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Subway El Salvador sought to build customer loyalty, optimize its marketing campaigns and measure its impact in real time.
Using Leal, Subway has been able to segment its customers, personalize campaigns and attribute their results. With Leal, Subway has achieved a average conversion rate of 22% and an additional income attributable to these campaigns of $300,000 USD.
The relationship has been win-win: Thanks to close collaboration and ongoing communication, Subway has played an active role in the development, improvements and updates of Leal's product. Subway's needs have been constantly heard and answered, resulting in better results for Subway and improvements to Leal's product.
From advanced segmentation to accurate conversion attribution, Subway has been able to maximize the effectiveness of its campaigns and obtain strategic information crucial for business growth. Below, we explore the key lessons that other companies can learn from the Subway success story.
Subway El Salvador has been able to identify its customers and apply advanced segmentation based on the RFM model (Frequency, Frequency and Monetary Value) and buying behavior. This segmentation has been crucial in increasing the conversion rate of campaigns.
Lesson: Precise and personalized segmentation, combined with behavioral analysis, is essential for implementing more intentional campaigns and improving conversion rates.
One of Leal's great strengths for Subway has been the ability to attribute conversions directly to marketing campaigns. This functionality has allowed them to accurately measure the impact of each marketing action and evaluate the results obtained in real time.
Lesson: Accurately measuring and attributing conversions is key to evaluating the effectiveness of campaigns and justifying return on investment, especially when managing multiple campaigns.
Leal has provided Subway with detailed reports on the performance of each campaign, both at the store level and at the franchisee level. These reports not only include key metrics, such as the conversion rate, but also information on the NPS (Net Promoter Score) that reflects customer satisfaction. Thanks to these reports, Subway has been able to identify areas for improvement, optimize its marketing efforts and continue to develop a stronger relationship with its customers and franchisees.
Lesson: Having access to clear and actionable data, such as detailed performance reports, is essential for making strategic adjustments and encouraging continuous improvements both at the operational level and in the relationship with franchisees.
One of the keys to Subway's success has been the ability to launch massive campaigns without losing personalization. Through the Leal platform, Subway has been able to configure automatic campaigns for specific customer groups and purposes.
Based on consumer data, Subway personalizes its campaigns and sends relevant messages according to the needs of each customer group. They continuously use campaigns with intelligent segmentation, implemented for specific purposes: birthday promotions, alerts about the validity of loyalty program points, reactivation of inactive customers (RFM), etc.
Campaign automation has allowed the company to maintain constant and relevant communication with its customers, saving time and resources.
Lesson: The personalization and automation of campaigns allows you to reach a large number of customers without sacrificing personalization, which optimizes resources and maintains fluid and continuous communication.
Subway El Salvador arrived in the country on September 20, 1995 and, since then, it has evolved to become the fast food chain with the most branches in the country and the region. What began as a modest branch at a service station now encompasses 95 restaurants in 13 of the country's 14 departments.
The rapid expansion and growth in the country was due to the sale of franchises to third parties, who were granted the right to operate their own business under the umbrella of the “SUBWAY” brand. They currently have 16 active franchisees in the system.
In El Salvador, the brand is represented by “Master International Franchises” with Alejandro Menéndez at the head.
With a mission focused on offering”the best fast and healthy food product and service”, and a vision aimed at providing to its customers “the extraordinary experience of a perfect sandwich”, Subway El Salvador celebrates its success story, driven by its Sandwich Artists, franchisees, suppliers, strategic partners and, above all, its customers. As it approaches its 30th anniversary in 2025, the brand has big goals and surprises, such as exceeding 100 branches, reaffirming its commitment to remain a market leader.
Subway El Salvador, despite having a strong customer base and an established loyalty program, faced several challenges in terms of managing and optimizing its marketing efforts:
Subway chose Leal as its strategic partner for several reasons:
“What struck us most about Leal, apart from the loyalty program, was the integrity of the platform: the campaigns, the NPS, the access to data. We realized that with Leal we could incorporate a means of outreach and communication that we didn't have before.”
— Jose R. Quiñonez. Master Franchisee Manager, Subway El Salvador
“Leal is our partner platform for knowing everything we need about our customers. The value is in the data it provides us.”
— Dyana Canjura. Marketing Department. Subway El Salvador.
“Leal is super intuitive. As a loyalty platform, it's a gem. I think we can still exploit it much more.”
— Dyana Canjura. Marketing Department. Subway El Salvador.
“Something that's important to us is that Leal is constantly evolving. That has enchanted me from day one. They have always accompanied us in that process. You can tell they like what they do and they know what they offer. They have been adapted to our needs and requests. In fact, we feel like we're contributing to all of Leal's changes and updates.”
— Jose R. Quiñonez. Master Franchisee Manager, Subway El Salvador
“For us, the updates related to artificial intelligence have been dazzling. That's why next year we want to focus more on better defined campaigns using Leal's AI, and thus get the most out of the platform”
— Dyana Canjura. Marketing Department. Subway El Salvador.
Subway has used Leal primarily to:
● Massive, yet hyper-segmented campaigns: Reminders for the validity of points, birthday messages, and reactivation of dormant or at-risk customers.
“The campaigns have been a success because we can massively reach the entire customer base, but we can also segment if there is a group that interests us in particular.”
— Jose R. Quiñonez. Master Franchisee Manager, Subway El Salvador
“For me it has been very interesting to have active campaigns that we carry out month by month: birthdays, validity of points, etc. I loved seeing how people have been reacting, seeing that people are finding value in our campaigns.”
— Dyana Canjura. Marketing Department. Subway El Salvador.
● RFM segmentation: They identify customers according to their buying behavior: what they buy, what is their purchase frequency, and their average ticket
“We love having the RFM: identifying customers who are asleep, at risk, loyal, etc.”
— Jose R. Quiñonez. Master Franchisee Manager, Subway El Salvador
“Leal allows us to microsegment audiences, knowing how often people buy, what they're buying, and how much they're spending. Being able to reach that level of detail with such a simple app is a great advantage, an advantage that no other platform has offered us.”
— Dyana Canjura. Marketing Department. Subway El Salvador.
● Automation and attribution: They monitor conversions and their impact on sales in real time, depending on the franchisee and company name. This provides visibility of performance to each franchise.
“We launched the campaigns and the next day we already have the conversion metrics, the percentages of how many people are visiting us. We realize that people do react and do expect those reminders from us.”
— Dyana Canjura. Marketing Department. Subway El Salvador.
● Marketing and NPS reports: They provide franchisees with clear metrics about marketing attributions and customer experience: their NPS ratings, averages and comments. By providing visibility to its franchisees, Subway promotes healthy competition among its franchises.
“It has been very important and useful to be able to attribute the conversions of marketing campaigns because that way we can offer those metrics to franchisees, who need to know how marketing efforts impact their sales.
(...) Every month, we keep franchises informed about ratings and comments with reports on Leal's data: how many surveys we received; how many resulted in supporters, neutrals and detractors; what was the average rating; and the comments for the month.”
— Jose R. Quiñonez. Master Franchisee Administrator, Subway El Salvador.
The implementation of Leal in Subway El Salvador has generated impactful and cross-cutting results, reflecting the platform's success in optimizing marketing, sales and loyalty operations.
Subway El Salvador transformed its marketing and loyalty strategy using the Leal 360 platform. Using accurate data, hyper-segmented campaigns and robust measurement tools, they achieved a direct impact on their revenues, on the ROI of their initiatives, and on customer satisfaction.
“For us Leal is an extremely key strategic partner, because through Leal 360 we capture data that is useful for different areas within our operation: from the operational area, to the service area with surveys and ratings.”
— Jose R. Quiñonez. Master Franchisee Manager, Subway El Salvador
Leal can also be your company's strategic partner. If you want to replicate the success of Subway in your company, or if you have other challenges that you want to solve, Schedule a demo with one of our experts so that we can tell you how we can boost the growth of your company.