Comox Valley Economic Development launches app using 468 Insider to encourage visits and customer loyalty for the region’s agricultural producing community

July 14, 2020 – Comox Valley Economic Development has launched Taste Comox Valley, a free mobile app to encourage frequent visits to – and generate customer insights for – the area’s agri-food businesses.  The app makes it easy to collect points by visiting the region’s extensive and diverse farms, markets and stands, wineries and other producers. Points can be redeemed for exclusive deals and promotions. Taste Comox Valley was created using the 468 Insider platform from 468 Communications.

“As we reopen the local economy, our agri-food producers need as much support as possible,” said John Watson, Executive Director for Comox Valley Economic Development. “The Taste Comox Valley app builds on our popular Grower’s Guide by rewarding visits and purchases at farms and wineries while providing valuable data to those business owners.”

The Taste Comox Valley app complements the Comox Valley Grower’s Guide. Area farms that register their locations for the app can incentivize more frequent visits, reward customers with discounts or other special offers, create custom contests and incentives for loyal patrons, and get insights to where visitors are coming from.

How the Taste Comox Valley App Works

The Taste Comox Valley app is available as a free download from the Apple App Store and Google Play. It can be used both as a guide to Comox Valley’s variety of farms, markets and stands and wineries, and as a driver of commerce. Users who create an account can earn rewards by visiting those locations.

Explore

The explore button takes users to the full list of participating locations from the home screen.  The Map View features Comox Valley, with pins indicating the locations to collect points.  Clicking on each map pin brings up more information about the location. Users can search for specific items and filter locations by category.

Collect Points

All locations on Taste Comox Valley are assigned 10 points, which can be collected when users are within GPS range of a location and have a network connection. Pushing the “Collect Points” button while physically visiting a location will add the location’s points to a user’s point total. To keep earning points, users can explore more locations or visit again.  Point totals are tracked on a user’s Account page.

Earn Rewards

Once a user collects enough points, those points can be redeemed for exclusive discounts and promotions at participating Rewards locations, which are indicated in the app.  While physically visiting a Rewards location, hitting the “Redeem Points” button will bring up a keypad for entering a redemption code, which can be provided by the staff/owner.  Entering the code will deduct points from a user’s total in exchange for that location’s reward. 

Insights for Participating Agribusinesses

Individual location owners are given access to an online control panel providing valuable data about visitor activity, including reports showing periods of peak activity and where visitors are from.

About Comox Valley

Located on the east coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Comox Valley has various farms and farm stands offering fresh fruit and vegetables, jams and honey, baked goods to canned preserves. The area also boasts numerous grape and fruit wineries, award winning producers of beef, yogurt, and cheese, and renowned shellfish growers.  Through all four seasons, visitors can taste farm fresh delicious food when they visit the farms or at the Comox Valley Farmers’ Market.