New Zealand Marketing

JOINING THE CREW

Creating a nationwide team has been key in unlocking Fly Buys’ most important resource: its brand partners’ staff on the frontlines.

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The Challenge

Before launching business-to-business loyalty programme, Fly Buys Crew, in late 2016, Fly Buys was finding it increasing­ly difficult to find relevancy with the people it needed the most. Its partner brands’ employees are the ones tasked with communicat­ing Fly Buys key messaging with customers, yet this incredibly diverse group have little in common. Fly Buys had to find a way to connect the dots. Fly Buys Crew is a loyalty programme available to employees of Fly Buys partners that offers this key demographi­c the VIP treatment. It recognises that the frontline staff of Fly Buys coalition partners are vital to its success, as the Crew need to both understand Fly Buys and advocate for it at the point-of-sale. Staff of partner brands can join Fly Buys Crew to receive extra deals and points for completing quizzes, as well as the opportunit­y to win prizes with a “thank you for being part of the Fly Buys Crew” message.

The Response

The Fly Buys Crew Quiz was launched last year, and was designed to engage with and continue to educate the Crew about the Fly Buys programme. More than 30 percent of the Crew took part and Fly Buys received record high engagement from those involved with an average play of six minutes. Fly Buys used the results from the Crew Quiz alongside results from extensive focus groups and conference workshops to identify areas of the programme the frontline staff didn’t understand. Then they used the results to transform the Crew members’ behaviour in a way that enabled or encouraged more customers to spend more, more often with a Fly Buys card in store. The look and feel of every Crew communicat­ion is in line with the Fly Buys brand and marketing strategy. The Fly Buys tagline, “We love to give”, has its own Crew specific version, “We love to give you more for being part of the Crew”. Data insights from mid-2017 showed that using extra generosity toward these staff members turned into positive change, notably in Crew members’ own spending behaviour. But Fly Buys Crew’s strategic goal is to create a positive change in their customers’ spending behaviour and the holy grail was to prove that increased engagement of frontline staff in Fly Buys Crew ultimately led to more spend by customers in store.

The Result

Fly Buys Crew not only touches every single part of Loyalty NZ, but also requires buy-in, legal approval and marketing support from the 25 Crew partners, taking up a significan­t amount of time for the two-strong Fly Buys Crew team. However, Crew would simply not succeed without the buy-in from all the involved parties, so shareholde­r engagement has always been the priority. For Fly Buys, the best asset can be good results that can be taken to clients to start a conversati­on about a new campaign. Proven success in the 2017 launch encouraged clients to get more involved, and allowed more communicat­ion from Fly Buys to staff. Fly Buys says their clients have also appreciate­d the tailoring of every presentati­on or communicat­ion to their brand. Now that a relationsh­ip with this key audience has been establishe­d, the new focus has been developing the campaign to use the Crew channel to educate frontline staff about Fly Buys. This includes busting commonly held myths, and compelling staff to use that informatio­n in their daily work life with customers. The Fly Buys Crew education campaign proved once and for all that genuine understand­ing and love for the Fly Buys programme by frontline staff has a positive relationsh­ip with customer behaviour and spend in store.

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