Huzzah's SMB Success Formula: Mobile + Loyalty

SMBs are increasingly aware of two themes – often related – that are core to their future business growth: 1) consumers expect to discover and interact with them on mobile platforms; 2) existing customers directly impact profitability; retaining and delighting them must be given higher priority.

Huzzah, the digital arm of User-Friendly Media, is building a platform to solve both problems concurrently, and at a manageable price point. The company’s focus on mobile and loyalty is underscored by its recent study revealing that fewer than 20 percent of SMBs have a mobile app, and even fewer – 17 percent – deploy a loyalty program.

Its SMB suite starts with supplying a mobile app, surrounded by impression-based media campaigns that drive app installs and post-click activities, or secondary actions (click-to-call and click-to-schedule-appointment, for example).

Why a mobile app rather than an optimized or responsive mobile website/landing page? Huzzah VP of Product Development Lance Brown says it’s not a case of either/or; SMBs should optimize their mobile presence in all environments. But building apps for SMBs allows them to “do many of the things that big brands do.”

A digital loyalty platform is a distinct, but related, part of the Huzzah solution. It’s a “networked” loyalty model , with a consumer-facing app that aggregates participating merchants (though rewards are not transferable across distinct merchants).

Each SMB is outfitted with an “out of the box solution,” according to Brown, that includes an iPad storefront, loyalty cards, digital coaching and unlimited rewards (Huzzah uses “coins” as its rewards currency). Currently check-ins are the predominant activity that SMBs can reward, though VP of Marketing Greg Garrick notes that much more flexibility is on the horizon. “We’re building a system to offer as many types of rewards as you can think of.”

Huzzah is currently offering a promotion – a $1 trial for six months – to build a critical mass on merchants on its loyalty platform, which strengthens the consumer-facing product while enabling the company to upsell/cross-sell SMBs into its additional marketing products.