Andy Wood

GI Insight

Andy Wood, Managing Director, GI Insight, has over 21 years of experience in the field of database marketing and vast experience in the creation and management of retail loyalty programmes. His particular skills lie in the analysis of data and its application to improving customer communication, turnover and ultimately profit

The pitfalls in loyalty, insight and database marketing – and how to avoid them

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Posted on 2010-11-24

Understanding consumers and their spending habits is essential to carrying out effective customer communications. By sending targeted, personalised messages a company can get more intimate with its customers and be rewarded with loyalty and increased customer value. Using customer insight in this way requires a comprehensive database.

Customer loyalty programmes provide one of the most effective ways to collect consumer data, which can be used to improve interaction and ultimately increase profitability by focusing on getting more new customers, retaining existing customers and getting existing customer to spend more often and more per transaction.

Loyalty marketing has increased in popularity over the past decade but it remains misunderstood by many firms. There are a number of traps marketers fall into when setting up loyalty marketing initiatives. So, what are they and how are they to be avoided?

Going for a creative led strategy instead of a data led...

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Customer intimacy: who is achieving it and who needs work?

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Posted on 2010-09-28

‘Know your customers’ is a mantra that just about every company understands and embraces – or at least pays lip service to. The question is: how well are firms actually putting the processes and systems in place to really get to know their customers, and then using that information to drive their marketing communications?

It’s a question that we at GI Insight decided to look into with our latest research project. To measure just how successfully companies are engaging their customers, we commissioned research asking consumers what level of ‘intimacy’ the brands they buy and suppliers they use demonstrate in their communications and offers – ie. how personalised are their communications. On a sector basis, the 1,000-plus UK consumers surveyed rated their service providers, the shops they frequent and brands they regularly purchase on a scale that went from ‘knows me like a close friend’ to ‘treats me like a total stranger’ – thus indicating whether their customer data was...

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How loyalty schemes won the day in the recession and helped companies position themselves for post-recession success

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Posted on 2010-03-29

Customer loyalty programmes have been the key weapon for businesses in the battle to win the hearts of customers who might have been wavering as the recession dragged on, our recent research shows.

Our study of 500 marketing decision makers found that 71% of respondents felt that loyalty schemes had become more important to successful business during the recession and 60% of businesses are concentrating more of the their budget on loyalty programmes and their associated marketing activity than they were a year ago.

Changes in consumer behaviour and spending during the downturn made it essential for marketers to alter their strategies in order to retain customers. As tough economic times encouraged a culture of promiscuous shopping with consumers seeking out the cheapest deals, many businesses started to concentrate on customer retention and development in a bid to stem customer churn.

Many businesses have clearly recognised that making use of existing customer...

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Supermarket Slippage

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Posted on 2010-01-18

There is little doubt that supermarkets have been weathering the recession rather well with many reporting strong profits and increased sales. And, with a large proportion of consumers looking to avoid costly nights out and takeaways, many of the big supermarkets have rushed to fill the void – the result being that, overall, the major chains have seen their grocery sales lifted by 4-5% year-on-year in recent months, according to figures from market research firms Nielsen and TNS Global.

Below the surface of these seemingly positive figures, however, there has been a significant underlying shift that could be troubling for some segments of the retail grocery sector. We surveyed a broad spectrum of consumers and found that more than a third of shoppers have switched from their usual grocery supermarkets to ‘value’ retailers, as once-loyal customers look to trim their household expenses by turning to cheaper alternatives.

This underlying shift has been occurring at...

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Marketing in a recovering economy

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Posted on 2009-10-08

Over the last few months much has been said about the importance of customer retention in the recession rather than wasting squeezed marketing budgets on prospecting. This is all very well since changes in consumer behaviour and spending during a downturn make it essential for marketers to alter their strategies in order to retain customers who might otherwise defect to a cheaper competitor. Conversely, before the recession the balance was very much in favour of customer acquisition rather than customer management.

But now that we are starting to see the ‘green shoots’ of recovery marketers need to be ready to reassess their strategies once again. It is critical that retailers start looking now at how to position themselves and implement a pro-active marketing strategy when the country emerges from recession, rather than waiting until it actually happens.

Many retailers will view a more robust economy as an opportunity to start winning back customers they lost in the...

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Retention in a Recession

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Posted on 2009-05-26

With a recession in full swing, cutbacks are being made. The latest Bellwether report from the IPA revealed that the rate of decline of marketing spend slowed in Q1. However, this followed the biggest fall in marketing budgets for nine years in Q4 last year. But, in an economic downturn it is even more important to spend and use marketing budgets wisely. In the current climate it is easy to think the worst but marketing departments will still have money to spend.

With consumers tightening their purse strings and seeking cheaper alternatives, one of the best ways for marketers to spend their reduced budgets is on customer retention and development, i.e. focusing on the key customers - the 10% giving you 50% of your turnover.

The discount end of the high street is where this strategy will certainly pay off. With more and more people turning to value retailers, marketers will need to think about how they will encourage shoppers to stay with them when the economy is...

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Study Identifies Loyalty Scheme Winners in an Economic Downturn

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Posted on 2008-10-30

Over the slow economy of the next twelve months supermarkets, mobile phone companies and DIY/ gardening firms are best placed to use their loyalty schemes to retain and develop customers. However, given recent interim statements from major supermarket groups, there is evidently a performance polarity between value retailers and middle-market chains, implying not only that the value end of the sector is obtaining better return from loyalty programmes, but also that the revenue slide in the mid-market would be even more severe were it not for loyalty initiatives

Our latest research examined where loyalty programmes were most likely to deliver effective customer retention and development support in the current economic crisis.

As Supermarkets are the recognised pioneers of loyalty, their first position is perhaps not surprising. However, this research study pays tribute to the work that mobile phone companies have put into their customer management strategies over the...

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M&A: Making It Work With Effective Communications

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Posted on 2007-09-20

M&A has been greatly boosted by the private equity financing route, last year setting new records. Now that a credit crisis is upon us, however, most of the expert commentators are predicting not a downturn in M&A, but simply a switch to more trade buyouts, along with somewhat more sensible pricing. Highlights of 2007 to date include Advent International acquiring Lloyds Registrars, and the merger of Thomas Cook with MyTravel.

So little if any slowdown in M&A is expected after the credit crunch, simply a change of buyer type from PE to trade. Whoever the buyer, the advantage of any acquisition must lie in being able to extract greater value from the acquired company than the purchase price. That means that the two customer databases need to be integrated as quickly as possible, their joint potential rapidly analysed, and intelligent cross-selling strategies put immediately into place. Customer interaction has to be rapidly co-ordinated to provide an...

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