BIDMATTERS Quarterly newsletter 2 I June 2015
Ross Feeney, Chief Executive, ross.feeney@successfulsutton.co.uk
Introduction
Welcome to our latest BID newsletter. Exciting changes in the town centre have been underway since the last newsletter particularly a number of high profile projects that will transform Sutton High Street. With that in mind, we have launched our Develop Sutton campaign with a dedicated website to promote our town on a national level. It’s a portal for information on the developments shaping our town’s future and supports the work already undertaken by Opportunity Sutton, it’s a portal for information on the developments shaping our town’s future and supports the work already undertaken by Opportunity Sutton, and will also act as a catalyst for continued economic growth. That’s all the more important given that our data shows that year on year footfall is up by 3.2%. To encourage shoppers to continue to visit the high street we have teamed up with Swipii to launch a new customer loyalty card, targeted towards our independent traders but not exclusively. We are also arranging a number of fantastic events over the summer, including the return of the popular Sunset Cinema, Sutton’s Country Music Festival and the installation of a 9-hole crazy golf course. It follows the success of our St George’s Day food fair which brought thousands of people to the high street. The event also marked the culmination of Sutton’s Best Breakfast competition. More than 2,000 votes were cast by the public, with the family-run Peckish Cafe the worthy winners. Finally, our weekly historic tours pay tribute to the town’s rich heritage and were recently honoured with a Sutton Cultural Award. We are here to deliver improvements to the town centre that benefit you and your business. If you have any suggestions on ways to enhance our services or improvements you would like to see made to the high street please contact us.
Turn to page 7 to read our Develop Sutton feature
Defining Customer Loyalty Working in partnership with Swipii, we are launching an innovative rewards card for the town’s independent traders. The rewards system is designed to drive footfall and enable retailers to build high-quality customer email databases, allowing highly personalised deal campaigns. Customers simply collect points from high street businesses using one card, fob or app. With every visit they can earn bespoke loyalty rewards, anything from a free coffee to a free haircut or meal, which can either be accrued or redeemed for an exclusive offer. An initial 28 retailers have signed up for the Sutton scheme, including TaZza coffee shop, The Projekt men’s store, Warrenders jewellers and retailers in the Street Food hall at the St Nicholas Centre. We have 20,000 cards ready to distribute with more coming as the scheme rolls out over the summer. The scheme is fully funded by Successful Sutton for the first 12 months and is exclusively for levy payers. Ross Feeney, chief executive, said: “We are thrilled to be bringing Swipii to Sutton. The loyalty card is a fantastic way for people to support our independent traders and for businesses to reward people for their custom. “We hope to expand the scheme over the summer and see customers and businesses alike reap the rewards. “This is probably the first loyalty scheme that I have come across which allows us to track customers activity and also look
at the data and decide what we want to do with it, like see which customers have fallen away and maybe see how we can get them back in with a deal, and also reward very, very loyal customers.”
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This is probably the first loyalty scheme that I have come across which allows us to track customer activity. For example, we can see which customers visit less frequently, in turn, we can decide how to get these customers to start visiting again through promotions. More importantly, we can identify and reward our extra loyal customers.
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