Just four years after launching its first loyalty program, The Fresh Market is taking an updated approach by rolling out a revamped program alongside the launch of its first native app.
What was once called the Ultimate Loyalty Experience has gotten a new name: TFM Rewards — a name that Chief Marketing Officer Emily Turner told Grocery Dive is more brand-focused and easier to say. The program now sports more perks for its members, providing more variety to both customers who want to save more money and those who are more into product discovery, Turner said.
With the refresh, The Fresh Market saw an opportunity to extend its in-store guest hospitality to its digital touch points.
“[The loyalty program] is a really important part for us in terms of how we engage with our guests … providing that value and that reason to shop with us, but then also helping them through personalization and relevancy [that] really deliver that tailored experience that they’re looking for,” Turner said.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
GROCERY DIVE: The Fresh Market has a reputation for selling specialty offerings. What does value look like for your chain?
EMILY TURNER: When we think about what we offer to our guests, it’s all around taste and quality, and obviously freshness. And the way that we think about freshness is not just the freshness of our produce, but helping our guest to discover new recipes [and] new things that they haven’t tried before.
In terms of value, specifically, it’s less about trying to offer the best deals — although we do have some really great deals — but it’s also about making sure that we are giving them a great value for the quality that we offer. Our quality is so important to us. Our merchandising team does a fantastic job of sourcing amazing quality products for us, and so it’s making sure that we’re providing our guests with that value and then the opportunity to experience these products.
What was the impetus for changing the name of the loyalty program?
The previous name served us really well, but we also recognize it’s a little bit of a mouthful. We thought [the name change] was a great opportunity to bring our brand more to the foreground by using “TFM” within the name. It’s something that is a lot easier for our guests to recognize and it’s a lot easier for our team members to talk about.
How did you decide which member benefits to expand versus which to keep the same?
We looked at our internal data, but we also spoke to our guests. We did surveys with a lot of our different guests to understand what they liked about the current program and where they were seeing opportunities for us to either enrich something that we already had or bring something to the table for the first time that we weren’t currently doing. We took all of that feedback and then looked again at the breadth of the proposition to make sure we had a good balance between things that were predictable, like the member-only offers, and things where we’re celebrating our guests, like through the birthday rewards.
Can you talk more about the loyalty program revamp and app development?
When we were looking at the loyalty program, not only did we want to really strengthen our value proposition and think about more ways that we can evolve the program to really deliver against our guests’ needs and expectations, we also wanted to make sure that it was really easy for a guest to engage in that program. That was where we thought about, “Where does the app and the digital experience sit in this?” and we believe it’s at the center.
We want to make it really easy for our guests to engage with us, and so we started down the path to look at evolving our app. [With the new app], we brought the loyalty experience really to the foreground, whereas before it was a little bit hidden. Now it’s front and center in the app. It’s really easy for a guest to be able to see what Clubs are available, check on their Club progress, see what member offers [there are] as well as discover our new products, watch our reels and see what’s seasonal.
I saw there are also more member-only in-store events. What do those entail?
We’re really excited to do that because we want to have some kind of financial benefit [from] the program. I think that’s really expected of all loyalty programs. Right now, these member events are centered around sampling and we then offer our loyalty members 10% off all of the sample products. So it’s a great way for shoppers to potentially try a new favorite.
What do those events look like in terms of exclusivity?
We’re always very inclusive at The Fresh Market. So while we did design these events with our loyalty guests in mind, of course, anyone is welcome to sample the new items. Our team members are well trained and equipped to help a guest sign up if they want to join the loyalty program in the moment and take advantage of that 10% off the sampled items. It’s a great opportunity to sign up new guests.
Was there anything that surprised you when making changes to the loyalty program?
I was really pleasantly surprised by how favorably our guests looked at our loyalty program. They really value the member offers, and they also like the free slice of birthday cake — that’s been an incredibly popular item since the beginning of our loyalty program. We felt that we had a really good foundation. It was nothing that we needed to dramatically change, but we did have the opportunity just to add a little bit more value.
For example, with the birthday reward, we’ve expanded that so it’s not just a specific slice of cake, it’s the option to get $5 off bakery or floral as well. It’s really trying to give guests more choice.
Can you talk about specific features or placement within the app to make TFM Rewards more prominent to shoppers?
When you launch the app, [the loyalty program is] right there at the bottom of the navigation page. There’s also navigation at the bottom of the app where you can view all of the member-only offers, and then when you have a reward. Every time you complete one of our Clubs and you earn a reward, there’s a little wallet in the top right icon of the home screen as well, so you can click on it and see all of your available rewards for redemption.
We’ve got a big hero banner about our 5% off curbside orders — a new feature — for all of our loyalty members as well. The majority of our shopping still takes place in store, but people love the convenience of shopping online, so we wanted to make that easier and more rewarding for our members. When they place a curbside order of $60 or more, they’re going to save 5%.
How long did it take to develop the app?
It’s probably been around a nine-month journey. I think that’s also the benefit of being able to have dedicated resources for this. We’ve made this a high-priority project, so people have been incredibly focused on it, and it’s been very much a sprint and a race to get it done, but we’re really proud of what we’ve achieved in that short time.
Our app was actually built in-house. With Cencosud, the owner of The Fresh Market, we were able to partner with their digital factory team based in South America to build this app together.
That team had already built an app for one of the other banners within the group, and when we were talking to them about wanting to redesign or launch our own native app, they signed up for the challenge. Our teams have worked really, really closely to make sure that it brings together the value proposition that we wanted to and the discovery.
How are you letting your customers know about the loyalty program changes?
This week is our soft launch, so the signage is just going up in stores. We’ll have multiple touch points of different signage around the store communicating the new program, the new name, the new benefits, and where we’ve evolved some of the benefits. Next week, we’re launching our omnichannel, multi-touchpoints marketing campaign to support the bigger launch and also draw more awareness to our app.
We’ve had training already for our team members on the loyalty program. We’re expecting that they’re going to be asking every guest as they go through checkout if they are a member of the loyalty program. We can have sign-up tables in-store as well, just to make it really visible for our guests.
Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
Not only do we want our guests to be able to engage with the loyalty program via the app and be able to complete shopping on the app, we also want it to be something over time that they’re able to use to help them when they’re in the store, whether that is discovering a new product, buying and shopping for a recipe that we’re featuring, or even understanding and learning about a new product that we’ve launched or the brand story behind it. We really want it to be a central part of the shopping experience.
