SUBSCRIPTION BASED EMAIL DIRECT MARKETING AND LOYALTY PROGRAM

PROGRAMME DE FIDELISATION ET DE VENTE DIRECTE PAR COURRIER ELECTRONIQUE SUR ABONNEMENT

Claims

THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION IN WHICH AN EXCLUSIVE
PROPERTY OR PRIVILEGE IS CLAIMED ARE DEFINED AS FOLLOWS:
1. Ability to have a percentage of email marketing and advertising revenue,
through
our system, automatically go to non-profit groups.
2. Automatic update of customer's account and non-profit groups account,
allowing
each to see the amount of money generated for the non-profit group.
3. Ability to offer an offline and online loyalty program.
4. Ability to collect customer data and purchase data from offline and online
merchants.
5. Ability to offer rewards or points for purchases based on Claim #4.
6. Ability to have a wireless device at merchant's location, which can collect
and
transmit customer data to edealcard.
7. Ability to have multiple merchants, offline and online, utilizing the email
marketing and loyalty program.
8. Ability to collect customer data and purchase information online through
software
installed on merchants website to identify customer.
9. Ability to profile, segment and re-target consumers using information
collected
from Claim #4.
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Description

CA 02314234 2000-07-18
Subscription Based Email Direct Marketing and Loyalty Program System
The present invention seeks to overcome the difficulties being encountered in
traditional
fundraising methods, which have failed to provide a long-term opportunity for
non-profit
organizations to raise fiends. Furtiher, the applicants have recognised the
failure on part of
traditional non-targeted direct marketing methods' efforts to meet today's
customers'
needs in the retail environment; failure of traditional fundraising methods to
offer a long-
term solution to raising money for non-profit groups; and failure of loyalty
programs to
be able to collect and sei~nent customer data, profiling information and
purchase history
from both offline and online mediums.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a process using email marketing
and other
advertising, for non-profit organizations to benefit from the system. The
system will
provide more revenue for the non-profit organizations. A member becomes
associated
with a non-profit group upon registration. The member then is entitled to
receiving
targeted email messages and advertising, based on their profile. A vendor pays
for the
targeted email messages and advf;rtising. A portion of advertising revenue
will be
directed to a members' charitable organization, giving the organization a long-
term
revenue opportunity.
Each member of the loyaty program referred to as the edealcard loyalty
program, will
have a membership card with a unique identifier, being the card number. The
card will
be used to track offline purchases, by having participating merchants utilize
a wireless
card swipe/reader when .a customer makes a purchase. This data will then be
included
into the members' profilE;. To track online purchases, participating merchants
will have a
soffware program installed on their computer systems. This computer system
will allow
us to automatically recognize the unique edealcard member and track their
online
purchases. We will use the data collected from both offline and online
purchases to
segment the customer database and target members with new offers or
advertisements
matching their profile. Members will be able to receive their notification of
new offers on
a wireless device or through their desktop computer email.

CA 02314234 2000-07-18
When consumers become an edealcard member they must register their unique
membership card online, including providing us with a detailed profile.
Our invention, by having members inform us of his/her specific profile and
interests,
enables vendors to create; an email-marketing message to a targeted group of
members.
Each member is associated with a particular non-profit group. When the
email/advertisement is sent to the targeted members, each non-profit group
will receive a
percentage of the revenue derived from that message. 'Che system automatically
calculates the total revenue each non-profit group received based on the
number of
members. The system will also allow us to see the revenue generated on a
member-by-
member basis, as well as the total. contributions to a non-profit group on
behalf of their
members.
The loyalty program allows consumers to be part of an online and offline
loyalty
program. Currently consumers do not have the opportunity to have one program,
which
offers this benefit. Consumers may have the opportunity to earn points based
on their
purchases from offline and online merchants.
These and other features of the preferred embodiments of the invention will
become more
apparent with reference to the following drawings.
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