As merchants and businesses look for new ways to incentivize customers to shop and dine locally, the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce is rolling out the first-ever Santa Monica Rewards, a new mobile shopping promotions marketplace backed by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. The program is designed to drive customers back to shopping and dining at local businesses.
Santa Monica Rewards will help Santa Monica merchants create promotions, cashback rewards, and other customer incentives to aid in retail recovery. Created by Saltwater Loyalty, the online platform is the first marketing platform in the U.S. designed for destinations to unify their merchants under a branded, best-in-class loyalty rewards program.
Businesses that sign up with Santa Monica Rewards will have access to simple-to-use, easily customizable promotional rewards to help attract customers. Promotions can also be easily scheduled to run concurrently with other marketing campaigns in progress. There are no fees for local merchants to sign up.
According to Laurel Rosen, CEO of the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, the program will kick-start local commerce:
“We are thrilled to offer this loyalty rewards platform to our restaurants and retail establishments. By combining a modern, robust loyalty program with an authentic, grass-roots connection to customers, it is a perfect fit for our city.”
Andrew Arrospide, co-founder of the Santa Monica eatery Alfalfa, has already signed up:
“Alfalfa is incredibly excited to be part of the Santa Monica Rewards Program. We’re very grateful to have a dedicated program supporting local businesses. This program will ensure increased customer loyalty to our business and provide an excellent perk to the local community.”
The program, which is already live in Malibu, CA as Malibu Rewards, is proving to be effective for local merchants and businesses alike:
“We’ve been proudly serving Malibu locals for over 20 years. Now, using Malibu Rewards, we can express our gratitude to all our guests. This new customer loyalty program allows us to easily feature promotions to our new and returning customers.” Howdy Kabrins, owner of Howdy’s Café.
Santa Monica Rewards will run in parallel with the existing Buy Local Santa Monica program. According to Jennifer Taylor, Economic Development Manager at City of Santa Monica and Chair of the Buy Local Santa Monica Committee, the collaboration is a natural partnership:
“The Buy Local Santa Monica Committee is proud to partner with the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce to enhance our current merchant offering by supporting the new Santa Monica Rewards city-wide mobile web app. This program is the embodiment of our ‘Shop Local, Eat Local, Play Local’ initiative with many enhancements. For example, all participating merchants in the SM Rewards will receive robust customer data/analytics, marketing support, and branded collateral, which will help to support the economic resiliency of our local businesses.”
The program is currently accepting merchants and businesses as a part of its pre-launch initiative.
To sign up as a merchant, please contact: Dennis Chen, 408-691-4815, dennis.chen@saltwaterware.com. More information can be found at www.SantaMonicarewards.com/business.
Submitted by Jennifer Taylor
