Influencing Brand Advocates
In my previous posts, I sited the recent study by Colloquy that found that customers who participate in loyalty-building efforts are 70 percent more likely to actively recommend a product, service or brand than the general population. I thought you might want to see this strategy in action with the Royal Caribbean Cruises’ efforts. Rachel Hannock, Manager Loyalty Marketing and Royal Caribbean Cruises shared there story at a recent loyalty marketing conference. Hannock noted, “The key to success in viral marketing is to subtly influence the influencers without them overtly realizing they are being influenced.”
Royal Carribean Case Study
Identifying Brand Advocates: Royal Caribbean worked with Nielsen Buzz Metrics to identify enthusiastic online supporters of Royal Caribbean. Using a combination of automated and manual techniques, they identified online communities that discuss Royal Caribbean Cruises. Relying on data mining software and human expertise in word-of-mouth analysis, they measured awareness, identifying emergent qualitative themes of discussion on blogs, travel forums, usernets to gain a better understanding of how consumers discuss Royal Caribbean cruises. Fifty Royal Caribbean Champions were chosen for both quality and quantity of posts with many having over 10,000 message board posts on various Royal Caribbean topics. While Champions were primarily found on Cruise Critic, they also posted on travel communities, usenet groups, travel blogs and personal journals.
Influencing Brand Advocates: In May 2007, the Royal Champions community of online enthusiasts was invited to their first big event, the pre-inaugural sailings of our newest ship Liberty of the Seas in New York and Miami. This was the first time in the company’s history that invitees to pre-inaugural sailings were “ordinary people” i.e. not VIP’s, corporate executives, or top producing travel agent. Royal Caribbean hosted ship and stateroom tours and cocktail parties with executives. President Adam Goldstein hosted the New York party and CEO Richard Fain hosted the Miami party. The events generated abundant positive word-of-mouth on various sites and created a cohesive community of Royal Caribbean online enthusiasts that are regularly leveraged for ongoing marketing initiatives.
Measuring Success: While difficult to measure precisely, based on observation and anecdotal evidence we are confident that the Royal Champions produce ample word of mouth and exert sufficient influence to make the investment worthwhile. Posts from Royal Champions are carefully monitored during events and on a regular basis to ensure that posts remain positive and frequent.
Filed under: Best Customer Management, Current News, Customer Experience, Loyalty Marketing, Marketers Toolbox
It looks like we have similar ideas on this subject.
The loyalty business model relies on training of employees to achieve a specific paradigm: quality of product or service leads to customer satisfaction, which leads to customer loyalty, which leads to profitability. Loyalty marketing is an extension of that effort, relying upon word-of-mouth and advertising to draw upon the positive experiences of those exposed to loyalty business model inspired ventures to attract new customers. Fred Reichheld makes the point in his books that one can leverage the “power of extension” to draw new customers.
Very nice information. Good research done! Thanks for the info.
This is quite a up-to-date info. I’ll share it on Twitter.
Thanks !! very helpful post!
Loyalty programs are structured marketing efforts that reward, and therefore encourage, loyal buying behavior — behavior which is potentially of benefit to the firm.
These are great.
Many companies in competing markets will redirect or allocate large amounts of resources or attention towards customer retention as in markets with increasing competition it may cost 5 times more to attract new customers than it would to retain current customers, as direct or “offensive” marketing requires much more extensive resources to cause defection from competitors.[8] However, it is suggested that because of the extensive classic marketing theories center on means of attracting customers and creating transactions rather than maintaining them, the majority usage of direct marketing used in the past is now gradually being used more alongside relationship marketing as its importance becomes more recognizable.
Wonderfull…
Hi, interesting post. I have been pondering this topic,so thanks for writing. I’ll certainly be subscribing to your blog.
Points-based incentive programs are a type of program where participants collect and redeem points for awards. Depending on the program type and the organizational objectives, points can be awarded on a number of criteria including positive employee behavior, the demonstration of organizational values, repeat customer purchases, the sale of new products, increased overall sales, or even the use of proper safety precautions. In addition to point awarding, the levels at which points can be redeemed can be customized by the organization and set at virtually any level. Points programs are a way for organizations to motivate behavior over time while improving the organizations’ overall performance.
Great point and very interesting food for thought. I’m not sure I have any clients I can replicate this with, but will bear in mind for the future. Regards
thanks !! very helpful post!
I really very liked this post. Can I copy it to my blog? Thank you in advance. Sincerely
The loyalty business model relies on training of employees to achieve a specific paradigm: quality of product or service leads to customer satisfaction, which leads to customer loyalty, which leads to profitability. Loyalty marketing is an extension of that effort, relying upon word-of-mouth and advertising to draw upon the positive experiences of those exposed to loyalty business model inspired ventures to attract new customers. Fred Reichheld makes the point in his books that one can leverage the “power of extension” to draw new customers.[8]
Thanks for the review! I want to say – thank you for this!
In his book, Loyalty Rules!, Fred Reichheld details the value to customer referral on the growth and financial performance of dozens of leading US firms. Reichheld purports that the measurement of company advocates, or promoters, is the strongest single measurable correlation between customers and corporate performance. Similarly, Chris X. Moloney has presented new findings ((Loyalty World London 2006)) that showed a magnetic value to a company to promote and measure customer referrals and advocacy via research and marketing.
Building customer loyalty will be a lot easier if you have a loyal workforce-not at all a given these days. It is especially important for you to retain those employees who interact with customers such as sales people, technical support, and customer-service people. Many companies give a lot of attention to retaining sales people but little to support people. I’ve been fortunate to have the same great people in customer service for years-and the compliments from customers make it clear that they really appreciate specific people in our service function.
Building customer loyalty will be a lot easier if you have a loyal workforce-not at all a given these days. It is especially important for you to retain those employees who interact with customers such as sales people, technical support, and customer-service people. Many companies give a lot of attention to retaining sales people but little to support people. I’ve been fortunate to have the same great people in customer service for years-and the compliments from customers make it clear that they really appreciate specific people in our service function.