a lot of free product. When Subway phased out the program, there were a lot of unhappy customers….but their sales didn’t drop; in fact, sales increased because they were no longer giving away sandwiches that their customers likely would have purchased anyway.

Is this what you are doing? Using discounts and rebates with your trade customers that they view as entitlements? And, like Subway, not really having any data on who your customers are, or what they are buying? And calling these efforts your “loyalty program”.

Let us show you how Contractor Rewards is creating loyal customers for the program Sponsors. And how those Sponsors are using trade customer data they’ve never had before, to up-sell, cross-sell, and grow business from existing customers. We launched in 2010 and have solid results to back up our claim that we can help you grow sales, profits, and share, even in these challenging economic times. Drop John Pierson an email at john.pierson@biworldwide.com and suggest a time to contact you. We promise it will be time well spent.

By Dick Dunn

What makes you stop and take notice?  What do you read?  What do you explore?  For me, and I think for most people, it’s something that is personally relevant.  If a friend, a colleague, or a company wants to engage me, they make their communication relevant by using what they know about me, that is, by using data.  The lack of data means they don’t know me at all, and whatever their message, it can easily be off target…..and maybe so off target that I become dis-engaged for all future communication efforts.

Think of your trade marketing strategies; do you have data on your trade customers?  Are you using it?  What are you doing to make certain your message is relevant to the contractors, builders, and remodelers who are specifying, paying for, and installing your products?

Contractor Rewards is a program designed to create loyalty between building products manufacturers and their trade customers; contractors, builders and remodelers.  And our existing Sponsors will tell you that it is working.  They will tell you they now have data, including transactional data, on customers and prospects; and a communication platform to leverage that data to deliver highly relevant messages.  The ability to cross sell, up sell, and target new product introductions using data.  They can execute promotions that work, and consistently deliver a great ROI.  They are seeing incremental unit sales directly attributable to Contractor Rewards, even if their over-all business is flat.

How are your sales so far in calendar 2012?  If they’re great, congratulations.  But if you can use more business, are tired of rebates and other tactics that you can’t measure, call me — 952-844-4384.   Let me show you how Contractor Rewards is helping our clients get new customers, and get more business from existing customers.  I promise it will be time well spent.

By Tony Thomas

There are a dozen or more excellent reasons to sponsor Contractor Rewards; knowledge of your end-users, the ability to reach them (and prospects) with your marketing message, driving new business and share, etc.

I’ve posted about these and more here. They’re all compelling business reasons to become a sponsor of CR.

In the early ’90′s I designed and launched a B-to-B loyalty program for a Wisconsin regional Bell operating company, (RBOC).

In the days of Judge Harold Greene and the break-up of Ma Bell, 2,000 long-distance carriers slugged it out to provide service that AT&T provided exclusively for 80 years.

That battle raged in the office parks and skyscrapers where scores of business accounts were being “stolen” from the Bell companies with minimal effort. My client needed a way to retain these important customers.

After we launched the program, in a moment of candor, the Vice President of Marketing said to me, “I’ve always wanted a ‘loyalty program’ on my résumé.”

She needed a retention strategy that would save her company –
she wanted recognition for this bold decision.

Personal reasons are always included in making sound business decisions.

Being an innovator and changing the game at your company has it’s rewards. The man who launched “Callers Plus,” the consumer loyalty program that slashed customer churn rates at Sprint, went on the be the general manager of the Washington Redskins! I know, I worked with him.

Both of these people had guts. They were willing to deal with the initial problems that come with new products or applications and were willing to tackle such problems because the pay-off was so great — both personal and business.

I’m just sayin…

News from the housing market is a little more upbeat.

Housing starts rose to nearly 699,000 new units in January, and with some revisions, new residential construction topped 700,000 in November – the highest level since October 2008.

Our team at CR met with an exec from Hanley Wood last week. Among the items discussed were their compiled estimates on Y-over-Y change in housing starts for this year. I don’t think this is proprietary so I’ll share them here:

• NAHB                                    +15%
• Freddie Mac                         +19%
• Wells Fargo                           +5%
• Moody’s                                 +51%
• IHS Global Insight               +11%

All positive. Hope Moody’s wins the “most accurate prediction” prize.

By Tony Thomas

I love sales executives. There no BS about them. They tell you straight and they expect the same.

I presented to a head of sales today and he challenged several things I had to say about Contractor Rewards. I kept thinking about a favorite quote from the author Robert Heinlein. He said;

“I never learned from a man who agreed with me.”