Our squirrelly editorial workers discovered some helpful buyer loyalty acorns
Content material Advertising in 2025 = Mowing the Grass
We publish a whole lot of content material on The Smart Marketer protecting a wide range of subjects. A member of our workers advised me a number of years in the past that “the content material engine is a hungry beast,” and he wasn’t flawed.
Our editorial and content material creation work is akin to mowing the grass. It’s work that must be performed and when full, you’ll be able to sit again and admire a few of that good work. However straight away, that “garden” wants consideration as soon as once more.
As a substitute of a grind, we view the work as that which makes us really feel productive and useful to an business that wants focus, readability and unbiased opinions about what lies forward. In different phrases, it’s the work itself that gives satisfaction and we try every day to ship high quality content material that’s helpful to our readers.
We usually publish 10+ content material objects per week, approaching 50 per 30 days. In distinction to others who cowl this world business, our content material is weighted in direction of initially produced content material, crafted by people with expertise in advertising and marketing, funds, know-how, and strategic planning, all of these expertise utilized in dozens of assignments with manufacturers in search of to construct buyer loyalty and profitability.
It’s possible you’ll have an interest to know these information about our work at The Smart Marketer:
- Our editorial workers consists of loyalty professionals {and professional} writers. We’re all good sufficient to make use of AI for analysis, however we truly write the phrases that you’re studying to convey you the context and perception you anticipate.
- We lead with initially produced content material supplemented by curated content material from revered business sources.
- Once we function sponsored content material, we adhere to editorial pointers to make sure that each article you learn has worth and is price your time to learn.
- All of this content material continues to be delivered to you at no cost.
Predications that Met the Check of Time
Whereas centered on feeding the content material beast, it’s simple to lose observe of what we’ve written and predicted to occur sooner or later. This week, we took time to mirror on a portfolio of market predictions that we made virtually 10 years in the past, simply across the time that we had been re-imagining what The Smart Marketer might imply for this business.
We ran an 80-page deck created in 2016 for a serious funds community by means of an AI engine, and had been delighted to see that 7 of our predictions got here true over time. We filtered every prediction to check for the occasional AI hallucination, and the record we’ve right here is correct.
Listed here are 7 forward-looking predications of developments we stated would affect the way forward for buyer and loyalty advertising and marketing which have since materialized.
1. Shift Away from Transactional Loyalty
Prediction: Controversial on the time, we argued that “transaction = reward” fashions (points-for-spend) could be disrupted, with new engagement fashions rising.
What occurred: Buyer engagement and emotional loyalty dominate present conversations. New fashions incorporate experiences, gamification, real-time presents, and subscription loyalty (e.g., Amazon Prime, Starbucks Rewards evolution). Learn and take heed to our Loyalty Unstuck collection for extra on new loyalty and engagement fashions.
2. Huge Knowledge because the Loyalty Engine
Prediction: Knowledge-driven personalization, contextual concentrating on, predictive analytics, and behavioral insights had been predicted as foundational ideas round which buyer loyalty technique could be created.
What occurred: AI-driven personalization (dare we are saying “hyper personalization at scale”), suggestion engines, card-linked presents, and embedded loyalty and funds are reshaping how manufacturers join with clients and construct loyalty.
3. Regulatory Stress on Interchange (MIF, PSD2, GDPR)
Prediction: We forecast rising consideration from regulators to capping interchange charges (EU’s MIF regulation) and pushing privateness guidelines (early GDPR discussions).
What occurred: Interchange caps have reshaped rewards economics globally, and GDPR (2018) remodeled information consent and privateness dealing with in loyalty applications.
4. Rise of Different Fee Strategies
Prediction: In 2016, PayPal, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Android Pay, and even early blockchain/Bitcoin had been famous as potential disruptors.
What occurred: Digital wallets are actually mainstream; Apple Pay and Google Pay are embedded globally. Stablecoins and CBDCs are advancing shortly right now.
5. Card-Linked Gives (CLOs) & Open Forex Rewards
Prediction: The deck famous card-linked presents and real-time level redemption as “subsequent large issues.”
What occurred: CLO networks are actually widespread (Blue Ocean, Cardlytics, Dosh, FIS), and “Pay with Factors” (Interact, PointsPay) at checkout is changing into a typical amongst large manufacturers together with Amazon, PayPal, Amex, and Mastercard Pay with Rewards. Learn our current analysis on Pay with Factors for extra on that subject.
6. GAFA & FinTech as Main Disruptors
Prediction: We predicted that Google, Apple, Fb, Amazon (GAFA) would dominate the digital panorama, leveraging tech, information, and big person bases.
What occurred: Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Google Pockets, and now embedded finance/ “tremendous apps” have turn into central in funds. FinTech challengers (Revolut, Monzo, Sq./Block) are at scale. AI procuring assistants threaten to disintermediate manufacturers from their clients.
7. Challenger Banks & Digital-first Finance
Predictions: We foresaw neobanks disrupting conventional banks with decrease value buildings and agile tech.
What occurred: Whereas mainstream banks proceed to thrive, Neobanks now serve a whole lot of thousands and thousands globally (Monzo, N26, Chime, Nubank) and are respectable competitors. Embedded fee suppliers provide new methods for shoppers to handle their monetary lives whereas incomes rewards and paying on the POS.
