Press Release: Making Loyalty Programs Affordable to Local Merchants

Newark, DE
1/10/2005

Those who currently work in the restaurant, retail, entertainment and leisure industry recognize that maintaining loyal customers is vital to a successful business. Because competition is fierce, it is a challenge to keep customers coming back to your establishment on a consistent basis. You've heard of customer loyalty programs, but these programs are expensive to implement, right? Wrong. Loyalty programs are now affordable to every business owner.

Smart Button offers an affordable loyalty solution to small businesses that don't have millions of dollars to invest in a customer loyalty and rewards solution.

Stanley's Tavern recently implemented the company's customer loyalty solution, LoyaltyTrak, to support the restaurant's customer loyalty program efforts.

Established in 1935, Stanley's Tavern is a 300 seat casual theme restaurant that offers a complete menu from steaks to pizza. As a neighborhood restaurant, Stanley's Tavern has a lot of regulars that have been rewarded for their loyalty since August of 1997. With 4,000 active members already, Stanley's Tavern customer loyalty program has given away a total of over $200,000 in earned rewards. Last year alone, Stanley's rewarded their loyal customers $36,000 in earned rewards. In addition, they've sent six couples to the Caribbean and three couples to the Super Bowl.

With LoyaltyTrak, Smart Button will be able to provide Stanley's Tavern with a complete database containing extensive customer information. This will allow Stanley's Tavern to easily reward customers for visiting the restaurant at certain times during the day or days of the week, compose a birthday club and even give rewards for every time a customer visits their Web site. Targeted promotions will help increase attendance, drive customer participation in the loyalty program and find the most profitable customers.

According to Steve Torpey, the owner of Stanley's Tavern, taking the time to develop an effective customer loyalty program is essential for all businesses. “If it works for me, it could work for anyone,” says Torpey.

LoyaltyTrak is a flexible customer loyalty solution that provides you with the ability to build a customer database. With this database, you will be able to create loyal customers, retain existing customers and bring back lapsed customers. Finally, a loyalty program within reach.

• No Long Term Contracts – Pricing is based on the number of customers in your database and is billed on a quarterly basis
• Affordability and Convenience – All you need is your own PC and a high-speed Internet connection
• Promotions Simplified – Implement Instant Winner Promotions, Coupon Promotions, On-going Promotions and Threshold Promotions in minutes
• Customer ID Flexibility – LoyaltyTrak allows customers to pick their own card (Driver's License, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc.) and use it as their loyalty program card number/identifier
• Analysis and Reports – Calculate the value of individual customers, customer groups and promotions
• Grouping and Segmentation – Group and segment your customers according to transaction-based behavior, demographic based segmentation and survey responses from customers
• Track Spending, Visits and Attendance – LoyaltyTrak keeps track of each customer's interaction with your program, allows you to place a value on each transaction and then calculate your profit
• Communication and Customer Interactions – Communicate with your loyalty program members through the built-in customer Portal and email templates

On a larger scale, the Riverfront Wilmington has implement their own loyalty and rewards program using LoyaltyTrak. Smart Button will be able to provide “Riverfront Wilmington” with a complete database containing extensive customer information. This will allow “Riverfront Wilmington” to build strong relationships with their customers and encourage repeat visits through the Riverfront Wilmington Rewards Program.

The program is designed to identify customers that are frequent patrons of the Riverfront Wilmington community, establish a means with which to communicate with them directly, and offer them a chance to earn points and rewards at numerous participating attractions.

Members of the Riverfront Wilmington Rewards Program are entitled to “Members Only Discounts” by simply showing their card to any participating merchants or scanning it at a kiosk. Members will receive discounts at the Blair Catalog Outlet, LL Bean, L'eggs/Hanes/Bali/Playtex Factory Outlet and Iron Hill Brewery.

Customers can also acquire points by simply visiting a participant merchant location, visiting the riverfrontrewards.com Portal or answering survey questions. Once members accumulate points, they will receive rewards such as gift certificates from Molly's, US Factory Outlets and P & S Ravioli, as well as free food from Tokyo Sushi, Timothy's and Jeenwong.

In order to sign up for the free program, customers may enroll online at www.riverfrontrewards.com or visit a participating merchant and fill out an application.

About Smart Button
Smart Button Associates is a leader in the development of affordable loyalty marketing systems for the sports, entertainment, leisure and retail industries. The company is recognized as an innovator in providing high-impact, quality loyalty marketing software solutions that enable customers to target their own customers, offer value, deliver rewards and ultimately increase loyalty. Smart Button builds comprehensive marketing-driven loyalty and rewards software solutions that produce measurable results and improve business performance. With its origination in the horseracing industry, the company has already proven its effectiveness and positioned itself as a leading provider of comprehensive software solutions with their products. Smart Button's loyalty marketing software is currently utilized in over 500 facilities throughout the United States and Canada including over 60% of the North American pari-mutuel venues, several Las Vegas casinos, George Mason University and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Over 2.5 million patrons are enrolled in Smart Button's database. Smart Button Associates is headquartered in Newark, Delaware.