A question I asked myself as I was planning the For Love or MoneyTM 2025 research where we identified four loyalty program personas – Rationalists, Opportunists, Emotionalists and Zombies.
Yes, 11% of loyalty program members identify as a Zombies described as … “I engage with my loyalty programs although I have little or no knowledge and understanding about the program’s rewards and benefits”.
The other 89% (full results in the report) identified as a mix of:
Rationalists – “I am actively engaged with my loyalty programs to maximise rewards and savings over the longer term”
Opportunists – “I tend to join a loyalty program to get immediate savings but may not continue to engage with the program
Emotionalists – “I am emotionally engaged with my loyalty program and often share with others the joy and delight of being a member”
What should loyalty program managers do with Zombies?
The research identified a framework and action plan “From Persona to Profit: The loyalty program persona – five goal to action plan”.
Here is one of the five-goal action plans:
Convert Zombies to Rationalists to increase active participation and enhance member lifetime value.
Zombies interact with the program but don’t fully understand or care about its benefits (unconsciously engaging). The goal is to create more ‘care-factors’ with low-effort, high-impact incentives to drive conscious engagement.
Three actions to consider (not exhaustive)
- Simplify, educate and nudge Zombies with personalised emails, SMS or in-app notifications to highlight rewards earned and how to use them.
- Gamify interaction with Joyalty* Moments of Magic.
- Leverage social proof by highlighting testimonials or case studies from members who benefit from the program.
There are four more action plans in the report including:
- Convert Opportunists to Rationalists
- Convert Rationalists to Emotionalists
- Retain and grow Rationalists
- Retain Emotionalists
You can access the full results of the personas (by gender and the generations) and more ideas on the action plans in the For Love or MoneyTM report
Have a happy loyalty day!
