With the increasing popularity of credit cards, the competition in the Chinese credit card market has become more and more intense. In order to attract consumers to apply for credit cards, encourage cardholders to use their cards, and improve the loyalty of customers, all card issuers take various actions, of which marketing based on “reward points” is one of the important approaches.
The conventional marketing of credit cars based on “reward points” is basically similar to that of loyalty cards of supermarkets and department stores, i.e. to encourage customers to use their cards by accumulating reward points through swiping cards and then using the points to exchange gifts, so as to develop their sustained consumption habits with cards. However, this seriously homogenized approach has gradually lost its competitiveness in the market. Therefore, some issuers have begun to promote their credit cards from a number of links including marketing based on “reward points”, selection by customers, and gift selection, etc., to break through the current bottleneck with refined management, so as to employ the marketing lever age of “reward points” to the largest extent.
In a s early as 2007, Industrial Bank took the lead in releas ing the “Super-cool Points Program”, including the features of consumption with reward points, pre-borrowing reward points, reward points for air miles, etc. Of which, the function of “consumption with reward points” (namely, the reward points in a credit card of IB can be converted at a certain rate into money to pay the purchase amount by swiping on the POS machine of a designated merchant) and “borrowing reward points in advance” (namely, when the reward points are not enough, a cardholder may exchange for the desired gift by pre-borrowing some points, and then repay the borrowed points with his or her reward points accumulated later through the regular approach) were both released for the first time, breaking through the conventional way for using the reward points of credit card, and providing more options and discounts to customers.
Over recent years, besides continuing diversifying its gifts for reward points and improving exchanging channels, IB also develop new functions out of the old continuously. IB released a number of new ways to use reward points such as consumption with reward points for deducting loans, reward points for mobile phone top-ups, and reward points for miles, and brought tangible benefits to the card holders with various marketing activities based on reward points so as to further facilitate the development of its own credit card business.
In 2010, IB developed various considerate gifts for different festivals, such as the Lantern Festival, Valentine's Day, Women's Day, Mother's Day, and Children's Day, and continued its program of “One-point Win Call-up”, in which cardholders could t ake the chance to exchange given gifts at the low threshold of only “1 reward point”. The program won great popularity among cardholders as they both enjoyed benefits and fulfilled their dreams to express their love to their family members.
In 2011, IB continued upgrading its credit card marketing program based on reward points.
Take “Season of Reward points – Giving Thanks Gift Returns for Reward points” and “Season of Reward points – Exchange for Gas Service Cards with 40% Discount for Platinum Card Holders". If a cardholder meets the trading requirements during the programs based on his or her cardholding time, he or she might enjoy the discount benefits to exchange gifts with reward points. The longer the holding time, the lower the reward points required. At the same time, more discounts for exchange with reward points were given to cardholders who handled various payments in installments, circulations and cash advances, agency payment of premium s or overseas transactions during the program period.
In September, IB launched the program “Season of Reward points – Multiplied Points for Card Consumption at LOVO Stores”. In the program, IB and the merchant worked together to carry out promotion based on profit transfer so as to provide value-added benefits to customers. During the period, if a cardholder purchases any product with IB credit card at the designated LOVO stores, he or she may enjoy the reward points five times as great as the regular points, and ten times during the National Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day. If he or she purchases over RMB 1,000 worth of products at the regular price at a designated LOVO store in one day, he or she can directly become a gold card member of LOVO.
IB has also brought into play the role of “reward credit card points” such as guiding the consumption behavior of cardholders and driving other businesses of the Bank. For instance, in the programs held in first half of 2011 “High Reward P oints by Dialing 400-821-0998 for Air tickets”, “Accelerated Points for Overdraft Transfer Via Electronic Banking”, and “High Reward Points for Overseas Card Consumption Via UnionPay”, the Bank took presenting points as the selling point to encourage cardholders to use designated channels, achieving the effect of encouraging card consumption and distributing channels.
Considering the development of the credit card market in China, “reward points” as an important part for value-added services of credit card has become a powerful weapon of competi tion for all card issuers. How to use reward points in an effective and dynamic way not only requires us to be sensitive to market feedback, but also calls for constant innovations and challenges. IB will push forward innovative marketing based on the reward points of credit cards in a sustained manner and transform innovation into competitive edges so as to further expand the scale of its credit card customers and the development of the credit card business while providing customers with more substantial benefits and more convenient experience when consuming with cards.