Download the PDF: https://www.demandmetric.com/content/advocacy-and-loyalty-technology-overview Most sales and marketing professionals will acknowledge that some of the best-qualified leads and easiest sales to close come from word-ofmouth referrals. There are many studies that confirm how influential and credible this type of customer or brand advocacy is. The old school of thinking about brand or customer advocates and Customer Loyalty was that it occurred organically. A brand would simply strive to delight customers, which in turn produced loyalty and hopefully advocacy. The new understanding is that far more customers are willing to serve as brand advocates if it is simple enough. Getting customers to serve as advocates on behalf of a brand no longer has to occur only organically. There is now a nice collection of vendors with solutions that help brands create communities to identify, nurture and reward loyal customers, and to encourage their advocacy on behalf of a brand. These solutions – or the collections of widgets, objects and tools for creating custom solutions – are designed to encourage and reward advocacy and loyalty behaviors. The content presented in this Vendor Landscape is given to provide marketers with an overview of Customer Advocacy and Loyalty solutions. The goal is to enable Modern Marketing Organizations (MMOs) to make effective investment decisions about the Advocacy and Loyalty platforms and tools that best fit their broader Customer Engagement strategy. We are combining our looks at Advocacy and Loyalty solutions because they are related and often cornerstones of a Customer Engagement strategy. At present, however, they largely exist as separate solutions in the market. This Vendor Landscape focuses on both Customer Advocacy and Customer Loyalty platforms.

1. ADVOCACY AND
LOYALTY
TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW

2. Table of Contents
1 3
2 5
3 8
Executive Summary
Advocacy and Loyalty Vendor Landscape
Evolution of the Landscape
ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY
Technology Overview
12
11Analyst Bottom Line
Technology Overview Methodology
About Demand Metric 13

3. Executive Summary
TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWADVOCACY AND LOYALTY

4. 4ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY: TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWEXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Most sales and marketing professionals will acknowledge that some of
the best-qualified leads and easiest sales to close come from word-of-
mouth referrals. There are many studies that confirm how influential and
credible this type of customer or brand advocacy is.
The old school of thinking about brand or customer advocates and
Customer Loyalty was that it occurred organically. A brand would simply
strive to delight customers, which in turn produced loyalty and hopefully
advocacy.
The new understanding is that far more customers are willing to serve
as brand advocates if it is simple enough. Getting customers to serve as
advocates on behalf of a brand no longer has to occur only organically.
There is now a nice collection of vendors with solutions that help brands
create communities to identify, nurture and reward loyal customers,
and to encourage their advocacy on behalf of a brand.
These solutions – or the collections of widgets, objects and tools for
creating custom solutions – are designed to encourage and reward
advocacy and loyalty behaviors.
The content presented in this Vendor Landscape is given to provide
marketers with an overview of Customer Advocacy and Loyalty solutions.
The goal is to enable Modern Marketing Organizations (MMOs) to make
effective investment decisions about the Advocacy and Loyalty platforms
and tools that best fit their broader Customer Engagement strategy.
We are combining our looks at Advocacy and Loyalty solutions because they
are related and often cornerstones of a Customer Engagement strategy. At
present, however, they largely exist as separate solutions in the market.
This Vendor Landscape focuses on both Customer Advocacy and
Customer Loyalty platforms.
Executive Summary

5. 5ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY: TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWADVOCACY AND LOYALTY
Advocacy and Loyalty
Vendor Landscape
ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW

6. 6ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY: TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWADVOCACY AND LOYALTY VENDOR LANDSCAPE
As previously mentioned, this Vendor Landscape spans Advocacy and
Loyalty solutions. Both of these solutions fall within the broader realm of
Customer Engagement. They are compatible yet different.
The vendors examined in this landscape tend to lean clearly toward
either Advocacy or Loyalty.
Even when a vendor offers solutions for both, one or the other is typically
presented as a core capability or strength.
The common thread between these solution types is referrals. Referral
activity is the primary aim of Advocacy solutions and a secondary aim of
Loyalty solutions.
The primary aim of Loyalty solutions is to encourage increased purchases.
Advocacy and Loyalty Vendor Landscape
Download Demand Metric’s Advocacy and Loyalty Vendors
Matrix to review the key vendors for each of these two
solutions. This matrix includes target industries, key offerings,
unique strengths and current customers for each vendor.
V I E W R E S O U R C E

7. 7ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY: TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
Evaluate solutions you are considering with Demand Metric’s
Advocacy and Loyalty Vendor Evaluation.
Loyalty Platforms
These platforms allow the creation of online and social
communities and infrastructure to enable customer
registration in programs, track purchases (and often
referrals) and provide mechanisms for earning rewards
based on transactions.
As with advocacy platforms, there is typically integration
with social media, sources of customer data, POS systems
and online stores for fulfillment of rewards.
The ability to push coupons, special promotions and ads
to program members often exists as well.
ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY VENDOR LANDSCAPE
Advocacy Platforms
These platforms facilitate the creation of customer
or employee advocacy portals, often creating a
gamified community with tools and mechanisms for
identifying brand advocates, nurturing and rewarding
their advocacy through challenges, rewards and other
forms of recognition.
Advocacy platforms almost always have integration
capabilities with key customer touch points such as
websites, blogs, online communities and social media.
V I E W R E S O U R C E

8. 8ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY: TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWADVOCACY AND LOYALTY
Evolution of the Landscape
TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWADVOCACY AND LOYALTY

9. 9ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY: TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWEVOLUTION OF THE LANDSCAPE
The early days of Advocacy and Loyalty programs were characterized by
standalone portals requiring separate sign-on, activity tracking that didn’t
occur in real time and monthly or quarterly paper statements summarizing
member activity.
Participating in such programs required intentional effort on the part of the
member, and prospective members went through a sign-up consideration
process before deciding if it was worth the effort to gain the benefits of
membership in an Advocacy or Loyalty program.
Today, Advocacy and Loyalty programs usually have distinct branding for
promotional purposes, but they are seamlessly integrated – or should be –
into the appropriate touch points.
A customer that just had a satisfying online support experience can easily click
to tweet or post about it. New customers who are delighted with a company’s
products or service can join their rewards program via single or social media
sign-on.
For many solutions, an analytics engine monitors customer activity and pres-
ents personalized challenges, coupons or offers that require only a click to
activate or use.
Evolution of the Landscape
As these solutions continue to evolve, the
analytics capability will surge in importance,
and in fact, gathering and analyzing metrics
may serve as a primary motivator for
implementing programs.
Advocacy and Loyalty programs have the
capability to gather a lot of valuable data about
the behaviors, sentiments and preferences of
their members.
The capabilities and sophistication of these solutions has matured tremen-
dously, yet in most cases the Advocacy or Loyalty program is presented to
members through a highly customizable, branded interface.

10. 10ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY: TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
Few things are more important in marketing than gaining a deep under-
standing of a firm’s most important customer segment.
As these solutions continue to evolve, expect the analytics capabilities to
become both a major differentiator and purchase motivator as companies
try to gain new insights about their most important customers.
The analytics capabilities should evolve from detailed analysis of
existing Advocacy and Loyalty data to predictive analytics that help
identify prospective brand advocates and loyalists – even some that
are not yet customers.
Another evolutionary step for these solutions is the emerging integra-
tion of Voice of the Customer (VoC) and Advocacy platforms, if only for
data sharing.
Clare Price, VP of Research at Demand Metric has stated
EVOLUTION OF THE LANDSCAPE
“Active VoC connections should do more than gauge
satisfaction, they should elicit ideas. Online Community
features, such as crowdsourcing and ideation that build
the foundation for Advocacy, are valuable here.
When tied to Gamification, these activities will enable
the Community Manager to identify likely advocates for
special focus and reward.”
Clare Price
VP of Research at Demand Metric

11. 11ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY: TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWANALYST BOTTOM LINE
Analyst Bottom Line
The technology that drives Advocacy and Loyalty solutions is
becoming easier to use and more affordable, extending this
functionality beyond the Enterprise into the realm of SMBs.
Regardless of whether a solution focuses on Advocacy or Loyalty,
both will help users better engage their most profitable and important
segment of customers.
The current solutions range from cloud-based platforms with drag-and-
drop interfaces for quickly implementing a program to collections of
objects and widgets for developing highly customized programs.
Product and services firms alike are finding that it is increasingly
difficult to differentiate themselves through technical innovation,
terms and conditions and certainly price. None of these provide a
sustainable advantage.
What does provide a long-term, competitive advantage is providing
an excellent customer experience and engaging customers to the
full extent possible.
Organizations that are successful doing this need to fully leverage the
brand advocates and loyalists that they create.
Companies should not be satisfied just letting Advocacy and Loyalty
occur organically.
An investment in one or both of these programs will provide
measurable revenue and almost immediately accelerate brand
advocacy and loyalty behavior.

12. 12ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY: TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWTECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW METHODOLOGY
Technology Overview Methodology
The Modern Marketing landscape is an ever-changing, ever-evolving
environment in which new strategies, technologies, vendors and
products appear continually.
Demand Metric Technology Overviews provide marketers with a
focus on a specific technology solution set or focus area so that
they are armed with the knowledge, information and tools they
need to develop effective strategies for their organizations.
Each Technology Overview involves hours of analyst research
(mainly publicly available information), is for a specific technology
solution, and is usually accompanied by several practical tools.
Our Customer Engagement series includes Technology Overviews on
Online Event Marketing
Online Communities
Gamification
Our practical tools are designed to provide marketers with the tools
and templates they need to plan for an initiative in a given focus
area, analyze the vendor landscape and select the best vendor for
their organization.
We provide a comprehensive overview of Customer
Engagement in the companion report Customer
Engagement Best Practices Report.
V I E W R E S O U R C E

13. 13ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY: TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWABOUT DEMAND METRIC
About Demand Metric
Demand Metric is a marketing research and advisory firm serving
a membership community of over 120,000 marketing profes-
sionals and consultants in 75 countries.
Offering consulting methodologies, advisory services, and
500+ premium marketing tools and templates, Demand Metric
resources and expertise help the marketing community plan
more efficiently and effectively, answer the difficult questions
about their work with authority and conviction, and complete
marketing projects more quickly and with greater confidence,
boosting the respect of the marketing team and making it easier
to justify resources the team needs to succeed.
To learn more about Demand Metric, please visit
www.demandmetric.com

14. 14ADVOCACY AND LOYALTY: TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWADVOCACY AND LOYALTY
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