The Hull Daily Mail is taking to the road to get the opinions of its readers and find out how it can improve.

A programme of meetings is planned with the aim of building on sessions carried out 18 months ago, which led to a series of improvements to the paper.

The move follows an independent survey, conducted by market research company SMSR in Hull, that showed that 93 per cent of the Mail’s regular readers are pleased with the paper – a 15 per cent improvement upon a similar survey conducted two years ago.

The paper carried out its first detailed research under the Customers First banner two years ago, and conducted a series of discussion groups, called Customer Circles.

The research led to the introduction of several new features, including the popular Your School page and an extended What’s On guide.

To drive the new research forward the Mail has formed a Readers Project team made up of editor John Meehan, newspaper sales director Paul Jenkins, assistant editor Marc Astley and customer first consultant, Ian Mills.

Editor John Meehan, said: “We have 201,000 readers a day, meaning the Mail is read by more people each day in this area than read a national newspaper.

“But we know that, if we are to maintain the amazing loyalty of our readership, we must improve continually the breadth, depth and quality of our coverage and its relevance to the lives of local people.

“That is why we are dedicated to pleasing our customers by putting them first. To do that we need to talk to our readers and truly understand what they want and need from their local paper.”

The first customer circles will be in Hull, and will then move out to at least a dozen key locations in the East Riding such as Beverley, Brough/Elloughton and Hornsea.

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