Are you evaluating your loyalty strategies with a keen eye on digital touch points?

You should. Here’s why.

In the U.S., a whopping 70 percent of the population (adults 18+) now use the Internet. In the U.K., it’s 63 percent. In the European Union, it’s 50 percent.

What’s more, reports Pew Internet Project, on a typical day, 38 percent of U.S. wired adults use a search engine, and 30 percent go online just for fun or to pass the time. And how about all those potential buyers who carry a mobile phone or some other digital tool? By the end of 2006, research firm IDC predicts there will be 223 million cell phone users in the U.S., up from 127 million in 2001. Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, reports it had five million subscribers in March, up from about one million users just two years earlier. Bottomline, every marketer should be thinking about customer loyalty strategies through the ever-expanding digital prism, because customers are increasingly wired for touch.

In my book Customer Loyalty: How To Earn It, How To Keep It, I examine in detail the six customer stages of loyalty development---suspect, prospect, first time customer, repeat customer, client, advocate---and the relationship-building requirements unique to each stage. These fundamental requirements for building loyalty remain steadfast and not meeting those requirements, will cost you customers. But with the continual array of breakthrough technologies, matching the best tools and techniques to each customer stage requires constant diligence.

I recently toured four Northern Tool & Equipment stores in Houston in preparation for a customer loyalty keynote I’ll deliver for the firm’s annual conference. Northern Tool has brilliantly positioned itself as the “man’s tool store”. (Where else can you find a 23 inch wrench and huge posters with teresterone-inspired witticisms such as “Sawdust is as close to potpourri as we get”?) As I walked the aisles of generators, pressure washers, electric tools, etc., I was reminded of my wood craftsman friend back in North Carolina and his fervent belief that success depended largely on his ability to match “the right tool to right job.”

In today’s digitized world, finding the “right tool for the right job” is a key challenge of every marketer. It’s imperative that CMOs and their teams wisely survey the ever-expanding array of sexy, new tools and techniques for touching customers and from that, search out effective, new ways to turn non-buyers into fierce, loyal advocates.

To help you jump-start your process, I have outlined the six loyalty stages, married each with a key loyalty fundamental and provided examples of how progressive companies are using wired tools to help grow loyal customers.