Brands that treat credit as a one-time event are missing opportunities to drive long-term loyalty. Rather than a one-time purchase, credit is a long-term relationship between brand and customer.
Building more loyal, long-term relationships with customers is critical to growing sales in a slowing retail environment. Co-brand credit cards are one avenue for continuously building sales with individual customers — making them a valuable lifecycle marketing tool for retail and travel brands.
What lifecycle marketing means for brands
Lifecycle marketing is a full-funnel strategy for engaging customers throughout the loyalty lifecycle, from pre-approval through repeat purchases.
“It’s a communication method by which you explain the benefits of a product, how to use that product, and encourage the customer to engage more with the product itself,” says Jason Tinurelli, Chief Marketing Officer at Concora Credit.
The product also needs to serve customers in an increasingly beneficial way across the lifecycle of their relationship with a brand.
For example, co-brand credit cards (also known as loyalty credit cards) support long-term relationship growth by enabling cardholding customers to grow the value they receive from a partner brand, in the form of loyalty-program rewards and other benefits, over time — as they make purchases with both the brand, and other businesses.
“Remembering that your customer has choices in both where and how they spend should drive your marketing and engagement models,” says Tinurelli. “It’s unrealistic that every sale will be with you, but if every sale earns benefits, your customer will come back.”
Building relationships across five key lifecycle stages
Getting marketing and engagement models right hinges on having the help of the right finance partner.
Effective co-brand lifecycle marketing programs lean on the unique strengths of both the brand, and the finance partner — such as the brand’s ability to speak its customers’ language and appeal to what those customers want, and the finance partner’s ability to communicate the benefits of accessing co-brand credit and using it to grow rewards.
“Finance partners are experts in selling credit, and brands are experts in selling their products,” says Tinurelli. “Together, they should be able to make a lifecycle program that works best within the environment that they’re targeting.”
Making a program work in any environment takes specialized efforts across each of the following lifecycle stages.
1. Acquisition that Aligns with Intent
To start building customer relationships with co-brand credit, brands need to make sure consumers know about the product. Building an internal “credit culture” is integral to imparting that knowledge.
“Having a credit culture means that you're always asking customers at checkout if they want to put the purchase on their card,” says Tinurelli. “Doing that drives recognition, and gives customers a point of engagement. It’s an opportunity for customers to say they don’t have the card, and for you to ask if they want to apply.”
Positioning the card and its benefits clearly, across all shopping channels, is key to driving applications. Having an inclusive strategy — one including a non-prime co-brand credit card offering — helps more of those applications lead to long-term credit relationships. With a dedicated or second-look non-prime co-brand program, for example, brands can capture high-intent shoppers with less-than-perfect credit (who would otherwise be declined), and extend to them the high-value reward benefits of loyalty credit.
2. Onboarding that Builds Confidence
To enjoy those benefits, co-brand cardholders need to understand them.
Getting customers acquainted with their new cards and the rewards associated with them is a joint effort between a brand and its finance partner. Together, the two need to execute an early month on books campaign — aligned to the brand’s voice and messaging — to help new cardholders learn how to set up and use their cards, and how to navigate reward generation and redemption.
“Explaining your account tools, mobile apps, and how cardholders are supposed to pay goes a long way to setting up good, lasting customer relationships,” says Tinurelli. “Offering rewards or coupons that encourage the customer to come back and spend is a smart strategy during onboarding, as well.”
3. Engagement Strategies that Drive Use
Getting the customer to continue coming back takes creative strategies — such as offering in-brand promotions and spend-based incentives to cardholders, or sending them reward tracking nudge messages to encourage them to spend.
The right engagement strategies satisfy needs and desires of brands’ co-brand cardholders — making it important for brands to use transaction data to personalize cardholders’ experiences and maintain relevance and excitement in their programs.
4. Growth that Reflects Progress
The more relevant and exciting the programs, the more likely they are to generate loyalty and compel customers to grow their relationship with the brand.
That growth should be incentivized, recognized, and celebrated through things like upgrade options, reward tier progressions, and even credit profile-based card transition opportunities.
“If you have a prime loyalty credit card and a non-prime loyalty credit card, when the customer is eligible to graduate into the prime credit card, you should celebrate that and encourage them to do so,” says Tinurelli.
5. Retention and Winback that Strengthens Loyalty
Proactive campaigns to retain cardholders, and re-engagement campaigns to get them back, help brands maintain more active customers in both prime and non-prime co-brand programs.
Monitoring card usage and triggering offers at timely moments — such as the days nearing reward expirations — can help brands maintain cardholder engagement.
Conclusion
Deploying lifecycle marketing with co-brand credit cards is important because retail and travel brands can no longer rely solely on customer acquisition. They need to offer more value to, and win more sales from, every customer.
In the climate brands are navigating, long-term engagement and loyalty are more impactful than any one-time revenue lift. Brands who use credit to deepen relationships — not just drive spend — will earn loyalty that lasts.
Offering co-branded credit cards, with the help of a growth-focused partner, can help brands turn more one-time shoppers into loyal customers. Engaging with a partner like Concora Credit, which offers full support in helping brands connect with cardholders throughout the credit lifecycle, can help brands build long-term customer relationships.
Concora Credit manages co-brand credit card programs supporting smart lifecycle marketing. To learn more about driving loyalty with a co-brand program designed for customers with less-than-perfect credit, click here.
