Consumers of sports, travel and media today are looking more to which brands deliver true value for their discretionary dollars. With incessant coverage of financial fallout hitting our target right in the pocket book, it's easy for marketers to fall prey to the "heroin" that is discounting. Smart brands won't devalue their brand equity with such a short term approach. Rather, they will see challenging times as ripe opportunities to tap into the consumers' mindset to understand both tangible and psychological product needs and meet them by offering compelling sets of soft and hard benefits that recognize and reward best customers.

We've defined an approach towards best customer care as "2C2R". This approach was originally developed in the travel industry, specifically for a cruise line, looking to nurture relationships with best customers. But it has broad application and has subsequently been used across a number of categories. The four elements are:

Communication: The best loyalty marketing efforts take great care in crafting the right type of marketing communication to best customers. They recognize that often times, one mass message is insufficient in establishing the "one-to-one" bond that demonstrates to a best customer that they are valued and appreciated. Further, the communication to be most effective, acknowledges the unique needs of the target customer and articulates a solution to those needs, rather than simply a sales proposition.

Community: One needn't look any further than the proliferation of online social networking sites to understand that the best brands cannot exist in a vacuum. Rather, they must insert themselves into the very fabric of the communities in which their target customers spend their ever decreasing free time, to remain relevant. In the travel space, online past guest communities that are most effective, bring people of shared needs together in a meaningful exchange facilitated by the brand. We applied it in the cruise space by offering forums for future passengers to meet in advance of their sailings, for past guests to share memories and reflections of their times together and through special events that fostered literal community building within local markets. Finding the right approach can often be as simple as conducting needs assessment and concept testing research against a variety of targets.

Recognition: It's easy to tell a customer that they are special. It's something altogether different, to demonstrate it. Best of breed loyalty efforts go out of their way to make the customer feel special. One of the best examples that I've ever seen was when I returned to a favorite hotel in the Pacific Northwest after about a three year lapse. Much to my surprise and delight, the agent at registration welcomed me back to the hotel and asked me if I would like the same room that I stayed in during my most recent visit. The gesture cost the hotel nothing, but it demonstrated their commitment to cultivating customer relationships. That kind of recognition can go a long way towards building loyalty, without stressing a marketing budget. Recognition can be as simple as remembering birthdays and anniversaries or as we did in the cruise business, commemorative pins that past guests often wore as badges of honor, distinguishing themselves from other passengers. It's a soft sell approach that shows the customer that you appreciate the business, while at the same time preserves your margins and doesn't tarnish your brand through discounting.

Reward: Most marketers skip immediately to this step, and associate good customer retention/CRM efforts solely with points and reward programs. While research has certainly demonstrated the efficacy of offering aspirational "carrots at the end of sticks" to acknowledge longterm customer loyalty, too many marketers are so caught within their own product categories (as they should be) that they make false assumptions that the consumer will become as locked in on the prize as they are. In countless loyalty research that we have conducted, clients often are shocked and disillusioned to see how unwilling the customer is to engage in a new points program or track their behaviors for far-off rewards. So, the key is to reward frequently and in sometimes soft and subtle ways. Make the process as seamless and self managing as possible. As we've heard in all too many focus groups, "Please don't give me another points card to carry around!"

Like any CRM approach, identifying the right consumers for specific targeted offerings is both art and science. But even absent sophisticated databases and mining systems, a fundamental research audit of the customer base can enable sports and leisure brands to segment their customers by demographics, attitudes, past behaviors and defined need states. Often times we've deployed a research approach where we measure these perceptions and behaviors between disparate groups of customers and prospects and look for gaps that can suggest the right tactical marketing approaches to reach each group. Concept testing is another means in which specific rewards, recognition offerings and communications approaches can also be tested to help optimize the impact of your loyalty marketing efforts. Regardless of the specifics of your own marketing efforts towards best customers, or the breadth of loyalty research that you conduct, remembering the principles of 2C2R and incorporating them into your program can be a valuable first step in differentiating your brand from competitors and breaking through the clutter of too many look-alike programs.