We see each sale as the most important opportunity to pitch our value proposition in an effort to bring the customer back to us. Whether we like it or not, today’s shopper expects something more than a warm smile or good customer service. In August 2004 we launched the first magazine loyalty program in Australia. Today, it remains a crucial point of difference for us. It was embraced by newsXpress in mid 2005 and has since been copied by others – I have happily shared details of the program.
The Magazine Club Card gives us structure through which we can make our pitch – from the card itself, the back office mechanics and pitch to our customers.
I’ll give you one of our Magazine Club Cards. We clip this for each magazine bought and your twelfth magazine is free up to $10.00.
This pitch is gratefully received. It is rare we get a knock back. Every day we see examples of how it drives changed shopper behavior.
We use a similar pitch in our Sophie Randall card and gift shops for a greeting card offer:
Here is one of our loyalty cards. Be sure to bring this back. Once you have bought seven greeting cards your eighth card is free.
Whether it is a loyalty card pitch or some other offer, it is vitally important that newsagencies have a structured process through which a unique pitch is made to drive return business. It is equally important that the performance of the process can be measured.
In my newsagencies we stand for value. This is why we obsess about handing out our loyalty card. Executing this with a smile supports our second key focus of friendly customer service.
while these cards do work it is quite funny to see a purse with 3 or 4 different magazine cards in it and they ask which one is yours as far as loyalty goes i do not know .We made ours bright pink so we stand out from the rest
Loyalty doesn’t have to be exclusive. A lot of people have loyalty cards for several different stores/service providers. It just means they have a goal to attain (a freebie) at each outlet. I don’t have an issue with this – rather, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
We don’t do the mag thing, however. It’s better for us to do the coffee cards and have customers browse the mags while they’re waiting.
These cards, which we’ve designed and print ourselves as required, do far better than the paper/coffee deal we also have going, which never took off.
We have a loyalty card across the store. The bigger the margin the more points you earn. The points are coverted to dollar value that appears on the screen whenever the card is scanned.
Just wondering, how would you handle fake clippings?
Next to impossible with unique clipping devices used and regularly changed.
We are happy to hold customers’ cards for them. They find this most convenient, and it eliminates the risk of fake marking.
If we were a big store, then a filing system more sophisticated than ours would be necessarily. Perhaps a computer record system could be generated? Easier to verify against a customer’s physical card as well, potentially? Staff would have to be on board with it, though. Then again they have to be on board with the cards themselves, I guess. Just an addition to the procedure.
Thinking out loud here… I think I’m done LOL
Y&G, holding the cards is a good idea. How would the extra time to search for the customers’ card impact the service time, especially in a busy shopping centre?
Limited to one newsagency for each card/marking/clipping then would reduce the faking. However, working in set margin industry everyone $ counts.
Just wondering, if feasible to use the similar technology like Woolworths, Coles, Franklins, with the reward cards. This way, we can keep track of sales for each customer. Also, this eliminate cheating altogether.
Robert many of us do this now.
Robert, I would imagine a larger store would have to come up with a faster method – which would be very doable.
Being so tiny, it’s not an issue for us, as the customers who come for coffee are waiting for their drinks anyway. Our system is primitive compared to what would be required for a full-on centre-based store. Then again, the simplicity itself is quite efficient. Sometimes getting back to basics with a bulldog clip and texta isn’t such a silly idea 😉
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, our existing newspaper customers buy stuff-all else here, so we pitch to our bread-and-butter customer base. It works for us.
Y&G and Mark,
Thanks for that.
I am in a process of looking for a newsagency and is trying to get to know the different marketing tactics that found to be successful.
This is is great for that. However, I am sure as mentioned previously, it would be nice to have an actual forum style posting instead of just posting comments.
Despite that, this is great still and very helpful.