As the quick-service industry continues to explore the viability of the daily-deal industry, one new marketing provider is hoping to prove that a program built around a simple QR code is a more profitable—and long-term—solution.

Front Flip is a new tool developed by an Overland Park, Kansas–based startup that offers businesses a mobile scratch-and-win service to entice customers.

Businesses pay $150 per month per location for Front Flip, which gives them a portal through which they can manage their program. The operator then displays point-of-purchase materials with a QR code, which, when scanned through a special Front Flip smartphone app, leads a customer to a digital scratch-off square that may or may not win them a prize.

The Front Flip portal lets operators capture user information (gender, zip code, and date of birth are required when signing up through the app) and also track usage. Prizes offered and the number of customers who win a prize are determined by the operator through their portal.

Sean Beckner, CEO of Front Flip LLC, says many businesses have not yet figured out how to offer in-store customer engagement opportunities that build repeat business.

“Our mission is, we want to help businesses engage with the customers in a fun, exciting way while they’re in the store, but enable them to also re-engage once they’ve left the store,” Beckner says.

Beckner says the service allows operators to push notifications of prize opportunities to users’ smartphones, which allows them to both reward frequent users and lure back users who have not scanned the code in a while.

“Typically, around 40–60 percent of the scratchers are winners, that’s standard for us,” Beckner says. “But the business controls it, and they’re going to know, out of every 100 people who scan, exactly the prizes and know the exact cost of those prizes, so they can know how that’s affecting their margins.”

This type of marketing campaign is more viable long term for businesses than services like daily deals, Beckner says, because it puts more control in the operator’s hands.

“I think you also need to have equal value between the value that the consumer gets and the value that the business gets,” he says. “With daily deals, the consumers win. But you hear so many horror stories of businesses that lose a lot of money and really can’t track whether those customers come in or not.”

By Sam Oches