Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Loyalty360 Loyalty Live | Eric Dean, Banyan
Loyalty360's Mark Johnson interviews Eric Dean, Banyan, to discuss the trends in customer loyalty and customer experience, and the changing industry landscape.
Good afternoon, good morning. It's Mark Johnson from Loyalty 360. Hope everyone's happy, safe and well. I want to welcome you back to another edition of Loyalty Live. In this series we have the privilege of speaking with leading agencies, technology partners and consultants, and customer channel and brand loyalty. About the technology trends and best practices that impact a brand's ability to drive unique experiences enhance engagement. Most importantly, impact customer loyalty. Loyalty Live allows for a deeper insight into the state of customer loyalty as we surface a number of challenges that brands are having regarding their customer loyalty efforts and we're allowed to run those by these significant agencies, technology partners and consultants to get their perspective on how to address them and how they may be addressing them with the clients they have. So today we have the pleasure of speaking with Eric Dean. He's the head of platform partnerships at Banyan. How are you today, Eric?
Eric Dean:Good Mark, how are you?
Mark Johnson:I'm doing all right, thank you. Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us today. Looking forward to discussion.
Eric Dean:Same here as well.
Mark Johnson:First off, we'd like to start these on a more personal level, so we'd love to know a little bit more about you your role of Banyan, maybe some things you've done before working at Banyan, and maybe even a fun fact about yourself.
Eric Dean:Sure, yeah, and thanks again for the opportunity here. I joined Banyan back in April this year and my role is to connect banks and platforms with merchants to promote Banyan supported card-linked offers, and my background is in marketing partnerships of the last 20-plus years across financial services, e-commerce and retail. I'm especially excited for this role here at Banyan because I've spent the last 10-plus years on the retailer side managing card-linked offer programs and see a terrific growth opportunity for both banks and retailers in this space.
Mark Johnson:Okay, excellent, go ahead.
Eric Dean:No, I was going to say. And the fun fact about myself is we're a sports family. Here between our four kids, they're playing baseball, track and basketball, so if you don't see me online, you'll see us on the field or on the court. We have just a baseball tournament starting, this afternoon in fact, so we're excited to always see our kids grow as athletes and, as importantly, as teammates.
Mark Johnson:That's good. What are their favorite sports?
Eric Dean:Definitely, two are basketball and one is baseball and one is track. So we're in the heat of baseball right now.
Mark Johnson:Great. My one daughter has picked up track. This year she's played soccer and swam and she just missed going to state, so I think that's going to be her favorite sport. Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of track meets, but I guess I will get accustomed to them.
Eric Dean:Track meets can be humbling, yes.
Mark Johnson:That's humbling, long, boring, hot outside. It's fine. There we go. So, Banyan, you guys do some very unique work in the space. For those people who are listening, who may not be familiar with Banyan, can you give us a brief overview of the company, what you guys do, how you do it, what industries you work with?
Eric Dean:Very yeah. So Banyan is a data collaboration infrastructure is how you can look at it. So we enable more accurate and efficient matching of merchants and bank card transaction data, so the two of those coming together with Banyan in the middle and all of that powers a better shared customer experience. So, with Banyan's data infrastructure, merchants can more seamlessly and securely monetize their precision receipt data, and what that does is unlocks powerful insights and new performance marketing opportunities and, coming from the performance marketing side of a retailer, it opens up and unlocks more marketing dollars to spend within this space. So we're working with banks and fintechs and their partners, such as these card and offer platforms, to gain more efficient and effective access to item level transaction data, which enables them to create more differentiated products and experiences within these card and partner platforms, which will only serve and grow their customer basis.
Mark Johnson:Okay, you mentioned performance marketing. Can you describe that what that means for someone who may not be familiar with it?
Eric Dean:Yeah and again, this is something I live and breathe for the last 13 plus years on the retailer side. So these are marketers in charge of specific channels like Facebook, google, social media influencers and partnerships to drive new customer acquisition and revenue. Incremental revenue for retailers and brands in the space and card link offers are another channel and marketing performance marketing channel in that space.
Mark Johnson:Okay, interesting, thank you. So when you look at customer loyalty, one of the things we love to do is get an understanding how people are defining certain terms and customer loyalty obviously a very important one to us. How do you define customer loyalty? What does it mean to Banyan? What does it mean to the clients that you work with?
Eric Dean:Yeah, so we have the privilege of working with some amazing, best in class merchants, banks, fintechs, service providers in the space, and we believe loyalty is all about creating ongoing value and presence and preference with their customers. We take great pride in knowing that their integration with Banyan and the services that we provide improves the accuracy, the efficiency and the precision in which our partners can design and deliver better products, marketing and experience for their customers. It opens up really a 2.0 version for card link offers, which only drives further growth for both the banks and the merchants within the space.
Mark Johnson:Okay, and again a 2.0 opportunity for card link offers. What does that mean exactly?
Eric Dean:Yeah, so this has been a longstanding, very viable, successful channel for banks and for retailers. Now, great exposure and, more often than not, a lower effort for merchants to scale their business and reach a very large loyal audience with these banks. And what a Banyan services and a Banyan supported card link offer can do is really be more precise in their targeting so you can target specific categories and items that are in higher demand or higher margin. So to protect the profitability of these, of these programs for the merchants as well as it opens up more flexibility for the banks and platforms to reach merchants that otherwise may not participate in these channels, or it helps ensure the merchants continuation in these programs because they are more profitable for the merchants. So it's really the modernization and the 2.0 version of card link offers and that's what we're really excited about and I can vouch from the retailer side, its options and additional options of flexibility for a merchant, like the ones that I've worked with recently, that can help ensure profitability for this channel.
Mark Johnson:Okay, when you look at profitability, look at incrementality. Card link offers a couple of years ago were very germane, very topical to the industry. Covid came kind of changed it a little bit and started to come back into vogue again within our members. We meet with our members on a week, based on different topics. So you know, how do you look at that incrementality? How do you just mentioned profitability? How do you help merchants who want to increase the efficacy of their card link offers drive customer loyalty? How do you look at profitability? How do you look at return?
Eric Dean:Yeah, so, and I again, on the retailer side, I manage these programs down to the penny, so I know of what you speak, mark. So it's something that it's all within the data, both the targeting up front as in terms of how the programs and campaigns are set up and targeted with the merchants working with the banks, as well as the data on the back end in terms of the matchback results. So you want to look at instead of targeting right now, the current sort of landscape for card and offers is that it's typically across all products sold at a merchant and obviously some merchants have a mix of products, some that are higher margin than others. What Banyan can do is help ensure that the marketing dollars that are being spent within the space are on the products that are most profitable for a merchant. So typically the results of a card link offer campaign and then the ultimate profitability of that campaign is not known until the end in terms of the merchant working with the bank.
Eric Dean:But what Banyan's services can provide is more insurance up front that the campaign will be profitable, and that can happen both with targeting certain products or categories are actually excluding certain products and categories, and we're working with grocers and pharmacies now to exclude certain categories like pharmacy within their walls, as well as gift cards sold in store, because those are typically low margin or pass-through costs. So that's something that we can help ensure the profitability for those merchant categories.
Mark Johnson:Okay, when you look at some of the clients you work with, what's working with regard to using your product or in customer loyalty, customer experience efforts or, in general, when you look at customer loyalty program strategies, what's working? Can you give an example or two? That is something that you're seeing?
Eric Dean:Yeah, so I've talked with several merchants over my first couple months here at Banyan and the light bulb goes off for nearly all of them in terms of the opportunity here to again ensure profitability and target products that you want to drive sales towards, as well as exclusion of those certain products. I was talking with a couple different e-con retailers over the last couple weeks and with a various product mix and this is something that they were very receptive to in terms of being able to target seasonally around tentpole events for their business as well as excluding certain products where they know their lost leaders and again help ensuring profitability. And our team is also working with some of the major banks around more targeted card loyalty and rewards programs, which are now typically targeted at a high level, sort of umbrella view at a merchant where now, with Banyan services, they can be targeted to certain product categories or items that are going to drive even more options of flexibility for the banks and the retailers.
Mark Johnson:Okay, excellent. When you look at the state of customer loyalty, we do a yearly paper understanding or asking brands what opportunities they see, what challenges they have, where they think customer loyalty is going, and last year there was a great number of brands who were looking to either relaunch, add incremental functionality or update their customer loyalty programs. And what are you seeing in that regard?
Eric Dean:Yeah, so I mean with the banks and the retailers that we work with closely. They're all wanting to drive differentiation. How are they going to stand out? Consumers I am the same have a wallet full of loyalty program memberships and each one is trying to stand out, and that's where someone like Banyan can help drive that differentiation. And certainly, working at a bank myself in my career you want to make your card top of the wallet and that's something that this differentiation can help do. So it all rests within. The data is a common theme for Banyan, so the leading programs that we see out there in the marketplace are the ones that are investing in better data driven products, marketing and experiences. That will help drive relevancy for both them the merchants and the ultimate customer but also help deliver more compelling value to the customers.
Mark Johnson:Okay, when you look at customer loyalty programs, there's a big belief that was talked about a lot at our loyalty expo a month ago in Orlando this idea of the sea of sameness within programs. Very hard to differentiate the offerings. Brands are looking to do that. But when you look at this sea of sameness idea, is this something that you see and if so, how can brands differentiate that? How can they cannot address that?
Eric Dean:Yeah, so very similar theme here in terms of it all rests within the data, and it's very it's a very common question and concern we hear from our side with the organizations that we work with and how they get their loyalty program to stand out amongst the rest. But it's really about using the data that you have to drive innovation within the products, the marketing and experiences and being able to use those services to target high value, high demand, high margin products within channels like hard link offers that are able haven't been able to do that up to this point, and it really allows that channel to be more competitive now with the other marketing channels that do have that flexibility, that have had that flexibility for some time.
Mark Johnson:Okay, and when you look at kind of the state of the customer loyalty hard link offers being a part of that, is there a kind of a current trend or technology or even maybe a kind of an overarching idea that you believe is most important that the brand should focus on something they should consider?
Eric Dean:Yeah, so I think it goes back to understanding that they have a powerful tool at their fingertips in terms of skew level data. It's something that historically, has been tough to wrap your arms around and figuring out how to truly monetize it, and it's something that merchants that we're talking with, that are the most forward thinking, are investing in this data. We are talking with major retailers across many different verticals and again, the light bulb is going off for them to know and realize we have so much value at our fingertips here internally and that precision level item level receipt data is going to help open up even more shopper value for their customers and drive incremental sales and profitable sales, which is always the key drivers and key goals of these merchants.
Mark Johnson:Okay, is there one piece of advice you would share with brands who are looking to improve their customer experience and customer loyalty efforts?
Eric Dean:Yeah. So for me, the key thing is collaboration. So my background is partnerships and the collective group and when groups come together is always more powerful than working working separately. And that's something we're here at Banyan. We're bringing together merchants and banks for again the modernization of Cardlin Goffers, which is only going to help drive incremental value for merchants, profit, insured, profitability for the merchants and additional options and flexibility for the banks and platform partners. So definitely excited about working together with all of those groups to help drive the next phase of Cardlin Goffers in this space.
Mark Johnson:Okay, great. Last question I have is what can Loyalty 360 do as an association to help you and, more so, to help the industry, with their customer loyalty, customer experience journeys?
Eric Dean:Yeah, so I'm excited to meet more members and, I think, just help us continue to make more connections within the space, and I'm excited to join events both virtually in person, and I think that's where having those conversations with, with merchants, that many of which participate- and spend quite heavily in the card link offer space today and definitely data and data integration is a key challenge for many of these merchants today and you know Banyan can help open up those doors and shed more light on the opportunity that these merchants have.
Mark Johnson:That's awesome. Well, eric, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us today. It was great getting to know a little bit more about you, but also the Banyan platform, what you guys are doing, what you're seeing with the industry. I think brands are looking to differentiate their customer loyalty offerings, so being able to effectively use and leverage these card link offers within their kind of overarching customer loyalty approach could be very effective.
Eric Dean:I appreciate the time Mark.
Mark Johnson:Absolutely, and thank you, everyone else, for taking the time to join today. Make sure you join us for another edition of Loyalty Live soon. Have a wonderful day.