We all know that there is a big difference between working hard and working smart. And specifically for marketers, the status quo often makes working smart impossible — functional silos inhibit internal efficiencies and negatively impact the overall customer experience. Some of today’s biggest marketing silos are technology-based — different platforms for different functions.

Let’s talk about loyalty as a critical marketing function. Brands with loyalty technology platforms usually have capability redundancies within their marketing technology (martech) ecosystem. According to the Forrester Analytics Software 1 Survey, 2021, 62% of software decision-makers globally plan to adopt loyalty/advocacy technology. Given that activity, we recently completed research on loyalty and marketing technology platforms to provide advice on how to address redundancies. The figure below displays the significant overlap between these two tech stacks, which leads to inconsistent customer experience, ineffective promotional spend, and inefficient technology and resource investments.

 

Clearly, loyalty marketers require some critical capabilities that are only found in loyalty tech platforms, such as management of benefits, tiers, currencies, and rewards. But the overlap with existing martech tools for campaign management, analytics, and data management is significant. To address this challenge, start by identifying your company’s unique loyalty requirements and document your martech capabilities that could support loyalty initiatives. Your path will then differ, depending on whether your brand already has a loyalty platform or if you are looking to invest in one or more change vendors. Marketers with existing loyalty platforms should focus on capability and process refinement, while marketers planning to buy new loyalty tech should look for modular solutions from platform vendors.

Check out our new report to understand the benefits of aligning your loyalty and marketing technology. This report includes action plans to help you create your new martech ecosystem. For more questions, schedule a guidance session with us! We look forward to hearing from you.

Note: Ben Nagle, research associate, assisted with drafting this post.