A regional publisher has launched a loyalty programme to reward its most committed readers.

Local World has unveiled its ‘Plus’ loyalty programme at its centres in Leicester and Nottingham, which publish the Leicester Mercury and the Nottingham Post.

Under the scheme, newspaper subscribers have exclusive online access to offers, free products, events and competitions.

The publisher plans to roll out the scheme across its network of 74 websites.

The Leicester Mercury’s Plus website

In the first five days, Local World said 920 people had registered on the two sites and there were 8,238 user interactions.

Offers worth up to £455 have been sourced so far for the programme, including free bus travel, free coffee and muffin from Muffin Break, Tesco vouchers, free restaurant meals, hotel stays, an Apple Watch, £10 holidays and discounts to more than 30 local attractions.

Digital agency Clock has built the platform and each Plus site enables data capture from general offers, providing Local World with a greater understanding of the demands of their subscribers so it can tailor the offers.

David Allen, Local World promotions director said: “Demand for local content is stronger than ever, but our subscription systems were supply based, reliant on outbound canvassing, and our promotions strategy only provided for short term spikes in single copy sale.

“This platform provides real incentive for readers to subscribe by offering them the products they want through better understanding of their habits.

“We can reward our most valuable consumers, give them the flexibility to choose how to pay and monetise our vast consumer footprint.”

The loyalty sites feature a range of flexible subscription packages to the newspapers, which the public can sign up to online to gain membership to Plus.

Paul Serby from Clock said: “This loyalty programme will reduce one-off sale hits to infrequent customers and give Local World true consumer value through data capture and subscription commitment.”