Postcards from Perkistan

Recently I’ve been looking at email examples to help increase the interaction with our email list and to provide an email that will be interesting to as many of our members as possible. Sifting through all this information I eventually found some great articles on segmenting your list.

Based on those articles I managed to create three groups of roughly the same size. The groups were created with member activity in mind and were separated in the following way: No Interaction, Infrequent Interaction, and Frequent Interaction.

Perhaps not surprising at all is that the Frequent Interaction group provide 79% of all our email opens and 57% of click throughs even though this is the smallest group we have with just under a third of members being a part of it.

Interestingly though, the Infrequent Interaction group created the highest conversion rate at just over 20% of opens generating a conversion.

Moral of the story? Segmenting your list will help identify the value and allow you to cut the fat producing higher conversion rates and thus increasing the value of your list. It also helps if you use a great service like MailChimp which continues to give us intelligence that helps us build stronger, more meaningful links to our users.

Until next time,
Graham

Hi everyone,

been a while (I think I say that every time…).

Our launch has gone really well and we are building a great community of people who love perks! Thought you might like to know a little bit about yourselves:

• 68% of you are female
• The average age of the female Perkler is 40
• The average age of the male Perkler is 43
• On average you have 15 loyalty memberships in your virtual wallets

Our top 10 cities that site visitors come from are:

1. Sydney
2. Melbourne
3. Brisbane
4. Canberra
5. Perth
6. Adelaide
7. Hobart
8. Cranbourne
9. Nerang
10. Richmond

So there you go - it’s early days but there are plenty of you around (and we look forward to plenty more).

Don’t forget- every new member who joins before the end of October we are giving away a free Yoga Pass from our friends at yogapass.com.au!

More soon,

Justin

We received some pretty negative feedback today from a new user, but ALL feedback is welcome at Perkler so we were happy to hear it.

Not impressed, boys. Not cool. Should have connections to mileage accounts off the bat. I won’t use this. Ya lost me, and everyone I know. There are better options out there. I would never use this for networking. There are far too many other places to have to chat and connect with people. That is stupid. Posted by a visitor. 

The core issues raised here revolve around mileage programs and Perkler as a network, let me address these points.

Mileage Programs. In the Australian version of the site we have actually entered quite a few frequent flyer programs, purely because there aren’t that many and they have some good brands in them. But for US and other users we are concentrating less on the high-end points based mileage programs and more on retail. Why?

Because retail perks are more immediate and offer pretty much instant benefits to a much bigger number of consumers than the mileage programs.

Don’t get me wrong - we love unlocking the great merchandise and brands in Flyer programs and will do as we build relationships with airlines, but for now our focus is on retail because that’s what people need in the current economic climate. And because there are lots of cool brands there for people to build an affinity with and discuss.

Another point about Mileage Programs - people who are into them are really into them (just ask Randy Petersen). As a result our ‘Perkler’ is right - there are lots of products out there servicing that market. But in the end, even though they are huge these programs only represent about 20% of the total loyalty membership (in the US). So not only do we love retail, travel, grocery etc - we’d be crazy not to cater to 80% of people’s real memberships. Otherwise we wouldn’t be doing a very good job of getting that virtual wallet going. Remember Perkler is about ALL your memberships in one place.

Second point - Perkler as a network. We should get this straight from the outset. We are not trying to build Facebook, or Linked-In or any other uber-network. We are trying to use the community to simplify the loyalty and rewards experience. We think one of the keys to getting better results for consumers and retailers out of loyalty programs is sharing information, rating programs and finding out about programs from people.

Eventually we will link in (yes I get it) with the larger networks and are looking already at openid and Facebook Connect to integrate our community with them.

So, we may have lost this user (and everyone he knows) but we aren’t being flippant about the feedback - we appreciate it and take it on board. Rest assured though, because we don’t have blanket coverage of mileage programs doesn’t mean we have failed the loyalty test. People are much more than their airline travel!

Having said that I’m standing by Aeroplan - call anytime

I feel like I don’t even really need to write a post after that title!

Motley Fool had a story today (found via a link on twitter - thanks @retrogrrl ) that highlighted the importance of retailers NOT doing away with customer care and loyalty as times get hard for the sector. Couldn’t agree more.

The amazing statistic they quote is that retailers lose half of their customers every five years, with two thirds claiming customer service as the reason. They also cite research that highlights the maths in the title of this post!

Interestingly, what this story says to me is that the formal ‘loyalty program’ isn’t the enough on it’s own to create a loyal customer. There are so many other touch points that consumers roll-up into the service, and hence positive experience mix.

At Perkler we have a simple thought about how to connect the formal programs with real touchpoints of companies - create a loyalty community that involves consumers and retailers.

So that’s why we have the Perkolator - to allow consumers to search, manage and take advantage of all of the perks they are entitled to, but also have built in a range of community functions. Ratings, forums, favourites all lead to learning from other consumers but also influencing the companies behind the programs to use them to build real customer service.

As more and more retailers engage with consumers through Perkler we absolutely believe they will benefit as much as the consumer.

Justin

Bazaarblog - the blog of Bazaarvoice (a social community / commerce host company) is quickly firming as one of my most read blogs.

Late last week they had a fascinating post about the willingness of consumers in the UK to write review. A staggering 94% said that the main reason they did this was to ‘help others’.

Seems obvious really, but it’s nice to see some data on it. Added to that over 86% of people wrote positive reviews. This was really interesting as many retailers fear online reviews and communities because of the chance they will end up a dumping-ground for complaints.

We think people are much more interested in sharing the good news than reporting the bad and that’s exactly why we’ve spent so much time enabling comment, rating and discussion features in Perkler. 

Good to see those decisions backed up in one of the markets we hope to head into soon.

Justin

Really interesting article via shop.org today about the decline in retail sales for those in competition with Amazon because of their user-generated recommendations.

The loyalty and rewards market has a few start-ups offering products and services (particularly in the points program sector). None of them have really taken hold of the community and user-generated aspect.

At Perkler we are obsessed with the community driving the site. Most retailers have loyalty programs, but by allowing ‘Perklers’ to rate, discuss and recommend programs we think we will really lead to better programs over time. 

Another key part of the site is that any user, anywhere can suggest a program. This means your local one-outlet cafe with a stamp card can have equal weight on Perkler as a big franchise chain. It creates a place where real discussion about the loyalty offer can take place, regardless of the size of the retailer. Our local - Kona Coffee is in the Perkolator. Best Baristas in town and they give us a free coffee every time we buy five.

The Kona boys at work.

Go Kona - go loyalty community and bring on the recommendations and ratings - WE ARE PUBLIC AND LIVE NOW!!

Justin