Loyalty goes Walkabout

Australian theme pub chain Walkabout has extended its Boomerang loyalty programme to include social media and mobile channels.

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The brand, which is part of the iNtertain group, has been signing up over 2,000 people a week since launching the community site in October.

James Mawer, commercial manager of iNTERTAIN, says: “Creating a socially enabled site and combining it with a loyalty program is the first part of our digital strategy. This is proving to be a very powerful channel for customer engagement. As we develop our strategy we need to be able to use social media to talk to our customers, not only through our own website, but also through other social media properties.”

Customers access the site having joined the Boomerang loyalty scheme at a cost of £3. This provides a card for points collection, redeemable against a range of rewards, including VIP birthday packages or 3D television viewing. Registration is via online or SMS, leading to ongoing email communications.

Members of the scheme can then participate in the online community, accessing sports and events content, creating their own profile and uploading images and blogs. The new site is integrated with Facebook Connect which allows content published on the Walkabout site to be share on their Facebook wall. Walkabout plans to use the information from the programme to gain customer insight and tailor its offers and rewards to the audience.