Ido Gaver, co-founder and CEO of LoyalBlocks, a loyalty marketing solution for small businesses, told Loyalty 360 that from a best practices standpoint there is a significant difference in targeting local businesses compared to larger scale companies.
“While larger scale companies see loyalty as an additional layer of their marketing strategy, small businesses have almost no options when it comes to marketing their business,’ Gaver said. “The only place where they can make a significant impact is their physical location. LoyalBlocks aims to provide an additional channel for store owners to market their business, based on the most popular medium to date – the smartphone.”
Gaver said LoyalBlocks, which this week announced a $9 million Series A investment from General Catalyst Partners with participation from Founder Collective and existing investor Gemini Israel Ventures, said client feedback has been phenomenal regarding impacts on customer engagement/loyalty.
Gaver said the key to the LoyalBlocks small business loyalty solution is it enables automatic interaction – known as an “automated zone” -- with customers via mobile phones as soon as they enter the store through offers and promotions. She said client feedback has been phenomenal.
“The first reaction is a wow effect from the automatic zone,” she said. “After that we usually get tons of feedback on the amount of social activity and outreach we create for business (without them doing anything other than promoting their new app) and then as their loyalty club grows, the fact that we bring in new clientele becomes the focus.”
The impact on small business sales is impressive, Gaver said, “whether it’s promoting a new menu item or upselling, but equally important is the amount of engagement that our customers see with their shoppers. This is a crucial point for us - encouraging and cultivating a dynamic communication between local businesses and their customers.”
Gaver said small businesses using the LoyalBlocks solution benefit from enhanced customer engagement and loyalty.
“Once a shopper joins a LoyalBlocks loyalty club, the app is triggered automatically whenever a customer walks into a business,” Gaver said. “We become the mobile extension of the shop, and we do it at the right time and at the right place. This functionality sky-rockets the level of engagement that merchants see from their customers, vastly increasing the effectiveness of their loyalty program.”
Gaver said customer loyalty is a highly effective springboard for further interaction between merchants and their customers.
“Our presence detection technology makes it easy to get people's attention as they walk in a store,” she said. “We currently allow merchants to use that unique walk-in moment in order to provide rewards and incentives and communicate their messages. The next natural step is to enhance that experience, enable single-tap payments, and tie loyalty-based interactions with the POS system.”