Strong print investment has helped boost Coles’ flybuys membership numbers by 47% and landed a win at the annual international Colloquy Loyalty Awards. The supermarket chain relaunched its famous loyalty program in April 2012 with a monumental print DM campaign reaching 17.3 million Australian households.
As Australia’s largest shopping rewards program, the flybuys program has grown its membership numbers by 47% to 6.9 million active cardholders and more than doubled its website visits year-on-year. According to Phil Hawkins, head of loyalty operations at Coles, the investment in printed communications and high-speed variable inkjet is a vital ingredient to the program’s success.
“The best example would have to be our quarterly statement mailing, where we are able to personalise and tailor all our DM communication. We are printing literally millions of variations that are personalised to each member, and we’re including coupons and other personalised offers and messaging. Print is an important part of reaching and keeping our cardholders,” said Hawkins.
Hawkins adds that print provided a vital part of the relaunch and that it will continue to play an important part in the program. Most of the transactional print work is coming out of PostConnect, a division of Australia Post. High-end Canon Océ Colorstream 3700 digital inkjet engines in both Melbourne and Sydney blitz the job at a top speed of 100 metres a minute. Hawkins says that high-speed variable capability has been crucial in meeting the demands of tight turnarounds.
“As part of the initial relaunch we did a mail-out to practically every Australia household, and since then we’ve found full-colour dynamic digital print is a perfect fit for a data-driven loyalty program,” he said.
In a recent consumer study into Australian loyalty programs conducted by Directivity and Citrus, flybuys topped out the competition with 37% of respondents rating it the leading loyalty program. It also emerged that direct mail was the second most popular communication channel, with a 37% approval and is particularly appealing to consumers under 25.
On top of nearly doubling memberships, the flybuys relaunch won the Innovation in Retail category at the fourth Annual Colloquy Loyalty Awards this year. Colloquy is the publishing and research division of LoyaltyOne, and launched the awards in 2010 to recognise innovative loyalty initiatives in the industry.
Dennis Armbruster, Colloquy editor-at-large, said, “The Colloquy Loyalty Awards confer the highest honour on companies that are unwavering in their efforts to put the customer at the centre of all efforts. The innovations in these winning strategies operated by these industry leaders, reflect the very best of efforts among global marketers to personalise and enhance the customer experience with every relevant communication and at every opportunity for interaction.”