In the middle of bustling multi-cultural Miami, Coral Gables is an oasis of sleek affluence framed by Spanish and Mediterranean architecture.

The rhythm of the city at lunch is to skip franchise restaurants and instead seek out one of the many independent stops for a meal or just coffee.

Last week, lunch turned into a two-part experiment, first visiting Giardino Gourmet Salads for something light and then stopping by Pasión de Cielo for coffee.  I would recommend each establishment for local visitors. The salads at Giardino are high quality and custom made while being prepared in a quasi-QSR environment.  Quality, healthy food and quick service don’t always go together, which makes Giardino worth a stop. Walking into Pasión de Cielo, I was struck by the Andean feel to the interior decor and the wide choice of gourmet coffees. Not every day would I drop the extra dollars for Jamaican Blue Mountain or Kona coffee, but this day it seemed worthwhile.

You might wonder why I am writing about salads and coffee in a loyalty marketing blog. The simple reason is that, in place of offering me “desert”, each restaurant offered me a punch card in hopes of a return visit.

Two thoughts came to mind:

1. If I were a small retailer or restaurant, would I bother with a punch card?
2. If I did go down the frequency marketing path, how could I do it better than the typical offering?

The right answer to the question is found by answering both together. I would not go down the punch card path unless I was fully committed to doing it better than the average bear. Why retailers wake up one day and think they should throw a punch card into their marketing mix makes no sense to me. Sure, there is a chance that they encourage some bounce back visits, but it is just as likely that the cards will be lost, and without anything more than the distant promise of “the 11th one free”, many people will lose focus long before that time comes.

Bottom line: punch cards without any enhancement don’t change behavior. At least not enough to warrant the slight give away in margin.

My two visits offered a contrast in punch card execution. Pasión de Cielo threw me the card like it was a receipt to be tossed in my bag. No reinforcing message, no request for an email, nothing. Giardino on the other hand, delivered the punch  card like it was a special gift that I should guard. They also handed me a card and asked that I give them name, email, and phone number to receive special offers and occasional announcements.  The biggest challenge for small business is customer identification, and at least Giardino took a step in the right direction. How they follow up and what they can offer that will encourage my return visit remains to be seen, but I like their approach.

Another local coffee stop that I frequent is the Daily Grind. They don’t offer a punch card but do have wireless internet. Sensitive to the wireless squatters that take up table space, they provide a password for 1 hour with each purchase. Why not take it a step farther and combine the punch card and email gathering with an offer of wireless service for those patrons willing to share their data? It wouldn’t take much to figure out how a tiered system that would award more wireless time to more valuable customers.

Sometimes it is not the tactic that is in question, just the execution. A punch might seem shallow and worthless to some, but if it is executed to improve customer visit experience, build a customer database, and drive return visits, it is a low cost and effective tool. Considering that the cost of the 11th cup of coffee is nominal, these retailers might have the lowest cost going to acquire customer information for their database.

Ever since man has been on earth, we’ve been running. In the beginning, our motivation was the need for food, shelter, and survival. By the mid-twentieth century, pursuit of fitness through sweaty activities had become the domain of oddballs. Given the outlaw nature of adult fitness only 50 years ago, the origins of the 70’s running boom are remarkable.

Bill Bowerman, the one-of-a-kind University of Oregon Track & Field Coach, is most well known as the guy who shaped Steve Prefontaine’s front-running style into record breaking performances, and for having a hand in the founding of Nike. Few know that his chance trip to New Zealand in 1962 would lead to the jogging craze that swept America in the early 70’s.

Ask most people about running and they have an opinion – usually resolute and often diametrically opposed. The phenomena is so pervasive that New Balance has adopted it as the theme of its “Love and Hate” advertising campaign. Since I’ve logged about 35 years of pavement pounding, I can attest to man’s Cybill-like relationship with the sport. Some days the endorphins kick in and feet seem to float across the pavement. Other days, it just plain hurts.

In my experience, the most reliable anesthesia to dull running agony is to think. Allowing my mind to wander may have contributed to slower race times, but that’s another story. Through it all I’ve found that a good long run will clear the mind, spawn new ideas, and root out the solution for the problem of the day.

Soldiering through a 10K run the other day, I pondered the many ways in which independent retailers strive to breed loyalty and combat big box merchants. Punch cards and cash back discounts are the most common tactics used today. Listening to one merchant talk about his program recently, I realized that it was purely tactical, without strategic foundation, and absent specific objectives except for the hope that “more sales” would result.

As the ten kilometers that add up to the 6.2 mile run passed by, I assembled a list of ten questions that every retailer should ask when seeking to improve repeat purchase behavior and increase customer loyalty. The answers can be blended with a bit of “secret sauce” in order to give their Customer Strategy new meaning.

The 10 K’s of Retail Loyalty:

1. Who do you really think is your competition?
2. What does your Brand stand for?
3. How are you identifying customers today?
4. What are you doing with any data collected?
5. What are the objectives of your marketing efforts?
6. Are your offers coordinated to meet these objectives?
7. How are you communicating with customers?
8. How do you measure results?
9. Are employees trained to understand and promote the program?
10. What are you going to do next?

Marketing resources are scarce and, in a tough economy, every penny counts. Working through these ten questions will lead to a simple, yet effective strategy that any independent retailer can employ to improve their business.

It’s no sweat!

Bill Hanifin