Louise Leclair, VP of Operations for Student Price Card (SPC), Canada’s most popular student discount and loyalty program, told Loyalty360 that partnering with Loyalty Engine will raise the level of SPC’s visibility in the market place.
“We really saw value in the work that Loyalty Engine had already done in this space and we were looking for a partner who would assist us in enhancing our offerings to both our student members and retail partners,” Leclair said. “The team Loyalty Engine has in place is top notch and they really understand the vision we have in place for our loyalty program.”
The partnership will provide SPC with more robust customer insights allowing for greater customization and customer engagement. The new customer data will deepen capabilities–students will be catered to an intuitive nature with preference-based, targeted offers. With student shopper desire for customization and instant recognition, these profound changes will bring SPC and its retail partners to the forefront of student engagement in-store and online.
“More than adding new metrics, we are more focused on improving the metrics that are already in place–increasing customer loyalty and value, driving net-new customer acquisition and retail sales in general,” Leclair explained. “SPC is always looking to improve the value offering to our members–we are looking to use the data to deliver more relevant, curated, and timely offers to our customers. We want to drive additional business to our retail partners by engaging our members in a deeper and more targeted fashion.”
SPC Card is Canada’s most popular student discount card providing students with deals at thousands of retail and restaurant locations across Canada. Students can use their SPC Card at over 120 national retail chains, restaurants, and local retailers coast-to-coast.
Sol Zia, President of Loyalty Engine, told Loyalty360 that SPC’s main focus is on discounts and SPC’s goal is to migrate to a full-fledged loyalty program. SPC is available to high school, university, and college students.
“What we’re providing is a CRM platform and a loyalty platform,” Zia said. “The vast majority of consumers is anonymous so SPC wanted to build a broader CRM platform and have the capability to offer rewards. They want to move members from cardholders to members of SPC.”
Because of the high level of anonymity, there is a dearth of customer data for the program, Zia explained.
“That’s where we come in with aggressive marketing, segmenting and tiering customers, and calibrating those offers,” he said. “Currently, there are no tiers in the program. We’ll provide them with the data to segment and, potentially, tier in the future.”
Zia said the primary objective for the SPC program is retention. With 5 million students in Canada, the goal is to have them in the program for eight years. They pay a $10 annual fee to be a member of the program. We will be more aggressive in explaining the benefits of the program. They focus most of their efforts in September and October. They don’t have direct mail and have some email marketing.”
Only 20% has opted in from email marketing efforts, from a pool of 1.1 million members.
“The goal is to provide a breadth of rewards for members,” Zia said. “They work with about 150 retailers. We are also working on a mobile application for them.”