Assignment #4: Relationship Marketing. SAIF Harbor Loyalty Awarding Program

Assignment #4: Relationship Marketing (5%) 
Background:
To complete this assignment, read about relationship marketing in Chapter 9 of the Handbook and refer to the appendix for more tips (p, 188-190).  Use your new research skills to source information describing a Financial Services loyalty program (e.g. credit card or other financial product).  
This assignment is designed to give you experience in searching out competitive information and applying relationship marketing tools.  
The Assignment: 
Assume you are the marketing manager assigned to recommend a loyalty program.  While thinking about your target customer and your company’s strength (or weakness) with respect to relationship marketing, research competitive loyalty programs in the market place.  Your objective is to retain your existing profitable customers and attract new profitable ones as well. The program you recommend must differentiate your product offering (marketing perspective) while provide a good return on marketing investment (finance perspective). 
Using both insight and intuition, recommend a program that a financial institution or a commercial branch could implement to build loyalty among their most profitable customers.  Since this is a relationship marketing project, also consider what communication processes are needed to ensure your account managers are successfully building strong relationships with their customers.
Remember, not all customers are profitable.  Your loyalty program should reward loyal profitable customers if you hope to payout.  Consider how to evaluate and target the most profitable customers.  Considering that loyalty points on the books are liabilities, part of your relationship marketing program must incent loyalty program members to redeem their points.TIP: Research successful Loyalty programs such as Loyalty Marketing’s AirMiles, Shopper’s Drug Mart’s Optimum program and BNS Scene Visa for inspiration.
This is an individual assignment. You can work in groups to discuss ideas and pool resources during your research phase, however, the recommendations must be unique and in your own words.  Outline your sources of data and avoid plagiarizing at all costs.  Late submissions will be penalized because time is of the essence!  BTW, your customers are being bombarded by your competition, so its imperative that you protect your base and act quickly.  Consider the new reality of the WW Pandemic and its impact on your Canadian target.
Keep your analysis and recommendation short and to the point, limited to 2 pages, 12 point type, double spaced.  The recommendations will be evaluated based on the quality of your research, the clarity of your writing and the creativity of your proposal.