Saladworks, the fast-casual create-your-own salad franchise and part of the WOWorks family of brands, launched their Punchh customized Saladworks Rewards program in June of 2016. In its over 140 locations nationwide, Saladworks’ strong brand philosophy to create “WOW!” moments for its guests stems from an enterprise-wide commitment to treating customers as “guests” across every brand interaction and touchpoint. Indeed the Saladworks mission is linked to its BE Original brand positioning – seeking to fuel the originality of its Team Members, Guests, Business Partners and Communities – helping everyone live their best life.
The Punchh Platform powers Saladworks’ holistic, data-driven approach to balancing both ‘Hi-Tech’ (mass customization) and ‘Hi-Touch’ (personalization) techniques designed to foster more genuine, relevant and engaging relationships with their guests. Given the increasingly challenging foodservice environment, Mark Mears, CMO of WOWorks, operates from the foundation that – to rise above a “sea of sameness” — their brand needs to provide value in ways that are relevant, compelling, motivating and share-worthy to inspire guests to fuel their passions and live their best lives.
Creating Meaningful & Memorable Omnichannel Engagement Touchpoints
The Saladworks Rewards guest engagement program is one way they are going beyond merely selling products and services and moving toward enhancing the quality of their guests’ lives. According to Mears, the goal is to build lasting, loving and mutually profitable guest relationships.
With Punchh, Saladworks has the capabilities to deepen engagement with not only their guests, but also with the larger community they serve through innovative program messaging and experiences. Saladworks’ recently launched a “Flavor Your World” campaign that puts into action their brand philosophy and highlights their integrated marketing and loyalty perspective.
The brand created a ‘Flavor Passport’ promotion for their Saladworks Rewards members to drive awareness and reward trial of their new globally inspired “Flavor Your World” menu items. Members also received emails and SMS messages with an exclusive perk for an experiential component to the campaign. They had the opportunity to demonstrate their originality by creating the next “Flavor Your World” menu item with chance to win a $5,000 travel voucher to travel anywhere in the world, a cool Saladworks swag bag and have their recipe featured as LTO menu items this fall in the form of a salad, warm grain bowl or wrap. From over 1,000 entries, “Amy’s Fall Fest” was selected by both fellow Saladworks Rewards members and a Blue-Ribbon panel of celebrity judges as the winning recipe.
In addition to the prizes, Amy’s recipe will be a key component in Saladworks’ fundraising efforts with purchases resulting in $0.35 being donated to No Kid Hungry, part of the WOWorks High Five Challenge, running in commemoration of Saladworks’ 35th Birthday. As an exclusive member benefit, Saladworks Rewards members will have an opportunity to be the very first to try the “Amy’s Fall Fest” menu items on a special Preview Day held in restaurants the day before its systemwide launch.
All of these Saladworks Rewards initiatives were amplified via an integrated marketing communication campaign featuring Publicity, E-Mail, SMS text, Social Media and In-Restaurant P.O.P. as well as internal corporate and franchisee communications.
Growing Guest Engagement & Optimizing Results
Saladworks’ integrated marketing strategy is fueled by data insights that help them better understand their guests and target members differently within their guest engagement program. Through acquisition outreach, surveys and AI-generated campaigns, Saladworks provides a higher level of personalization and continues to learn about and from their guests’ motivations.
Attention to delivering “WOW!” guest experiences is delivering “WOW!” results for Saladworks and their franchisees. Loyalty sales grew 84% YoY, referrals grew 106% QoQ, and loyalty retention rates grew to 47% in Q2 2021. Additionally, Saladworks’ integrated approach to online ordering with Punchh connecting to their Qu ordering system, helps them maintain a consistent, branded experience that has grown digital orders to 30% in 2021 from 12% last year.
“To bring the Saladworks BE Original brand positioning to life, Punchh helps us celebrate the ‘originality’ of our guests,” said Mark Mears, CMO of WOWorks. “Through the optimization of our Saladworks guest engagement program and data mining efforts, we can deliver personalized “WOW!” moments for our guests that foster valuable engagement and brand advocacy as we continue growing in traditional and non-traditional business channels.”
*Results Q2 2021