Conservatives take action for small businesses
The United Kingdom's 4.7 million small businesses provide 60% of the nation's employment. When the Conservatives decided to start building their membership they turned to a small Devon company with global expertise in Loyalty Membership.
Although the political party has a membership over 330,000 they wanted to pioneer a unique scheme to attract both new members and different age groups. The loyalty scheme provides an opportunity for the party to show their support for the members.
The Conservatives launched this new membership benefit scheme at the conference. The bespoke plan attracted national brand retailers, each one benefiting from a branded internet page. Today spending on-line accounts for £1 in every £5, and in the last 12 months this has grown by 65% according to the latest research figures. In the final quarter of 2008, IMRG e-Index predicts that £13.6 billion will be spent on line. Blue Rock Loyalty Managing Director Alex Monro explained "we have been selective in appointing our partners. A wide variety of companies realised the huge benefit in associating with such an attractive customer base. The combined buying power of large consumer groups enables both the retailer and their customers to benefit".
This leading affinity marketing company based in Exeter, Blue Rock Loyalty, originate innovative and distinctive schemes for international clients. "It takes 3 months to design and produce a dedicated scheme. We evaluate the customer base and match this to the suppliers. It is a partnership from day 1 for both the retailers and our client" reports Alex Monro. "The client chooses either to have a stand-alone Club on-line shopping directory or a dedicated service designed to achieve particular objectives".
Affinity marketing expands a retailer's customer base into a new, closed, but lucrative consumer group. Portfolios of diverse luxury retailers or services, selected by Blue Rock Loyalty, offer members substantial discounts supplied using an attractive on-line shopping directory. The resulting improvement of membership provides an added incentive to join and improves membership retention. For the supplier, partner profits increase without expanding staff or shelf space. Recent clients including Vodafone, Barclaycard, The Utility Warehouse and the Royal British Legion have included schemes from Blue Rock Loyalty. These global brands recognise customer retention in an increasingly challenging commercial world as an important objective. Research shows that on average 33% of members or customers change yearly.
"We have regular contact with all the main high street retailers and many international service companies. We are in a unique position of being able to develop schemes for global clients dedicated to providing them with substantial marketing support" said Alex Monro. Blue Rock Loyalty is an example of a company providing a service increasing supplier's profits and lowering customer's costs. It is a win, win situation.
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