Starbucks Lovers

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve by now likely heard the most recent Taylor Swift anthem, Blank Space. The ubiquitously hypnotic anthem, which will never leave your head, has caused some lyrical controversy as one of the lines kind of sounds like “Starbucks Lovers.”

That’s not the actual line, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it were as I saw today that the empire of Starbucks is stating that 16% of its total transactions come from its mobile app. In a world of high mobile usage but surprisingly low relative mobile purchasing, this is not an insignificant feat.

It’s all thanks to one word: loyalty

Starbucks’ member rewards program rewards loyalty. Loyalty is why people visit Starbucks so frequently in the first place, and getting rewarded for their habits is an obvious choice. The adoption of their mobile app is in no small part connected to their rewards program.

Now, Starbucks does benefit from a number of consumer behaviors that most businesses don’t, namely frequency. Customers go into Starbucks every day. They might go to the grocery store once or twice a week. To the hardware store with far less frequency. Starbucks has a strong brand, a great product, and they’re everywhere. It’s hard to compete with that.

But the takeaway from this news story is that if Starbucks is continuing to focus on mobile strategy, and expects to drive further growth from it, maybe other businesses need to focus on it as well if they haven’t already. Does your company have a mobile growth strategy? Perhaps it’s time to consider.