Every shopper likes to belong, to feel like an insider, to get a good deal that can’t be had anywhere else. At least, those are the cravings that retailers are counting on – and playing to – by asking their customers to use so-called loyalty cards, those small pieces of plastic so many of us have been conditioned like sheep to carry around in our wallets or on our key chains.
I don’t know about you, but I have a handful of them, three for groceries alone (Stop & Shop, Shaw’s and Price Chopper), one for books (Barnes & Noble) and one for, well, this and that (CVS/Pharmacy).
And while I sometimes feel like I’m being subjected to undue scrutiny when asked to produce one of these cards at the register, like a groupie with a backstage pass, I’m always happy to oblige. To me, the benefit of identifying myself to a clerk (okay, to a computer database) in what some might characterize as an Orwellian moment far outweighs the hassle.
Sure, there are those who dismiss such a business transaction as too “big brother”-like, worrying about the potential misuse of private, personal data for unfair and disproportionate commercial gain. But obviously I’m not one of them.
The truth is that loyalty cards are a great way for marketers to monitor buying patterns and forge long-lasting, mutually-beneficial relationships with their target constituencies. In exchange for handsome discounts on products and services, or a certain number of points which can be used towards future purchases, they give the issuing establishments a way of tracking your behavior as a consumer and, thus, stocking their aisles accordingly.
Take the Hallmark Gold Crown Card, for instance, which my wife, Barbara, dutifully keeps in her purse. Hallmark uses this card to track – and thank her for – how much she spends on its products. Over time, her points accumulate and she receives what the company refers to as “reward certificates,” each one worth at least a couple dollars off her next Hallmark purchase.
One of these “certificates” arrived in the mail recently along with a birthday card addressed to Barbara – yes, a real Hallmark birthday card, canary yellow envelope, gold-embossed wafer seal and all – from The Paper Store in Sudbury, perhaps my wife’s favorite place to shop, located just a few miles from our house.
To say she was surprised – albeit pleasantly – to receive such a generous offer disguised as a birthday card would be an understatement.
What’s not so surprising, however, is that such loyalty marketing tactics are incredibly effective. After all, not only does Hallmark have my wife’s address, it knows where and when she shops for greeting cards as well as how faithful she is to its brand.
Talk about a captive audience!
But my better half isn’t the only one in my house on the Hallmark file. The fact that I use my Extra Care card so often at CVS/Pharmacy, another store in Sudbury, means I get a lot of direct mail from this chain’s corporate headquarters. That doesn’t mean I was prepared, however, for the brilliantly executed, cooperative promotional piece I received last year (and wrote about here in my blog) before my own birthday on behalf of Hallmark’s Shoebox line of cards.
I like to buy a handful of cards at a time, and I had just recently gone on a binge. So not only did CVS (with a little help from Hallmark) have the mailing lists and sales proposition down pat, but the timing was right, too.
Let’s not overlook the creative presentation, either. Not unlike the aforementioned piece of mail my wife received from Hallmark, inside a faux hand-addressed envelope were several coupons for Shoebox cards nested inside an actual, life-size birthday card that read as follows:
“It may not be your birthday, but we just couldn’t wait to show you this great card! It’s from the new Shoebox collection at your local CVS store. Come on down for a look, and bring these exclusive coupons along. They’re our way of saying thank you for being one of our most valued customers.”
Yup, one of their most valued customers. That’s me. That’s me and my wife, too, not to mention practically everyone and his or her uncle, all of us card-carrying converts to the power of loyalty marketing, whether we realize it or not.
