Mail loyalty plan to drive business

The Daily Mail – the newspaper which loves to hate the direct marketing industry – is planning to use its loyalty scheme, Mail Rewards, to drive all future marketing activity after signing up over 550,000 members since its launch in June.
The scheme, which runs across Mail Online, the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, partners with brands including M&S, Tesco and Morrisons to offer members £5 discounts on grocery shopping, free cinema tickets and free meals. It claims to have 400,000 active weekly users.
The programme requires users to buy the both the Saturday and Sunday editions of The Daily Mail at least seven out of eight weeks in a row to collect a series of unique numbers.
These numbers, non-transferable and singular proof of purchase, are then entered into the Mail Rewards website. Mail Rewards can then track members’ redemptions and purchase behaviour.
The newspaper is now looking to step up its rewards offer to a seven-day operation, as well as extending its proposition for commercial partners.
Head of Mail Rewards Allan MacCaskill claims 1.2 million rewards have been redeemed since launch. “These have been positive contact moments with our customers. There are lots of promotions to get vouchers and money off, the rewards we offer are free ‘no catch’,” he said, adding that it was planning to adopt similar practices to rivals at The Times and Guardian.
“Times + and Guardian Extra are schemes with benefits packages, and we see an opportunity to add this to ours, building in mechanics that add ‘clubiness’,” he added. “We’re conscious that members don’t feel duped into being on a mailing list, sending them offers for everything. As they become part of the ‘club’, rewards will grow.”
Mail Rewards has also been driving print circulation, creating an uplift of an extra 100,000 print copies being sold on a Saturday and a Sunday. Using Mail Online as a marketing platform to host the Mail Rewards registration and information site has resulted in extra traffic to the Mail Online website, driving page impressions and online ad revenue.
Mail Rewards is capturing user registration data and purchase behaviour to provide insight back to advertisers. MacCaskill said: “At the moment, it’s a data capture exercise and our focus is on giving the reader experience that’s great.”
The Mail, owned by DMGT, has been a long-time critic of all things DM, despite running a huge direct operation itself. Earlier this year, it expressed moral outrage at the fact that Kate Middleton’s parents made thousands of pounds selling customer data, while it also slammed the fact that Royal Mail was planning to deliver more unaddressed mailings for brand owners.