Brands really are still questioning whether they need to be proactive in social, as well as what quantifiable returns they can hope to attain? These were some of my observations as I conversed with brand managers and suppliers at the recent Retail Bulletin Customer Loyalty Conference, in London.

For brands keen to implement a new loyalty programme or optimise an existing programme, a fundamental requirement has to be to have a handle on how a customer engages with the brand across the multitude of touch-points in order to ascertain how any program might influence this behaviour. For this very reason brands need to be monitoring the space to benchmark and evaluate their programs.

Social is increasingly becoming one of the most important areas that brands can leverage to become a true touch-point. Without a doubt, brands that decide they don’t want to proactively participate and engage with consumers face the threat of missing vast opportunities to grow and deepen their relationship with existing customers, increase  share of wallet and grow their customer base through advocates.

There has been extensive research conducted to suggest that customers that interface with a brand across multiple channels tend to have longer customer lifespans and a higher lifetime customer value versus those that are not cross channel. Even more convincingly, research from Bain & Co. discovered that customers engaging with a brand across social channels spent on average between 20  to 40 percent more with that brand versus those customers that were not active in this manner.

By observing spend by early adopters in the social space in relation to their brand marketing budgets, the pioneers are investing huge proportions of budget into social activity to support the value that social has been able to drive for their business.