Today marks another leap forward for identity marketing: brands can now create personalized offers for their corporate discount programs around the world. Our new release verifies employment in 191 countries, enabling companies to work directly with their partners’ human resources departments to implement the offers and to own the relationships they form with their new customers, giving them the ability to nurture lifelong loyalty.
Last year, we were the first to announce worldwide student verification, enabling brands like Spotify, Adobe, and Tableau a way to scale their programs to reach up to 235 million college students. Now they can grow their partner corporate discount programs just as broadly. As Jon Pickard, Targus’ Senior Manager eCommerce said, “Employment verification allows us to transform our partner program into an inventive strategy for acquiring new customers.”
This is an important milestone for the industry. Brands are searching for new personalization strategies at a time when consumer trust is eroding. Our new release provides the support they need: a way to market to customers that is personal, transparent, and makes them feel special.
Identity Marketing: Personalization Built on Trust
Identity marketing is a new form of personalized marketing I feel passionately about because it transcends the limitations of traditional data and gives consumers what they want—a personal experience that protects their privacy.
On the surface, identity marketing is simple. A brand invites the members of a consumer community to enjoy a personalized offer—for example, an exclusive discount for teachers or a VIP experience for students. Members of the consumer community opt in to receive the offer, and SheerID verifies their eligibility to receive it.
But the exchange goes far beyond a typical transaction because it recognizes meaningful aspects of a person’s identity and activates the deep connection we feel to the groups we belong to. And because it also requires consumers’ consent, it respects their desire to keep their data private.
All of this leads to brand-consumer relationships that are built on trust, and creating that digital trust is SheerID’s mission.
Employment Verification: Our Colleagues Are Our Community, Too
It’s easy to think of college students or the military as a consumer community because the experiences that unite them are obvious. But our place of employment is also a consumer community. The long hours we spend at the office, the collective pride we take in our work, and the thrill of sharing our success are intimate experiences that create a deep bond with our colleagues.
Companies recognize this connection by rewarding employees with corporate perks that improve their quality of life. Whether it’s VIP hotel stays, free gym memberships, or discounts at a favorite retailer, corporate perks are a powerful tool for recruiting and retaining talent.
With SheerID’s new employment verification solution, brands can fully harness this power. In the past, when a company wanted to deliver a personalized offer like a hotel discount to every employee in a multinational company, it would typically issue an unprotected coupon code for specific employers. Or, even worse, it would handle the discount manually. But these offers were hard to secure and often led to rampant abuse.
With our new platform, companies can verify employment and ensure only employees who are eligible for the corporate perk receive it. Not only does this prevent fraud—which can occur at rates as high as 35%—it gives brands and their corporate partners the confidence to promote the offer broadly and activate word of mouth inherent in employee networks.
Sprint, for example, has embraced employee discounts as a way to extend its reach and promote its customer-friendly brand identity. Leading companies that offer Sprint’s discounts to their employees include Bank of America, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Disney, and Comcast.
Young Adult and Senior Verification Now Available in 23 Countries
Today we also expanded the consumer communities a brand can reach by launching international Young Adult Verification and Senior Verification in 23 countries, giving brands another tremendous opportunity to engage new audiences.
A person’s life stage is central to their identity, and at each point—as young adults, college students, and seniors—they have different priorities, expectations, and values. With SheerID, brands can create and securely deliver personalized offers that meet these needs.
This opens up a vast amount of new markets. Our platform now enables brands to reach 645 million young adults and 889 million seniors by honoring their unique phase of life.
Leading brands are already planning to leverage this opportunity. A global software company recently launched a worldwide student program using SheerID to protect its offer from the high level of fraud it experienced with manual verification. Based on that success, the company will now extend the discount to younger users.
Identity Marketing Is the Way Forward
We love seeing brands put this strategy to work and reap the benefits. Companies that use identity marketing see results on the order of 3x engagement rates, 6x increases in conversions, and ROAS as high as 25:1. And seeing this success inspires us to expand—by developing products that provide our existing customers a way to reach new consumer communities and give new customers the chance to embrace this approach.
Identity marketing is the next frontier of personalization. And we’re committed to helping brands think differently about customer acquisition by creating a meaningful connection with consumer communities.
I welcome your input on this ongoing discussion about personalization and identity marketing. Email us at [email protected], or join the conversation with SheerID on LinkedIn.
Read our e-book: Identity Marketing for Dummies
