Lucky Charm took a big risk and decided that the main thrust of their marketing emphasis this year would be a computerized rewards program. So they created this program, which is now the biggest rewards program that I know in the newsagency space. It is national based and almost all supplier funded.
When we started our market research, 30,000 would be about what we would get.
When I first started reporting on this program,
In the 23th September, the program had 25,000 members.
By the 29th September, the program had grown to about 30,000 members.
So by the 29th September, we achieved budget, everything from now would be a bonus.
So on the 28th October, we were delighted as we benchmarked 43,000 members.
Then we could only explain that figure by assuming that people who were not customers of Lucky Charm newsagencies were joining the VIP program. That meant to us that the program had no immediate limit to growth.
The computer server that runs the program was then replaced. That was fine because we want the bigger one to crash too. The bigger the program gets the better.
On Tuesday, the 13th December when we did our latest benchmarking, we recorded then over 54,000 members so the growth had not stopped.
If this rate of growth continues, then we will need to move it to a bigger computer as this rewards program our data mining program said.
57,000 members by the start of 2012, almost double what we budgeted.
80,500 members by the start of the next financial year
Despite what the skeptics said when this program started, those skeptics now have much explaining to do why they were wrong.
This program has proven that the public will accept a newsagency rewards program.
