Regional grocery chains Coborn and Allegiance Retail Services’ Foodtown are honing in on loyalty personalization through mobile rewards applications in which shoppers are targeted via preferences, sales history and real-time location.

In reflection of the growing demand for personalized retail pushes, the grocery stores are rewarding their customers with content hyper relevant to them and their customer journey. The program will target customers through a series of personalized tactics such as location technology and beacons.

“In today’s retail environment, mobile plays a larger and larger role,” said Dennis Host, vice president of marketing at Coborn’s. “Consumers are connected 24/7 to technology.

“Whether it is through digital and social engagement, including retail apps that drive loyalty and guest engagement or through other digital channels, retailers have to be accessible to our guests on whatever platform they choose to engage with us,” he said. “For many, it still may be through more traditional media vehicles, but more and more, today’s consumers want to connect through digital.

“To that end, we recently redesigned our entire website to be mobile responsive. As we launch our loyalty strategy, making it easy for our guests to engage with us and our loyalty program, a dedicated app, as well as in-store beacon’s to engage them, made sense.”

Coborn and Foodtown have partnered with developer Birdzi for the rewards program.

Mobile and loyalty
As mobile loyalty programs are now a crucial part of retail strategies, grocery stores corner a sector that may garner more possibilities, as their customers are often frequent visitors. Coborn and Foodtown are rewarding their most loyal customers through relevant content obtained through a variety of platforms.

The loyalty programs will live on new mobile apps that frequent customers can download and save personalized information. The apps will retain purchase history and target in-store shoppers through beacons placed around the stores.

Rewards will be served to users based information such as items they have purchased in the past and where they are located. The program will also be available for access across multiple digital channels.

Rewarding moments
Similarly, Italian chain restaurant Carrabba’s pushed mobile and in-store traffic conversion through a Web site where users can register for coupons to be redeemed at bricks-and-mortar locations (see more).

Church’s Chicken also moved deeper into mobile rewards by becoming the latest quick-service restaurant chain to let customers earn savings, offers and coupons through a mobile app (see more).

“The Birdzi app is our latest entry into mobile and a cornerstone of our customer engagement strategy,” Patty Youchock, director of advertising and marketing at Allegiance Retail Services, said. “It provides a way to build awareness of the Foodtown brand and enhance the value proposition by delivering highly desired, relevant offers straight to their mobile device.

“The app functionality taps into what customers want most, mobile coupons, list building and sharing, ability to track savings and personalized offers,” she said.