Comments on: Bought Loyalty vs. Earned Loyalty

By: mens health

mens health — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 01:30:46 +0000

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By: Kevin Ertell

Kevin Ertell — Tue, 04 May 2010 18:47:09 +0000

Thanks for your comments Daniel and Xavier.

Daniel: I appreciate your support of my position. It’s definitely easy to get sucked into the bought loyalty addiction. I think making it part of a larger earned loyalty strategy helps.

Xavier: Good point about this not just being about retail. I think it probably applies with any type of business relationship. And I would argue that it’s not easy to earn loyalty in any marketplace, but the fact that it’s hard to do makes it an even better competitive advantage when it happens. The long term/short term balance is definitely similar to the bought vs. earned loyalty balance. In both cases, I’ve found the most effective strategies don’t focus on one or the other but use both in a careful balance to maximize results.

By: Xavier Casanova

Xavier Casanova — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:50:29 +0000

Totally agree with this theory which by the way, doesn’t just apply to retail. On the flip side, it’s not always easy to “earn loyalty” in a market that’s as competitive as online retail. Isn’t this a long term goal that’s often sacrificed to short term profit?

By: Daniel Rosenberg

Daniel Rosenberg — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:48:34 +0000

Perfect way to explain how earned loyalty is unequivocally imperative to gain! With this focus and logic it helps debunk a lot of myths that even intelligent marketers often get sucked into.

By: Kevin Ertell

Kevin Ertell — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:12:28 +0000

Thanks for your nice comments, Dan. I like your points about focus on “now” vs. long term value. I appreciate you linking to your excellent blog post, which goes into more detail. (And which also links to an excellent post by Kevin Hillstrom.) I think we both agree that there’s value in “bought loyalty” or “now” tactics, but they should be part of larger strategy focused on early loyalty over the long-term.

It’s a lot easy to measure short term metrics on a campaign-by-campaign basis than it is to measure long term metrics like lifetime value, and I think that may be some of the reason we see such focus on short term tactics. All the more reason to ensure KPIs on customer experience and satisfaction are a key part of the executive scorecard.

Thanks again.