Calling All Coupons: The Future Of Customer Loyalty Programs

The year 2010 holds great potential for mobile advertising, and retailers are poised to take full advantage of emerging trends.

A new "Mobile Loyalty Solution" introduced by Motorola offers retailers the ability to "digitize store-branded membership cards on customers' mobile phones." Once a customer opts in, stores can proactively send offers and incentives to the customer's mobile phone, eliminating the need for membership cards and paper coupons. The customer's phone carries a bar code that acts as a unique identifier and can be scanned at the point of sale.

Customer loyalty programs have gained popularity with both retailers and shoppers in recent years, but most are implemented through cards or keychain fobs imprinted with bar codes. The new Mobile Loyalty Solution "mobilizes" the process.

Kerr Drug is sold on the idea: The chain is about to add the Mobile Loyalty Solution to the existing Kerr Rewards program. "It's a critical piece because it will let us speak directly to shoppers with targeted digital coupons and offerings to help us foster a stronger relationship with our customers," says Bill Baxley, Senior Vice President of Merchandising and Marketing.

Motorola's Mobile Loyalty Solution also provides retailers with a back-end system so they can build databases of shopper product interests, purchase habits, and preferences. The offering is compatible with "the majority of mobile phones in the U.S. market today," says Motorola. Increasingly, the company has moved away from manufacturing cellular phones and towards developing enterprise solutions.