Report from Loyalty Marketing Masterclass in Singapore

At the end of July, seventeen loyalty marketers from Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore attended Michael Leander’s two day Loyalty Marketing Masterclass in Singapore organized by Uni Strategic. Here is a short report from the event.

Let’s just say it like it is: loyalty marketing is a broad topic. It means different things to different businesses.  And the  marketers in attendance at the loyalty based marketing masterclass in Singapore came with quite different backgrounds and experiences from the field of loyalty marketing.
While most of the corporations in attendance represented the banking, financial services and insurance industries, one attendee came from a highly successful wholesale company in Malaysia and Singapore and one from the largest fast food restaurant chain in the Philippines.

In the following you can read my questions and Michael Leanders answers to a few questions about his experience teaching loyalty marketing in Singapore.

Interesting experience, says Michael Leander
When asked about what he learned from presenting the two day loyalty marketing masterclass, Michael Leander commented;

“first of all that the  idea to include contents about the communicative part of loyalty marketing was spot on. My impression was that the majority of the attendees really have a serious (positive) upside if they can improve on the dialogue part of their loyalty marketing efforts. To a certain extent I think the content which addressed how to extend loyalty marketing efforts into social media was a good component to add in there.

Secondly, that many marketers in Asia really struggle with the data part of loyalty. Siloed data, long execution processes and inadequate data mining processes seem to be the law of order in South East Asia – as it is everywhere else in the world.

I am generalizing of course, however it is both disturbing and reassuring to know that Asian marketers are facing more or less the exact same obstacles as European or North American marketers are doing.

On the other hand, I was quite impressed by some of the tactical marketing programs I learned about from the good people attending. At the moment I cannot give you much information, as I want to check back with the respective companies to see if  they would be willing to share their stories, however I assure you there is a lot of marketing talent in the banking and financial services sector in Asia.

So Michael, you are always transparent about your speaking evaluations, what say you?
Well,  I still have not received feedback from the organizer. So I will have to get back to you as soon as I do. My gut-feeling, however, was ok. Not super, not bad – but ok. I felt the topic was difficult to match to the expectations of all the delegates, but was quite happy to see a very high level of interaction.  The organization of the event was – in my opinion – perfect. Great venue, great room, good food and – most importantly – some really nice people in attendance.

What is next for Michael Leander Company in Asia?
Markedu are setting up the email marketing masterclass in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines in March 2010. I am looking forward to that very much. But we might even do more than that. At the moment we are negotiating with a few clients in the region to consult and train marketing professionals. Currently we are also taking to some  “heavy-hitters” in the marketing automation and social media space whom we might form some sort of partnership with in order to slowly begin to get our feet wet in this highly dynamic part of the world.