The Role of Mobile Apps in Driving Engagement in UK Towns and high street businesses
Introduction
Towns and cities are increasingly leveraging digital solutions to boost economic growth, enhance community engagement, and support local businesses.
This case study explores how various UK towns have successfully implemented mobile technology to increase footfall, extend visitor dwell time, foster loyalty, increase consumer spend, and enhance the places' prestige. Different towns have implemented different apps to support local businesses who independently would not be able to afford a similar solution themselves. The goal is typically to create a digital community loyal to the place. Here we focus on three solutions; loyalty schemes, trails and deals.
Examples on the Vicinity platform include:
Loyalty programmes and personalised offers for returning visitors
Digital loyalty schemes are great ways for businesses to reward and retain loyal customers. Instead of stamping a card, users scan a QR code in store to collect a stamp. If users collect enough stamps, they gain rewards and businesses build a customer base they can re-engage with personalised offers.
A ‘place app’ that can host multiple loyalty schemes across a town and create a great experience for users and businesses alike.
Here are some great examples of businesses and places benefitting from digital loyalty schemes:
Bom Bom Patisserie
Loughborough
Over 2400 customers have claimed a loyalty stamp at Bom Bom Patisserie in Loughborough. Bom Bom utilises the Vicinity platform to create a phenomenal loyalty scheme backed up by personalised offers. This approach resulted in a significant increase in customer retention and spending. The digital loyalty program allowed customers to collect points and redeem rewards, fostering repeat visits and enhancing consumer loyalty. At the time of writing, the most loyal customer has collected over 1,600 hot drinks.
When Bom Bom sent out a personalised offer to their loyal members they got over 50% more transactions on the day of the offer, over 30% more revenue with 91% of users surveyed saying the personalised offer makes them more likely to revisit a business.
Leicester Coffee House Company
Leicester
In Leicester, the Leicester Coffee House Company highlights the effectiveness of digital loyalty programs in improving the speed of their customer service and promoting one of their key values of sustainability. By introducing a digital stamp system through the loyalFree app, and offering rewards for frequent visits this one business has accumulated over 577 customers as part of their loyalty scheme.
W.J. French & Son
Southampton
W.J. French and Son, the oldest and largest independent shoe shop in Southampton; a family business trading since 1803 and now in the 8th generation of their family. This is a business that knows the value of loyalty and has kept relevant by evolving with the times and embracing new technology. Now with over 3,800 people on their loyalty scheme, they have one of the most successful loyalty programs in the country.
Gail Brown, Leicester Coffee House Company
"It has allowed customers to go digital and paperless and saves time stamping. A great way of marketing your business."
Trails for wayfinding and engaging experiences
Trails are fabulous ways of drawing people into town. Use trails to highlight groups of businesses like ‘Cocktail trails’, ‘Dog Friendly Cafes’, ‘Art galleries’ and ‘Heritage’ trails. Or create amazing experiences for families with treasure hunts, physical installations, anagrams and prizes. Using a digital solution for running your trails means you can capture participant information more easily, and build a community that you can attract back for future events and trails.
Here are some fabulous examples of places benefitting from trails:
Monster Trail
Leicester
The Leicester Monster Trail showcases how trails can bring thousands of people into a place and revitalise urban spaces. The app guided users through various locations featuring monster sculptures, integrating augmented reality elements for an immersive experience. This trail attracted a diverse audience of nearly 2000 groups, increasing footfall in the town over the period the trail took place, and extended the duration of visits, benefiting local businesses.
Leicester have been particularly effective at using the LoyalFree app to support their events like Light Up Leicester, Leicester Comedy Festival. All accompanied by specific trails and deals to support the event.
Dino trails
17 locations across the UK
The LoyalFree Dino Trail took place across 17 towns in the summer of 2012. Over 1200 groups of people took part spending on average £35 per group and generating over £40,000 for the local economies. This exemplifies how interactive trails can drive footfall and engagement. The trail featured dinosaur-themed points of interest throughout the town, encouraging families and tourists to explore local attractions and businesses. This initiative not only increased the time visitors spent in the town but also boosted local business revenues.
Scotland Loves Local Trails
Scotland
Taking place in the summer of 2024, Alloa, Kirkintilloch and Linlithgow will be hosting trails on the LoyalFree app to highlight local businesses in celebration of Scotland Loves Local week.
Do you have an idea for a town trail that you’d like to test? Do you have paper-based town trails that you’d like to see come to life digitally? Whether it be ‘coffee and cake’, ‘brew with a view’ or ‘indie trails’?
To find out more, contact Scotland’s Town Partnership
App user review.
"Useful and easy to use. This app enables me to support my business community whilst being rewarded with a variety of discounts, offers and loyalty schemes"
Exclusive deals for loyal residents, visitors and local workers
Everyone loves a deal. Discounts and offers have been used strategically by retail and hospitality businesses since the dawn of retail and hospitality. The best businesses use deals strategically to certain groups or at certain times to benefit their business. Deals delivered through a digital solution allow places and businesses to advertise to a wider audience, track engagement and ultimately retarget visitors to increase frequency of visit and spend.
Here are some fabulous examples of places focusing their apps on deals:
Exclusive deals on the LHQ app
London Heritage Quarter
The LHQ Hub, encompassing four areas of London, digitized its existing privilege card scheme to offer exclusive deals and discounts to those who live, work, and study in the area. This digital transition resulted in LHQ advertising over 300 offers from local businesses, gaining over 800 users on the first day, and demonstrating the effectiveness of digital solutions in enhancing engagement and loyalty.
Love Leam
Royal Leamington Spa
BID Leamington’s vision was an app offering a range of functionalities including loyalty schemes, exclusive deals, event listings, competitions and a local guide. The app needed to to be locally branded, encouraging exploration of Leamington’s ‘hidden treasures’, while amplifying businesses and providing a platform to engage with their customers.
Stephanie Kerr, BID Leamington
"The goal is to grow a digital community that is loyal to its town and its businesses, that we can positively engage and reward in different ways."
The future of town engagement
Through integration with Vicinity Place Management Platform, these places will benefit from more digital tools to help engage businesses and visitors alike.
Closer integration with CRMs making it easier to deliver and capture value
Push notifications to draw visitors back to places and businesses
Geo-fencing to engage more users as they move about the place
Email integration to keep in touch with businesses in the town more easily
Member events to support towns to engage their businesses and deliver more value
To find out more, speak with us.
Results
The implementation of these mobile solutions is yielding significant positive outcomes across the towns:
Increased Footfall: Interactive trails and engaging events attracted both locals and tourists.
Extended Dwell Time: Users spent more time exploring the towns, benefiting from the trails and loyalty programs.
Enhanced Loyalty: Digital loyalty schemes fostered repeat visits and strong customer loyalty.
Higher Consumer Spend: Personalised offers and exclusive deals encourage increased spending.
Improved Prestige: Innovative digital solutions positioned these towns as forward-thinking and attractive destinations.
Conclusion
These successful examples and case studies demonstrate the powerful impact of digital solutions and mobile apps in our towns and cities. By integrating elements such as interactive trails, digital loyalty schemes, personalised offers, and advanced data capture, these towns are supporting physical local businesses by merging in the digital world. These examples serve as models for other towns and cities aiming to harness the potential of digital innovation for economic and social growth.