Loyalty Marketing

The approach in marketing that is based solely on strategic management is called loyalty marketing. A major focus of the company is to grow and retain their existing customers by offering incentives that are attractive. This is done primarily through branding, loyalty marketing and product marketing. The decision about purchasing a brand or not purchasing the brand is based on the combination of these principles and the value received by the customer.

Although customer loyalty has been around for a while, there are more recent approaches that have really pushed loyalty marketing into the forefront of the mind of the consumer. Loyalty marketing programs have had a huge impact on customers and have really changed the ways that these customers relate to companies where they purchase their products and services. In addition, these loyalty marketing programs have also changed the way that consumers spend on products and services. Consumers have become very used to the loyalty program convenience including becoming accustomed to the incentives and the rewards offered to the members who carry their “cards.” This includes hotels, airlines and car rental programs.

In recent years, this intense need to attract the higher end consumers has really taken the points and rewards incentives to the next level. As a matter of fact, the additional perks have quite possibly become even more useful to customers than the actual products themselves.

The business model for loyalty marketing usually trains the employees to achieve specific goals in relation to the program. These employees usually try to achieve a certain paradigm being that quality services or products lead to definitive customer satisfaction which then leads to customer loyalty which then further leads to the profitability of the business. What loyalty marketing does is extends these efforts from the employee side that relies on the word of mouth advertising that draws upon the positive experiences of those who utilize the loyalty business models which inspire the ventures that attract the new customers.

The main idea behind loyalty marketing is the customer satisfaction is really based on the most recent interactions or experiences with the service or product. Assessing the customer depends on the customer’s prior expectations or their demand of overall quality in comparison to the actual product or service performance. For instance, if the most recent experience for the customer exceeds all expectations, then customer satisfaction will most certainly be high. There are also cases where customer satisfaction may be high even with an average or a below average performance. This is also true is customer expectations are on the low side. A customer could still be dissatisfied even if the quality of service or products are good overall. This happens in cases where the quality of service or the product is priced too high or the entire transaction adds very little value.