Experience and Tech-Agnostic Expertise Drives Better Results

How Digital Transformation Shifted Corporate Priorities

Mentions of Digital transformation began appearing in academic and IT circles in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and quickly evolved into a holistic corporate strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sparked by demand from customers who were eager to purchase but couldn’t engage in traditional shopping experiences due to lockdowns, brands added significantly to their tech stack to deliver innovative solutions in short time frames.

This flood of new technology has not slowed down since, and it seems brand marketers may have overlooked the time-honored statement that “technology enables but strategy wins”.

Technology companies are experts in their platforms, though they’re not necessarily strategists. Many cloud-based tech providers eschew professional services as their investors are more interested in recurring, not project, revenue.

Brands need a strategic approach to guide technology implementation, and that’s where strategic consulting becomes essential. This is where independent loyalty specialists like Baesman come into play, helping brands ensure strategy influences the implementation of technology and not the reverse. It’s time to reestablish strategy as the starting point to drive profitable growth for sustainable periods.

Democratization of Technology is a Dominant Business Trend

The biggest winners in the business world over the past decade share a common trait — they are on a mission to disrupt the status quo, democratize the supply chain or close the gap on a market inefficiency. Today’s landscape is defined by the “democratization of technology”—particularly in Martech, where more tools and platforms have emerged since 2020 than perhaps ever before.

We see this trend clearly in Loyalty Marketing, where the proliferation of new tools and software is unmatched. The range of options available has resulted in a buyer’s market for loyalty technology.

The high availability of easily configurable loyalty technology meets the needs of a market that thrives on quick-to-market solutions. The result is that marketers can move more quickly, but is it leading to the “dumbing down of loyalty”?

The Challenge of Channel Silos and Data Fragmentation

One of the biggest challenges brands face today is unifying data across channels; email, SMS, app, direct mail, to build a single customer view. Without this unified perspective, brands default to siloed channel-based strategies rather than truly customer-first marketing approaches. This fragmentation often leads to missed opportunities and inconsistent customer experiences across touchpoints.

Independent consulting firms like Baesman specialize in helping brands break down these silos and create comprehensive customer journeys that leverage data insights for better decision-making. Their technology-agnostic approach ensures that strategy drives platform selection and configuration, while softening the limitations of an existing tech stack.

Is Program Design Ingenuity Disappearing?

At The Wise Marketer, we’ve seen far too many new program announcements that rely purely on a currency-based transaction model.

This trend reflects what many independent consultants observe: brands often prioritize tech purchases before developing a strategy, leading to what industry experts call “decision paralysis.” The proliferation of loyalty technology options, while offering more choices, can create rigid points-for-dollars models that limit strategic flexibility. To understand the dynamics of an apparent shift from a strategy to a technology-led market, we asked an independent source of loyalty strategy and consulting, Kim Welther from Baesman, for her opinion on how brands should set priorities. “Driving loyalty is about outcomes—it’s not just about the mechanics and technology that runs the program,” explains Kim. “It’s about customer behaviors and data-driven strategy to deliver profitable sales for a brand through distinct strategic initiatives. It has to be measurable, impactful, and resonate with the brand.”

Kim’s perspective reflects Baesman’s core philosophy: marketers don’t have to live without answers. With the right analytical approach and a technology-agnostic perspective, brands can unlock customer insights quickly without waiting months for internal analytics teams to provide direction.

The primordial nature of Loyalty Strategy Planning has been disrupted, and Kim makes it clear that we need to reverse that trend. The solution lies in tapping into the resources of independent, tech-agnostic strategic planning firms that bring industry-specific expertise to the table and deliver measurable business results.

Well-Planned and Executed Loyalty Strategy Delivers Results

Most executives understand the importance of customer loyalty and the financial benefits it brings to a business. Loyalty program penetration is high in the U.S., with over 90% of companies offering programs and more than 75% of customers belonging to at least one program.

Retailers use loyalty programs to combat customer churn and retain existing customers, especially when prices are rising. They also create incrementality and growth. These two objectives are the twin towers of the loyalty financial model, but additional enterprise value can be created.

Loyalty programs enable the collection of valuable first-party data, helping retailers understand customer behavior and preferences. The data gathered fuels personalized marketing efforts and enhances the customer experience, leading to increased engagement and sales.

Even with all these benefits, not every brand should launch a loyalty program. This is where Baesman’s independent positioning helps brands validate whether loyalty is the right strategic move by analyzing customer file size and program economics. Sometimes they even caution against loyalty programs when the data doesn’t support a positive ROI, ensuring clients avoid wasted spend on initiatives that won’t drive meaningful results.

Welther shared, “We help brands not only define what they need to do from a loyalty program standpoint, we also let them know whether they need our help and debunk advice that hasn’t served them.

Objectives Come First and Strategy is Key

In our Loyalty Academy training courses, we emphasize that corporate business and financial objectives must come before everything else — including technology selection. Baesman has worked as an independent loyalty specialist over the past 18 years, serving brands including Carhartt, Fleet Feet, Hibbett, Cinergy Entertainment and more. Over this time, Baesman has come to rely on four key elements for loyalty planning:

• Maintain a tech-agnostic approach to ensure key customer objectives are met
• Incorporate customer journey creation into the planning process
• Apply strong competency in marketing analytics based on an owned database analysis team, using overlays of channel interaction data files
• Blend strategy + execution capability to form a complete solution

Kim explained more about the approach that she describes as the “Baesman Advantage”, saying, “We employ a 4-step Loyalty Program Strategy & Design Methodology to guide our work. This process includes validation and ROI modeling to determine whether loyalty makes strategic and financial sense for each client. We understand the linkages between brand loyalty and loyalty strategy and why data consolidation and decision-making support matter more than platform features.”

Selecting the Right Technology Solution Partner

Baesman’s perspective is to match brands with partners they need to enable their marketing strategies and deliver incremental value to their brand. “That’s the power of focusing on strategy first,” said Kim.

While we believe that marketing strategy should be created before making tech decisions, we also understand that strategic teams are more often tasked (in this highly penetrated loyalty market) with evolving strategy using technology already in place.

A tech-agnostic point of view can help to break organizational barriers, get a team unstuck or create workarounds to improve results. “Analytics and strategy work can be difficult to support in-house with smaller marketing teams, especially with the introduction of automation and AI-focused tools,” Welther commented. “We have years of expertise in this, with a specialty in retail brands, and we can often take on projects and finish them quickly, so you have answers when you need them versus having to wait.”

The Future is Clear — and it’s Strategic

Loyalty strategy will remain under threat if we allow speed and technology to dominate priorities, and it is tempting to “key punch” your way to quickly roll out a new loyalty program. Research shows that consumers understand the value of their personal data, reinforcing why taking time to build customer understanding through data insights is a critical step in strategy creation that can’t be overlooked.

Marketers should always prioritize strategy and then select technology that accommodates the current and future iterations of that strategy. This is a “best practice” in the customer loyalty industry. The power of technology should be leveraged to its fullest, but remember the work required before opening up configuration screens in your partner’s SaaS portal.

Baesman would like to think that a well-planned and well-executed customer loyalty strategy can be achieved for each of its clients, and we agree. Making this happen is simply a matter of prioritization and willpower.