Engaging Shoppers–and Employees–with the IGALink Grocery Newsletter

 July 9, 2012 

When we first launched our IGALink websites across our three Young's Payless IGA locations, we had a huge registration drive at each store. I headed up the drive at our Copperopolis location and it ended up being a complete success—not just because we got over 1,400 shoppers email addresses over the course of four weeks, but because we got our entire store team and our shoppers engaged and excited about our digital marketing program.

While running our registration drive, we decided it was time to explore our IGALink grocery newsletter capability as well. We hosted a meeting with all of our store managers to talk about the emailed newsletters and how we would begin sending them. We agreed that it would be important to get shoppers hooked with the first several emails if we wanted them to continue reading, so we put some time into the schedule and planned communications for the next six weeks.

Those first emails were pretty basic, but as we became more comfortable with the email function and graphic tool, Sumo Paint, we really started to have fun with it. We got our store staff involved and started adding their pictures in the newsletter, which was great because now our shoppers recognize these team members and are approaching them in the store to talk about the emails. When that happens, other shoppers take notice too!

 And it's not only stirring up conversations in the store—it's also helping build sales. Recently we promoted a sandwich special through the newsletter. We expected that it would increase the sales of our specialty sandwiches—which it did—but we also noticed that our entire deli department performed better that week. Shoppers came to the deli for the sandwich and then stocked up on cheese and meat while they were there.

With IGALink, we've been able to engage both our store team and our shoppers. What a great way to strengthen our community connection!

Thanks,

Shawna Grant