Abstract

Loyalty programs are relationship marketing tools extensively adopted across industries. Digital offers opportunities for their innovation and differentiation but customer preferences for print versus digital elements of loyalty programs - communication, point collection, rewards, deals - are unclear. This paper aims to explore customer medium preference as far as the above elements are concerned by means of a nationally representative online survey. Six clusters are identified - from «heavy digital» to «print only» to «multichannels» - revealing diversity among Italian consumers. Marketers should strive to capture their customers' medium preferences in order to tailor loyalty program elements to the audience characteristics. As far as a transition of loyalty programs to digital, the study shows that this is not suitable for any program element or for all customers.