Unlocking the Power of Program and Affinity Marketing

Danya  Raphael-Hoyle (00:02)
for some organizations, you're managing that data through a CRM other organizations, depending on the size and scale, you might be managing that through spreadsheets. But as a marketer, you kind of have to flex up and flex down depending on what the organization's tech stack is and just There's really no, there's no silver bullet. You just have to the data that you have at your disposal and manage it really well.

Benjamin Ard (00:50)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Dania. Dania, welcome to the show.

Danya  Raphael-Hoyle (00:56)
Thank you. Bye, Ben.

Benjamin Ard (00:57)
Danya, I'm excited for this episode. I'm excited for everything we're going to talk about, but before we dive in, please let's get to know you. Let's get to know your background. And then the question we always ask is what do you love about content and marketing?

Danya  Raphael-Hoyle (01:12)
Sounds good. I love content because it's a great way to connect with your customer, your member, whoever your target is. Content allows you to tell your brand story. It allows you to make it a personal choice for the user to decide whether or not they want to do business with you. So it just gives you so much opportunity to explain your value proposition.

offer great benefits and see if it connects with anyone and hopefully you can gain some new customers, members, whatever your target is. That's a great way. And that kind of ties into marketing. Also marketing has so many different avenues that you can take to make those connections in person, with events, online, with digital content, social content, you name it. There's just so many ways for you to make that connection with us.

member or customer in the current role that I'm in. I speak directly to prospective members. I speak to existing members and it's always important to tell your brand story, remind them why they want to do business with you, offer a great value proposition and hope that you're able to make that great connection.

background started in retail. I've been in retail, in and out of retail pretty much throughout my career, doing everything from brand manager, marketing assistant way back in the day, marketing director. Now I'm vice president of marketing. I'm in the credit union space today. Prior to that, I've been in automotive, hospitality, you name it. I've really traveled across different

industries and had different roles on small marketing teams, very nimble and roll your sleeves up and get it done. It's really large organizations where I'm one of 52 marketers in the department. So my experience is pretty, pretty broad in the marketing space.

Benjamin Ard (03:01)
that that's an incredible

background and that ties perfectly into our subject with all the different experiences that you've had and all the years of experience. I'm excited for this. So today's episode is going to be focused on program and affinity marketing. So when I hear those terms, I feel like they can kind of mean something different to every different marketer. How do you define those terms? What do those mean to you and your experience?

Danya  Raphael-Hoyle (03:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it definitely can mean different things to different people and it also means different things to different industries. when I harken back to my days in retail, a lot of the program marketing and affinity marketing was done with partners that add value to whatever the customer base is. So when I worked in the wholesale club industry, we had added value partners in the travel space.

So you're using a wholesale club to buy in bulk and pick up all the supplies that you need for your household. But on top of that, if we're able to make a connection with you where you can save money for your next vacation or your next car rental, or even on your way out the club, if you're thinking about some sort of home improvement, we had partners that would offer a great value to our members. So they found value beyond the things that they would pick up in our brick and mortar store.

So that's what program marketing can look like in that retail space. Digitally, we had partnerships with a lot of the credit card issuers where if they used a certain type of plastic, we can offer them an added discount on the savings they were already getting from the wholesale club. So that adds value there. Plus the offers were more personalized because we had their transaction data and we understood what products and services they had affinity to.

So we were tailoring our offers specific to the user so that they were feeling valued as a member and understood that we knew who they were and offered things that would enhance their life, not sort of a widespread marketing tactic. It would be more personalized and tailored to the individual user. And that's sort of in the retail space and hospitality, it means something totally different.

People that are buying vacations or traveling they're looking for different things. So my job was to really understand the user or the Vacationer depending on what you know, they were their background was And tailor our offers to them So for example if you had families that were traveling there were ways that you can enhance their stay with Experiences like if they're in New Orleans, maybe you know, they're very prone to doing events like, you know

different Mardi Gras related events or whatever we had on the calendar. And then if you're a business traveler, maybe you have to travel during Mardi Gras, but you don't want all that noise and all that hoopla. So maybe you would market to them that we had a set of suites that were on a far courtyard side of the hotel that were quieter and more conducive to them doing business and meeting with business colleagues, that sort of thing. So really understanding.

that it's not one size fits all, tailoring your offering and the value proposition to the different user based on their needs. And those are just two examples, one in the hotel space and the other in the wholesale retail space. So I hope that gives you kind of a sense of the tailored marketing that you can do using program marketing as well as affinity marketing.

Benjamin Ard (06:22)
I love it.

And that's amazing. Those are incredible examples. And I think every industry, like you pointed out, has something in that space that they can think of. How do I add extra value, make people feel extra special, but it's all tailored because not everyone's the same. How do you manage the data and the content and the distribution of customized offers? How do you collect it, understand it, consume it? I mean, there's just so much there.

How did you manage it all and what are your recommendations for other businesses that kind of their heads are spinning saying, I don't know if I can make personalized offers and things like that because it's just too much. How did you manage and handle that?

Danya  Raphael-Hoyle (07:06)
right.

So it varies by company. Your tech stack will decide whether or not you can easily do that or if it's going to be a difficult ride, that sort of thing. But data management is the key to personalized experiences. So the more you can understand your customer, understand who you're targeting as your customer, the more you can deliver those personalized experiences. it's

goes back to the basics of segmentation and sort of understanding your audience. Geography plays a big role in that, especially when I was in the retail space, you wouldn't put out an offer for spring decor in certain areas where they still have two more months of winter, where maybe on the West Coast, it's warmer.

or depending on where you are. So you just really have to understand there's so many levers to pull when you're trying to deliver a message that is specific to the audience that you're targeting. So seasonality plays into it, geography, demographics. You don't want to be tone deaf to sensitive topics that are triggering to certain demographics, that sort of thing. So.

As a marketer, you have a responsibility to really understand the data and understand who you're targeting and make sure that your message is not only delivering that value proposition, you know, helping them see why they want and can't live without that product that you're selling, but it also has to consider all of those other factors that I just mentioned so that you're not only influencing them, but you're also not offending them. So there's just so much that you can learn from.

the data that you have at your disposal. And

for some organizations, you're managing that data through a CRM other organizations, depending on the size and scale, you might be managing that through spreadsheets. But as a marketer, you kind of have to flex up and flex down depending on what the organization's tech stack is and just There's really no, there's no silver bullet. You just have to the data that you have at your disposal and manage it really well.

Benjamin Ard (09:08)
I love that call out. Some of the best marketers I know are the ones who don't expect other people to provide their data. They're the ones that can get in the CRM, the CDP, that Google spreadsheet, wherever the data is. They hunt it down. They look for it. They ingest it. They love it. They are the ones that learn SQL. They're the ones who learn the BI tools or how to create the custom Salesforce reports and know what custom fields and

buy cookies for the Salesforce admins to help them get the new custom objects put into the system to track everything. And so I think it's an amazing call out. Something I want to dive into though, real quick. A lot of your examples use partners and to create these opportunities and programs that involve other businesses. How did you build those strategic relationships? How did you co-market?

How did you bring those opportunities to the table? I think that a lot of businesses could really benefit from this, especially marketing teams. How did you approach that?

Danya  Raphael-Hoyle (10:04)
Yeah, so it's kind of a mixed bag in terms of the whether or not I brought the partnership to the organization or if it was an existing relationship and I've kind of worked in both spaces. Some organizations have great partners and they're under leveraging those partners. And some organizations don't have great partners, but based on their business needs, as a marketer, you have to understand like what would add value.

to whatever purchase or transaction you're looking for from the customer or member. So it has to complement the business. So you can't just randomly partner with example, I'm in the credit union space. Some of the value add and partnerships that I've worked on, they're things that will enhance either the person's.

wherever they are in their financial journey, if they're moving to a different phase of life, maybe they're going into retirement. So partnership with financial planners or somebody that can help them with that phase of their life is helpful to them. They're past the, you know, the kids in diapers phase. So yes, we should have those other partnerships that could work for people that are, you know, just now starting to become parents. But the message needs to be tailored to the audience. So

you want to have partnerships that can work across your customer base. So I think it's important just to understand your customer and how you can add value to the relationship that you have with them. And that's what will indicate what type of partnerships you should go after. then in terms of the existing partnerships, sometimes, you you have partnerships where there's a clear connection in terms of what your value proposition is to them and what theirs is to you. But the more you nurture that relationship,

you uncover opportunities. that's another bit of advice that I would give to other marketers is get to know your partners. Because sometimes in conversation, things will come up and they're talking about either a situation that they had with a different partner or client or whatever. And you can uncover something that becomes a great opportunity for your organization. But if you didn't have those conversations and really get to know that partner, that opportunity would never arise.

So I always say you have to make time to really get to know them, whether it's breaking bread over dinner or if it's on a Zoom call, ask them questions. Like what else do you have going on besides what you do with us? And a lot of people are so focused on their own business that they forget to ask those questions. And that's where you uncover those really great opportunities because the way that you look at your business, it's almost tunnel vision because you're so focused on your own business that

your mind stays small because you're not expanding and thinking about other businesses. Why should I think about other businesses? I have to worry about my own. Well, if you hear what other businesses are facing, whether it's a challenge or an opportunity, it might spark something where you say, my goodness, I never thought about that. And then you start to dig in with that partner and what comes out of that conversation is pure gold. So I like to get to know my partners. ask a lot of questions and sometimes I can tell my questions, kind of turn them around and they're like, why is she asking this?

And then at the end of the conversation, when I tie it back to what I'm doing, then it kind of connects the dots and they're like, now I see why she was asking it. It may come across as nosy at first, because I do ask a lot of questions, but there's, you know, I'm trying to get somewhere. And sometimes you have to take people for that ride with you. And then eventually they see where you are going. So I always say, stay curious, always try to figure out what other people are doing, whether they're in your industry or not.

And it might spark some ideas for you, for your industry, for your organization, for your role. So

always stay curious.

Benjamin Ard (13:37)
I love just a masterclass right there of how to treat

partners, brainstorm, build relationships. So many good pieces of advice. And I love that question. What are you doing with other partners that's working? Where are you seeing success? What's important to your business and how can we help you? I think that's amazing. And we're running out of time, but I do have one final question.

Danya  Raphael-Hoyle (13:42)
you

Right.

Benjamin Ard (14:00)
Working with partners, how do you get them and obviously the relationship really matters? But how do you get them excited and kind of put your business at the top of their list? As far as who they're gonna promote what they're gonna spend time on I know there's a lot that goes into it It's the amount of revenue they can make and all of the different initiatives they have going on but any tips or tricks to just say

I've done this or that and it's really helped the partner prioritize working with me and promoting our business and some of these initiatives.

Danya  Raphael-Hoyle (14:31)
Right. So a lot of times when we're dealing one-to-one with a partner, it's usually someone that has either a sales role or they're within the sales function of their organization. And so you know that the relationship is valuable to them. You know, they'll treat you, you know, with respect. They want to understand your business. But a lot of times they're dealing with attrition on their end. So for me, what I like to do is make them feel

comfortable in the sense that if they look after my business and take care of me as a client, I'm one less customer that they have to go chase because they already have me. So there's a little bit of sort of an investment that I kind of level set with them, you know, straight out of the gate and help them understand that if our business continues to grow and it's because of the partnership that we have with them, then they have loyalty in knowing that they don't have to

Chase me, you know what I mean again. So that's part of the value proposition for that organization. You know, we scratch each other's backs and as long as they're doing what's right for my organization, why wouldn't I stay with them? So it's harder to get back a customer that you've lost than it is to get a customer in the first place. And they both cost the organization that they're with money. in terms of, you know, value add-

for them, I'm always upfront with them and say, if we don't find value in the relationship, we are going to move on to a different partner. So let's make this work. And usually, when you level set with people, quite frankly like that, they understand kind of the marching orders. Like it has to be mutually beneficial and I'm going to bring value to them. There are times where I may speak on their behalf to other clients and say, they're great. And here's why I love working with them.

I'm happy to do that as long as the relationship is healthy and we're both gaining from the relationship. I think everything in business has to do with attracting new customers, retaining the customers that you have, and making sure that you have solid partnerships so that you can keep adding value to whatever it is you're offering your customer. So it's just an understanding.

Benjamin Ard (16:36)
I love that. That's amazing. Well, Donnie, I have learned so much. This was a great interview. I love it. I'm going to refer back to this several times because I love your approach. anyone wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?

Danya  Raphael-Hoyle (16:51)
LinkedIn, my name's Danya Raphael Hoyle and connect with me. I have a lot of connections. I've worked at many industries and I'm happy to share whatever, you know, knowledge I have in the marketing space. I would say LinkedIn's the best way.

Benjamin Ard (17:06)
Love it. For anyone listening to this episode, Danya's information will be linked in the show notes below. So just scroll down, click on her profile and you'll be able to find her. Danya, thank you so much for the time and insights today. It really was amazing. Really appreciate it.

Danya  Raphael-Hoyle (17:09)
Thank

Awesome. Thank you so much.

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