Carlos Dunlap, Vice President of Business Intelligence at Maritz Loyalty Marketing, says, perhaps alarmingly, that "loyalty reward programmes don't create loyal customers" - at least, not by themselves. It's true that rewards programmes can promote desired behaviours but, beyond that, wise marketers are finding out what their best customers really want and need, not just from the rewards programme but from the brand itself. By properly analysing the research and data gathered from customers, employees and the rewards programme, marketers can ‘see through the eyes of customers’ and better understand their experiences with the brand. This gives marketers the power to improve brand touch points, leading to better customer attitudes and desired behaviours, and even creating advocates for the brand.

Last week's newsletter documented the first section of our 'Beat the Credit Crunch' article. The remainder of Part 1 follows with some simple and practical ways to help you to achieve marketing success during these difficult financial times.

All of the stages of the Customer Farming® process are vital but perhaps one of the most easily forgotten, but easiest to do is the stage we describe as 'Sowing the Seeds'.