Pour on the Points

Here's a best practice beautifully communicated via the Foodservice Rewards newsletter: Copy links directly to Nestle's Pour on the Points sauces, bases & gravies promotion. Remember, you can communicate your promotions and assign points by operator segment and ownership type - and only invest in select audiences with the highest ROI. Give it a try today.

Welcome Bonus

Here's the newly designed welcome e-mail operators receive when they join Foodservice Rewards. We're having great success with the refer-a-friend feature (it's a tight-knit community, after all.)

Now, get operator data faster by participating in the welcome bonus version of the e-mail. Collect comprehensive operator information before a customer submits their first reward code from your product by offering a welcome bonus. It endears you to a prospect and also populates your direct mail and e-mail databases for independent marketing efforts. Remember, you can offer this bonus on a segment-by-segment because "all customers are not created equal."

Morning Cup

A big thank you to Kathy Heubner of Michael Foods (the largest global supplier of processed eggs and a leading manufacturer of refrigerated potatoes) for introducing us to the Morning Cup, a wacky, but informative food trends newsletter.

Fishking acquires King & Prince

Congratulations to Fishking Processors (Mrs. Friday's)! Learned during an account review today of their acquisition of King & Prince Seafood - which significantly expands their foodservice presence in chain accounts, improves their geographic coverage, and broadens their shrimp offerings.

Longest-running loyalty program

MasterFoodServices has the longest running loyalty program in the industry. Company lore has it that the program was started just after WWII and the original (and only) rewards were ladies hosiery and men's white Arrow shirts. Today the Uncle Ben's Premium Points Program continues to involve thousands of loyal operators who mail in tokens clipped from from their individual rice packets.

If you are an FSR sponsor and know Tim Farno or Rodney Naylor personally, please bend their ears about the benefits of a coalition approach next time you see them. After analyzing 10 million cases claimed across 60 brands, you are familiar with a key benefit of joining Foodservice Rewards: Participating brands acquire twice as many new operators from the pool of enrolled members as they add each month, something that can't be achieved with a solo program.

Bobby Q's: Operator testimonial

"I love foodservice rewards" says owner Bob Lerose of Bobby Q's in Westport, CT. "Right now I'm earning from Golden Dipt, Gold Medal Flour and Bunge Elite. The program helps me get rewards like the iPod Shuffle to recognize staff who are doing an outstanding job and keep them from jumping ship to my competitors. Every day someone is trying to steal my waitstaff and my payroll is high enough as it is. It's funny how a one time gift of an electronic gadget can be more effective than a raise - which they seem to forget about the day after it is received."

Better Marketing Training For Independents

Tip 'o the hat to Steve Turner at Pepsi for pointing out the super article "Small but mighty: Independents could use more marketing training" in the July 4th issue of NRN (sorry can't find an online link) highlighting Restaurant Marketing.com and their book The Last Restaurant Sales-Building Manual You Will Ever Need!. Perhaps we ought to consider offering the manual to any independent who enters his hundredth code as part of our touch point strategy. Or as a free premium when you sign up - might be more effective/less costly than bonus points.

We all need to find a way to help independent restaurants get more customers. Adding service providers like Fishbowl is one step, as is the new FAQ's: How to use your Foodservice Rewards in customer traffic building raffles.

Mission Statement

How great is the "We have absolute clarity about what we do" part of Pepsi Bottling Group's mission statement? It removes anxiety for everyone - that's leadership. (More great leadership lessons in Marcus Buckingham's book The One Thing You Need To Know.)

Darling prospects

Interesting meeting today in Dallas with Darling International, "the leading provider of rendering, recycling, and recovery solutions to the nation's food industry." Grease removal. They sell their services directly to 90,000 foodservice operators - potentially creating enrollment opportunities via invoice stuffers, salesperson-delivered brochures, bonus codes & the like. When a service provider sponsors Foodservice Rewards, the cross-sell/up-sell message appears in the points deposit confirmation e-mail.

I was a New Orleans virgin until NACUFS

The National College and University Foodservice show was held this week in New Orleans. Insights: Purdue University is sitting on 10,000 codes. The Foodservice Director didn' t know he could mail-in or get a scanner. I wonder how many other Group Feeders have the same issue? Perhaps it's time to send this segment post-paid collection envelopes. That, and create a 20 or 30 code-at-a-time entry screen.

We also have to work the Sponsors' trade show contacts harder to get signage up at shows. The new freestanding signs will be a big help. The Value Plus sponsors had excellent execution and a booth that drew traffic and were signing up operators.

UK FSR launch, see press coverage

The UK launch of FSR was, as they say across the pond, "smashing" - see coverage at The Publican, the UK's equivalent of Nation's Restaurant News. Note also the clever virtual press kit created by BI's UK office at www.foodservicerewards.info. Use the login: demo and the password: demo to access all of the site's features.