While the original Tavern in the Square restaurant catered to a hip, young bar crowd, the newer suburban restaurants attract more young professionals, ages 25 to 35. Although the restaurants were rebranded with a new look and feel that better expressed the restaurants’ role as a casual dining chain with a sports bar element, the group also needed to go beyond a cosmetic facelift and adopt a marketing strategy personalized to the individual guest.
The points-based Tavern Insider loyalty program was launched in February 2016 with a branded version of the Paytronix mobile apps for IOS and Android. The Paytronix rewards platform provides all the tools Tavern needs to drive incremental visits by leveraging member behavior data. Account filters allow guests to be segmented in multiple ways, such as age, location, last visit date, visit frequency, and to design and deliver relevant promotions.
From March 2016 to March 2017, on average, one thousand guests per month downloaded the new app and registered to join the Tavern Insider program, rapidly increasing membership to 23,500 in just 12 months. Today, mobile members now account for half of member transactions.
Cohesive Brand Experience — Digital environments match the brand’s presence and give guests a unified experience across all customer touchpoints. It’s easy for guests to join, check balances, and redeem rewards through mobile responsive web pages, and see mobile responsive email.
Geofencing and Push-Pull Messaging — New marketing tools enable Tavern to target loyalty members within a radius of a restaurant.
Robust Analytics — Measure the ROI of each campaign and ensure that Tavern is not giving away product for free and cannibalizing its own sales.
Customer Insights — Enable management to see who is coming into the restaurants, when, and to understand why, too.
Scalable System — Will help scale the loyalty program to 100 restaurants or more.
