Points Thought Leadership and Data-Driven PR

The Background

Points’ solutions enhance the management and monetization of loyalty currencies ranging from frequent flyer miles and hotel points to retailer and credit card rewards, for more than 50 partners worldwide. If you’ve ever topped off your frequent flyer miles or redeemed them for a trip, that was likely Points’ software working on the back end. More than 4 million consumers use the Points Loyalty Wallet to track all of their loyalty programs and trade, exchange and redeem their miles and points.

The Challenge

Points reached out to Walker Sands looking to increase brand awareness and showcase its expertise. While Points had tremendous brand recognition and partnerships with top travel brands  – including American Airlines, Delta, Jetblue, IHG and La Quinta  – it was mostly known for its buy, gift, transfer (BGT) service. The bulk of the travel industry uses Points exclusively for the BGT service – which is only a small piece of what Points has to offer.

When Points approached Walker Sands, the company was preparing to launch two new services, Points Travel and the Points Loyalty Wallet, and faced the challenge of building awareness and credibility for both. Points needed both travel and loyalty brands to see value and sign up for its new services, while simultaneously getting consumers excited about Points Travel and the Points Loyalty Wallet, to spark demand among loyalty platforms.

The Solution

Walker Sands developed a public relations strategy that not only increased brand awareness for the company and its thought leaders, showcasing Points’ loyalty expertise, but also helped the company earn consumer mindshare for its loyalty solutions. The program was centered around thought leadership to both B2B and B2C audiences. It included a large skew toward B2B with a focus on businesses such as loyalty programs, travel companies, retailers and fintech companies. The B2C side of the program focused on travelers and loyalty members.

The thought leadership program focused on establishing expertise in the travel loyalty space for both Points and its senior-level executives. Outreach focused on key trends in the travel loyalty space, changing consumer demands and more. It also enabled Points to build credibility and awareness for its new products. For Points Travel, outreach involved highlighting the latest travel trends and what experiences consumers want when redeeming their travel rewards. For the Points Loyalty Wallet, Walker Sands helped insert Points into conversations in the fintech space, showcasing a need for loyalty integration in mobile wallets.

The thought leadership program enabled Walker Sands to educate travel and loyalty brands on Points’ outlook on loyalty and value in the market, and also helped Points executives gain recognition as subject matter experts. On the consumer side, we worked with Points to position the company as a key resource for information on how to earn and burn loyalty currency. Along the way, Walker Sands built strong relationships with business, financial, loyalty, retail, travel and tech press.

Walker Sands also drove an in-depth content strategy for Points. This strategy focused on the Pointsman blog  – a blog hosted on the Points site that showed a fictional family’s journeys and relationship with points and miles – and the About.com Miles and Points section, where VP of Marketing Danielle Brown contributed six posts a month on strategies for earning and burning travel rewards. Walker Sands also secured several contributed articles and interview-based thought leadership placements across key industry trade publications for Points, including Let’s Talk Payments, Marketing Daily, Loyalty360 and TravelPulse, to name a few. Most recently, Walker Sands and Points collaborated on a research report to showcase Points as experts in the mobile wallet and loyalty space.

“What impressed me most about Walker Sands was their ability to quickly understand the core of our complex business. They delivered fantastic results, built solid industry relationships and truly became an extension of our in-house team.”

Rachel Hollis, Manager, Public Relations & Corporate Communications

The Results

• 180+ media placements for Points, with coverage cutting across top-tier business and financial press, and fintech, loyalty, mobile, retail and tech trade publications.
• Key placements include: Travel & Leisure, AFAR & Conde Nast Traveler, The New York Times, Let’s Talk Payments, The Paypers, Mobile Payments Today and more.
• Recurring thought leadership (six posts/month) on About.com’s Miles and Points expert section, with 60+ posts drafted in one year. Since Points started contributing to the section, posts have received more than 100,000 pageviews.
• Built the Pointsman blog from the ground-up. The month the refreshed blog launched, year-over-year blog traffic nearly tripled, and blog traffic has continued to grow each month since launch.
• Successful completion of a data-driven PR project, which led to impressive results – 19 placements in target fintech and loyalty outlets  – including an exclusive in VentureBeat.

Through targeted media relations, content strategy and development, and data-driven PR, Walker Sands helped Points Increase brand awareness among key audiences, including decision makers at loyalty programs, travel companies, retailers and fintech companies, and potential Points Loyalty Wallet users.

The B2B thought leadership media outreach resulted in nearly 200 media placements over the course of a 17-month partnership. We also led content strategy, editorial calendar creation and content development for Points, resulting in a significant stockpile of content for the About.com Miles and Points section and Pointsman blog. Through this content, Points earned consumer mindshare and has evolved into a resource for travelers seeking information on how to earn and burn their loyalty miles.