When it came to driving revenue, customer acquisition used to be considered the silver bullet. And marketing teams, at least in retail, responded as such: they spent 80-90% of their marketing budgets acquiring customers. But that’s changing.

Over the past seven years, the landscape in spending on customer programs has shifted dramatically toward customer retention. Those brands that were spending upwards of 90% on finding new customers? They’re now spending a majority of their marketing budgets retaining the customers they have.

Which begs the question: If your C-suite is investing that much in retaining customers through marketing and VIP programs, what are you doing on your site to follow through?

VIP program data can be a huge asset for helping the visitor move through the funnel. However, I often hear utilizing that data to create a personalized experience (and member-specific calls-to-action) is, in many cases, a challenge. That’s because most brands flag an online visitor who has joined a VIP program through a cookie or in-page Javascript variable that is difficult for a marketer to make actionable.

Using Monetate, you can eliminate that challenge. So, let’s put 60 minutes on the clock and get to work.

Ingredients:

• Visitor member or VIP data placed in a cookie or Javascript variable (if you are using a major analytics package, you probably already have this)
• 1 on-brand “blank” creative
• Monetate TargetBuilder

Prep (20 minutes):

• Evaluate how granular your member data gets. Some brands simply identify a visitor as a member or non-member, while others have rich datasets, including points balances and more. To complete your evaluation, ask yourself these questions: Is this visitor a member yet?  If they’re a member, have they achieved a certain tier or reward? Are they close to the next tier or reward?
• Determine what content and calls-to-action you’d like to present the different member segments to drive some interaction of value. (For example, ask non-members to join, push existing members with a certain point balance or tier to do whatever is needed to get to the next tier).

Execution (40 minutes):

• First, you’ll want to target your program members using Monetate TargetBuilder. Once in TargetBuilder, you’ll select targeting off a cookie and start typing the name of the element that contains your member data. Don’t worry if you don’t know it all, TargetBuilder will help you with type-ahead text:

• Once you’ve identified your target, you can build your creative to convey your call-to-action. As we described in our last post, Monetate ContentBuilder makes it easy to design the creative specific to this member segment you’ve identified, by overlaying text and imagery onto your semi-branded blank creative. In the example below, we’re targeting program members who are close to platinum status:

• Want to get extra fancy? You can optimize your navigation bar to add member-specific pages, and other assets, to your homepage by further building out your campaign:

• Put the experience together in a simple sentence structure, and you’re good to go:

Without a tool like Monetate, these types of changes typically require a good deal of technical work, driving costs up and driving down speed to market. All the while, your VIPs are left fending for themselves.

As Holiday 2014 creeps nearer, though, every dollar and every minute counts.