How to Build a Loyalty Club – Klubb Felix
For several years, Felix has offered loyal customers every tenth ready meal for free through their customer club. Each single-portion meal package came with a code that customers could register on a website to receive a virtual stamp. Ten stamps earned a voucher that could be sent as a PDF via email or as an SMS. Your local pizzeria probably has a similar setup – just with physical stamps and cards.
Together with Felix, we identified two main areas for improvement in the new loyalty program:
- A more flexible reward system – Instead of every purchased meal earning a fixed “stamp,” rewards should be able to vary depending on the product, time, or a combination of both.
- Modernize coupon handling – Why send coupons as PDFs or SMS when the information can be presented directly in the web app?
With the new Klubb Felix solution, we’re gaining entirely new insights into our consumers and their purchasing behavior – valuable information for how we can continue developing our single-portion meal business.
— Sandra Lindh, Head of Marketing and Category at Orkla Foods Sweden
The Rewards System
Step one of this improvement is very simple: Instead of earning 1 stamp, members now get 10 points per product. The number 10 is, of course, not hardcoded – each product can award a unique number of points if desired. A specific bowl might give 37 points, while a pie might only give 12, or even 3.
Step two is just as straightforward: At a certain point threshold, members receive a discount coupon. Currently, it’s a full-value coupon at every hundred-point milestone, and various smaller discounts in between. Naturally, new coupons can be introduced at different point levels at any time.
Why stop there?
Since we built the campaign engine from scratch, we made sure to build in as much flexibility as possible. Points awarded can vary by date. Want a spring break campaign? No problem. It’s also possible to set it up so that the first time someone registers a code for a specific product, they get a bonus – perhaps only during a certain period.
TwoFour has been a fantastic partner. It’s reassuring to have such an experienced digital agency close by. With the new club, we now have entirely new ways to communicate with our customers. And we own the solution ourselves, which gives us a whole different level of control over further development compared to licensed solutions.
— Amanda Falkner, Digital Portfolio Manager at Orkla Foods Sweden
Coupon Handling
There’s nothing wrong with SMS or PDFs – but for Klubb Felix, they don’t really add value. Members can simply log into the website to see which discount coupons they have access to. There, they’ll also find the code to redeem the coupon and a QR code to scan. Want to be sure it works offline? Just take a screenshot.
Felix collaborates with ClearOn, Sweden’s leading provider of coupon solutions, whose excellent API we’ve integrated. ClearOn handles coupon redemption in stores and provides us with all the data we need to display members’ active coupons, with codes, expiration dates, and more.
To effectively reach members, a marketing automation system was needed. We chose the open-source solution Mautic. That way, Felix avoids recurring licensing costs while gaining a highly flexible platform that allows them to create endless automated marketing flows and segmentation.
Think Tactically, Build Strategically
Thanks to our years of experience with MACH architecture, connecting Mautic, ClearOn, WordPress, and Amazon Simple Email Service was seamless. Best of all, Felix now owns the engine behind the loyalty club. Want to expand with new rewards or features? Go for it. Want Orkla (which owns Felix) to create similar clubs for other brands? Much of the code can be reused, and the parts that need brand customization can easily be adapted.
The complex stuff – like sending large volumes of emails or handling coupon redemptions – we leave to third-party services. Instead of reinventing the wheel (in this case, marketing automation), we use a license-free solution. This way, Felix gets the best-of-breed approach while reducing fixed costs and maintaining ownership of the core system – all at once. That’s the kind of result you get from working with an experienced digital agency. Which we are.