John Bartold

John Bartold

Epsilon
John Bartold, Vice President, Loyalty Solutions at Epsilon, specializes in developing marketing initiatives to build relationships and alter customer behavior for increased profitability and reduced churn. John is a frequently requested speaker on the subject of marketing and management at conferences throughout the US. He also serves as a faculty member for the highly popular Loyalty Marketing Workshop offered by the Direct Marketing Association and is a contributing editor to COLLOQUY.
  • Customer Loyalty: The Gift That Keeps on Giving
    0 comments 1,179 reads
    Posted on 2011-12-27

    Traditionally loyalty efforts provide a rich set of data on a member’s transactions. Transactional data is a great start, although it only informs us of what a member is currently buying from us. Transaction data rarely provides insight on what else the member could be buying, the reasons behind their purchase or what differentiates this customer from others.

    Trying to learn from transactions alone is like receiving a gift without knowing why or who gave it to us. We want to thank the person for the gift and let them know how much it’s appreciated. We want to know more about the giver so we can give them something in return. The more we know about them, the more value we will provide in future interactions with them. And the more we know about each customer, the easier it becomes to understand what differentiates this customer from the rest.

    Seeking and applying data in loyalty has similar characteristics. Marketers want to understand who gave the gift, which in this...

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  • Consumer Engagement Could Be Very Taxing
    0 comments 1,116 reads
    Posted on 2011-04-19

    With it being tax time in the United States, I thought it might be interesting to consider how new loyalty engagement models could make loyalty a bit taxing.

    Loyalty operators have never really been in the IRS or taxation spotlight. Loyalty incentives and rewards, beyond a few unusual situations, have been exempt from personal income tax. Federal and state governments have viewed loyalty currencies and rewards as a purchase incentive or an accrued discount for a consumer’s purchases. As loyalty operators move to strategies and tactics to “engage” and reward consumers beyond their purchase activity, be ready for the tax authorities to become more involved.

    Engagement approaches have more of a pay-for-performance or work-for-hire basis than a reward or purchase discount feel. For instance, “rewarding” members when they provide a product review, click a “like” button or join a chat or blog could be classified as income because the member is really generating content for...

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  • Gimme Shelter
    0 comments 1,107 reads
    Posted on 2010-06-25

    In life, the words “open” and “closed” can be defined in positive as well as negative terms: “Open” can offer a sense of inclusiveness and freedom, but also chaos and overwhelming choice. “Closed” can smack of restriction and constraints, but also safety and protection.

    In today’s social-media-mad world of marketing, however, “open” has been touted as the only way to provide the most consumer convenience and freedom—through unlimited choice and access to an array of digital channels. “Closed,” however, has been dismissed as painfully old-school as a dial-up internet connection. Whether marketers are looking to reach consumers through Google, Facebook, iPhone apps or Twitter, the more open the channel, say industry leaders, the better.

    For loyalty marketers, however, the philosophy of “open” can pose a distinct challenge when it comes to gaining and keeping consumer trust—an essential tenet of loyalty—particularly in the wild, woolly worlds of social media and mobile....

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  • Loyalty Agoraphobia
    0 comments 1,079 reads
    Posted on 2010-05-14

    In the new issue of COLLOQUY, I talk about the concept of “The Walled Garden,” spurned by the social-media-mad world championing complete openness. My point was that such open-madness might lead to a kind of agoraphobia–fear of open spaces–bringing challenges to loyalty marketers. After all, part of establishing loyalty is providing feelings of membership, exclusivity, and, yes, security.

    In that regard, Apple hasn’t done all that bad over the last couple of years with the release of the iPhone and iPad. They elected to not support Adobe’s Flashmedia because they believed it posed security risks and made app development for their devices more difficult because of compatibility issues. Apple feels it is important to protect their customers and developers and not include Flashmedia support. Adobe feels Apple is restricting consumer access to the web. Who is right, only time will tell. And, the result will depend on consumer response or an action by either Adobe or Apple.

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