MyPoints.com will pull out all the stops to drive sales and increase membership during the holiday season with the release of three promotional efforts in November.
“We're looking at three primary plans that are all about creating a higher level of member experience,” said Geoff Ossias, vice president of corporate relations at MyPoints.com, San Francisco. “For a direct marketing company, the most important time of the year is the Christmas buying period. I'd imagine every company in the space is gearing up pretty heavily to prepare for it. It's the big enchilada.”
The three efforts are MyPoints Gift Card, MyPoints Gift Guide and MyPoints Double Points.
The Gift Card will be a prepaid electronic gift certificate. Consumers will be able to purchase them for friends and relatives and then have them sent via e-mail along with an electronic greeting card. Members are expected to earn two points for every dollar spent.
The recipients will be able to spend the gift card dollars at MyPoints.com with any of its shopping merchants. MyPoints.com has more than 100 merchants, including Barnes & Noble, Macy's, Sprint and Red Lobster.
MasterCard is working with MyPoints to create the Gift Guide.
“They can click over to a co-branded site and enter the kinds of gifts they are looking for,” Ossias said. They can search products that meet their interests and earn two points per dollar spent. They will earn additional points for using their MyPoints MasterCard.”
MyPoints.com's 15 million members will be made aware of the guide via e-mails and links on the site.
This offering ties in with last week's announcement that MasterCard International signed on to become the preferred payment provider of the MyPoints Shopping Network.
Under the agreement, MyPoints.com will work to drive its members to the MasterCard Exclusives Online site (mastercard.com/exclusives). Here, they will be rewarded with points for learning about the credit-card company as well as for taking advantage of its special offers. The number of points earned will vary from offer to offer. The two companies initially joined forces in July to offer the MyPoints.com MasterCard.
Members will also be able to earn MyPoints Double Points later this year. This promotion will allow consumers to double up on points when they act on select offers during the holiday season.
The site tested this program during a recent back-to-school promotion and was pleased with the results. “The MyPoints Back to School double points test ran the last two weeks of August and had [a] substantial impact on sales — approximately doubling them,” Ossias said.
