Last Sunday the Herald Sun came with a Kath and Kim DVD. If your purchase point had run out of stock or didn’t do such giveaways well (like supermarkets) the newspaper directed you to a newsagent. In my own store almost half our stock was given away to people who had purchased elsewhere. It seems to me that this traffic directed to newsagents was an opportunity for publishers to push the relationship further. Maybe they could have created an over the counter loyalty offer – i.e. coupons offering a discount if you buy a certain number of Herald Suns over consecutive days; or, an over the counter subscription offer; or, even, a home delivery offer.
As it was, these folks came in, gave us their coupon from the paper for the Kath and Kim DVD and left with it. The Herald Sun could have had a second crack at more business. It’s worth considering next time.
In a retail sense our learning is that we will try for the additional business ourselves. However, it would be more helpful if the publisher developed a strategy based around the traffic generating offer.
AFTERTHOUGHT: I have been reminded that the Herald Sun price rose recently and that this DVD promotion is a way of buffering for any impact from the price rise. To that end it’s a good strategy. And I like the price rise