Opportunity

In a world of sub-par customer rewards programs, T‑Mobile wanted something that set their services apart and provided real value for their customers by showing true appreciation.​

woman smiling on her phone

Approach

Our data showed customers were sick of convoluted, tiered programs with valueless points. tms set out to drive value just for being a customer — skipping complex points systems. We shook up the idea of loyalty by keeping it simple and rewarding. We aimed to earn customers’ loyalty by proving T‑Mobile was already loyal to them.​

smiling people

Outcome

We created the wireless industry’s first customer appreciation platform —T‑Mobile Tuesdays. Reinventing the loyalty paradigm in a way only T‑Mobile can, we thank customers every week with access to exclusive deals, content, and chances to win awesome experiences from brands they love. We are proud to have a longstanding relationship with T‑Mobile, continue to evolve the T‑Mobile Tuesdays platform, and connect T-Mobile with new, relevant brand partners to meet the ever-changing customer demands.​

smiling people

Results

50+ Million
registrations
300 Million
partner claims
$1.5 Billion
customer value delivered

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Clara Martínez Basurto featured in Built In’s ‘How to Take Hybrid to New Heights’

Clara Martínez Basurto

Account Executive Clara Martínez Basurto joined The Marketing Store during the pandemic and has seen the evolution of our workplace from fully remote out of necessity to a hybrid set-up that fosters flexibility, autonomy, and balance for employees. She’s worked across our Retail Experience and T‑Mobile Tuesdays Account Teams, both of which take full advantage of our flexible work set up by working from home for part of the week and also going into the office together regularly.

Built In Chicago interviewed Clara for their recent round up, “How to Take Hybrid to New Heights.”

When asked about how hybrid work has impacted Clara and her colleagues, Clara said, “It’s hard to say how the state of work will look in the future, but at every step The Marketing Store has been receptive to feedback. While it’s great to be able to work from home and have extra flexibility, having the option to go back into the office allows my team to regroup and better collaborate in ways that we can’t over Slack and video calls.”

You can find the full article here.

 

Office Work

T-Mobile Tuesdays’ Homerun 2022 MLB® Offers

T-Mobile MLB Graphic

This April, we teamed up with T‑Mobile and MLB® to bring back a T-Mobile Tuesdays homerun — a free season of MLB.TV!

MLB.TV allows users to tune into any regular season game, even those out-of-market, live or on demand all season long in the MLB® App. This offer has become a customer favorite in the Tuesdays app and drew an 8% increase in redemptions this year. In 2021, we saw users stream 51 million hours of content in the MLB® App, and we’re aiming to top that in 2022.

But it doesn’t stop there. Tuesdays users also had the chance to enter into a sweepstakes, with the potential to win either a $1,000 MLB® Shop Gift Code, so they could rep their favorite teams in style, or a trip for two to the 2022 MLB® All-Star Game. With the world opening back up, this grand prize gives the lucky winners the opportunity to experience baseball back in person again, from the first pitch to the last out.

“It was exciting to get to help bring a free year of MLB.TV action to the T‑Mobile Tuesdays community. The 2022 season should be a hit,” said Dakota Klaes, Account Executive at tms (formerly The Marketing Store).

Helping nurses and teachers get thanked

Nurses

With both Nurse Appreciation and Teacher Appreciation dates falling within the same week span, T-Mobile Tuesdays took the opportunity to celebrate and thank both important groups of front-line workers on Tuesday, May 3rd.

This offer was a first-of-its-kind, directly benefitting those who make huge daily impacts in healthcare and education. We were proud to help bring it to life in the T‑Mobile Tuesdays app through creative execution.

To get thanked, all nurses and teachers need to do is verify their job, then select which self-care treat they’d like: a Reebok gift card, 2 tickets to the movies and a Restaurants.com gift card, or a spa gift card.

tms (formerly The Marketing Store) is proud to have supported T‑Mobile on this great initiative.

Introducing T-Mobile 22222SDAYS

T-Mobile 22222 logo

2’s are everywhere you look in 2022, and we’ve been counting down the days until 2/22/22. We couldn’t think of a better time for T‑Mobile to dial up the appreciation in 22+ ways in the T‑Mobile Tuesdays app since it falls on, you guessed it – a Tuesday!

Customers will have the chance to snag all kinds of 2-themed thankings — like 2-for-1 Chicken Sandwiches, .22 cent/gallon gas, 22 free photo prints, $2 coffee cards and more — all day long on 2/22/22. These giveaways involve gamification too. Tuesdays users can play interactive 2-themed games with a chance to win $222k!

Even better, Tuesdays is keeping this  2-themed celebration going all year long with $2 coffee cards, $2 movies tickets and 2-for-1 pizzas to show appreciation to the best customers around.

Head to the T‑Mobile App to see 22222SDAYS for yourself! And read more here.

T-Mobile and tms take the stage at ANA Brand Masters

Mike Belcher and Ryan Hedges presenting on stage

Mike Belcher, SVP of Business Development and Partnerships at T‑Mobile, and Ryan Hedges, SVP of Strategy & Experience at tms (formerly The Marketing Store), presented at ANA’s Brand Masters hybrid conference in San Diego, CA.

Their first in-person event since the start of 2020, Belcher and Hedges took the stage to outline T‑Mobile’s mission to change wireless for good and turn the loyalty model on its head, building lasting brand love through the award-winning customer appreciation program T‑Mobile Tuesdays. Designed and developed by tms (formerly The Marketing Store) five years ago, the user-driven app rewards customers every Tuesday with free products and experiences — called “Thankings” — from top brands.

Belcher and Hedges also spotlighted how T‑Mobile, and T‑Mobile Tuesdays in turn, has been able to pivot in response to Covid, leaning into community and CSR initiatives that their customers craved and staying on top of what’s happening to give customers the experience they need.

Here are the key takeaways from their presentation:

  • Putting customers first, treating them right, and changing the rules in their favor will significantly demonstrate your brand’s customer commitment.
  • Programs like T‑Mobile Tuesdays work so well because they center customer appreciation and are constantly evolving to give customers the products, services, and experiences they want.
  • Covid demanded a hard pivot, as everything from the economy to media and culture and customers’ work and home lives changed. In moments like this, consider shifting your brand’s rewards.
  • For example, T‑Mobile shifted from offering Thankings like free movie tickets to telehealth care and donations to Feeding America, the CDC Foundation and more.
  • Looking to the future, brands must continue to pivot as the world reopens and people return to traveling, dining out, and attending events — make sure to stay tuned in and tailor your experience to the moment as much as possible.

tms wins 2020 Loyalty360 and Digiday Worklife Awards

Worklife Awards logo

After an especially challenging time for our industry and the world, we are excited to round out the year on a positive note with wins from Loyalty360 and Digiday.

T‑Mobile and tms (formerly The Marketing Store) won two Loyalty360 Awards for T‑Mobile Tuesdays. We received silver for Customer Loyalty Strategy and bronze for Customer Experience (CX) Strategy.

An association for customer loyalty, Loyalty360 honors brands that build customer loyalty that’s proactive, meaningful and measurable. The Loyalty360 Awards feature 13 categories, from B2B Customer Loyalty to Incentive and Reward Design and more.

This recognition for our recent work would not be possible without the ongoing efforts of our team. We are thrilled that Digiday has recognized their ability to connect even while physically apart and to effectively balance work and home life—no small feat when your “office” is a screen that’s always just a few feet away.

Specifically, tms (formerly The Marketing Store) was named a Digiday Worklife Awards finalist in two categories: Most Committed to Work-Life Balance and Employer of the Year.

The Digiday Worklife Awards celebrate companies with strong cultures that run deep, beyond company parties or individual perks. The winners have core values that are unique and essential to their organizations.

This year in particular Digiday spotlighted how finalists’ across the board fostered collaborative, high-morale workplaces, even as the Coronavirus pandemic upended the ways their businesses functioned.

Vanessa Smith, Managing Director, said, “These wins speak to our ability to adapt in the face of challenge while—most importantly—still prioritizing the wellbeing of our people. They are truly our greatest assets, and I could not be prouder of how our team has supported one another in 2020.”

How to create brand loyalty in the Tinder era

TMSW Brandshare

Hey, I like you but…I just can’t commit. I need an open relationship. Way open. It’s just so easy, I can’t resist. I swipe, tap and somebody new shows up. They’re different. And better. I’m doing this for me. I hope you can understand.

Sound like the scene from a painful breakup? It could be even worse. Because if you’re an established brand looking for love and loyalty in the age of smartphones, same-day delivery and sexy startups, this is your new reality.

Your customers are falling in love with new, better experiences. It’s a fact.

At best, they’re still with you, but they have a little something on the side. Worst case, they’re straight up dumping you. And in a cruel reversal of the cliché breakup line, this time, it really is you.

Why are customers playing the field? Simple. They have options. New, very attractive options at that. And your predictably ordinary deals and overplayed promises of boosted status just aren’t enough to keep them loyal anymore.

Much like a lover who’s been burned one too many times, customers don’t want to be bribed with seemingly worthless points. And they certainly don’t want to be misled. Yet, throughout most of marketing history, this is exactly how so-called loyalty has been used.

Today’s customers are savvy and quick to realize when you’re not giving your all to the relationship. They’re also quick to play the field, being a click, tap or swipe away from exploring what someone new might have to offer.

Loyalty programs aren’t dead yet

You’ve seen the stats—when customers participate in loyalty and rewards programs, they spend more money and stay longer.

It’s true, but if you’re looking for a real long-term commitment in a world of endless choice and mobile convenience, you need to find new and authentic ways to connect to your customers.

They are people after all. And as people, they have functional needs. A need for quality, convenience, value and good service. They want the very best you can offer as a brand and as a partner in your relationship.

Your customers also have feelings. They want to be happy. They want to enjoy themselves. They might even want a break. Ultimately, they want to feel appreciated and celebrated as an individual for sticking with the programs and brands they have chosen to commit to.

This is exactly what T‑Mobile was longing for when The Marketing Store helped create T‑Mobile Tuesdays—a program that would allow customers to feel genuinely appreciated and loved—just for being a customer.

T‑Mobile Tuesdays weren’t designed so that the business could eke out another sale. They were created as a way to say thank you to customers by giving them rewards every Tuesday.

In creating T‑Mobile Tuesdays, what we really fostered was a great relationship built on the principles of a lasting, dependable brand connection in the era of swiping left.

The fundamentals of mobile loyalty experiences

Care to show your customers some love? There are five simple rules you need to follow.

  • Get to know your customers in an authentic way: Make an effort to ask them what they like and what they don’t like. Above all, make them feel appreciated. If they sense ulterior motives, it’s over.
  • Be honest with them and yourself: Be clear about where you’re at in the relationship. Wishy-washy boundaries are a no-go. Be sure to know what their mutual expectations are and show your appreciation by being straightforward and direct.
  • Make it fun: This isn’t a business transaction so boring won’t get you anywhere. Deliver unexpected moments of joy and appreciation.
  • Give them space: Your customers want to know you’re there, but you’re not all they think about. Don’t make the relationship hard work. And definitely don’t blow them up with tons of messages. Be cool.
  • Stay true: Last but not least, live up to the expectations you set and don’t break your promises. Your customers want to be with someone who shares their values and goes out of their way to do genuine good for others.

As SVP of strategy and experience at The Marketing Store, Jim is responsible for architecting and delivering digital and mobile customer engagement, CRM and loyalty programs. He leads a team of strategists, user experience designers and digital specialists responsible for delivering programs for brands like Monopoly, McDonald’s and T‑Mobile.

Originally published on Adweek here.