Local is a successful strategy with magazines. People like reading about their local community. SA Life is tremendously popular in South Australia, Tasmanian Life is tremendously popular in Tasmania. What frustrates me is the range of local wedding magazines which are sent far are wide, way beyond the local community reach. I doubt that someone in Forest Hill, 45 minutes out of Melbourne is going to buy a magazine which focuses on weddings in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. Maybe someone in the wedding game visiting our shop will but this title but not a bride to be – the target market for the White magazine in the photo.
Local magazines are meant for local communities. Publishers ought to understand the cash-flow cost on newsagents when they use the low cost magazine distribution model to send us product like this. The weak relevance to our customers and the long on-sale (six months) make White of dubious value to my newsagency.
The publisher’s website makes their target market for White clear: Wedding magazine for Central Coast, Newcastle, Hunter Valley. I wonder what they have pitched to their advertisers. If they sell, say, 500 copies through newsagencies like mine (as real sales or shrinkage) are the local Hunter Valley advertisers thinking these are sales in their area?
AAARGH
Bane of my life, these big books of ads.
Oh, not the Hunter Valley Wedding Planner, then? There’s another one for that area? As if one title isn’t enough.
Then again, venue advertisers may see some worth in it, given the numbers of people marrying at holiday destinations these days. Maybe that’s a good enough incentive for some to take up ad space?
Apart from the whole palaver dedicated to chasing wedding bucks in recent decades (only because so many insist on spending them!), it seems to have taken on a tourism orientation as well. In which case, of course these far-flung titles will end up all over the country. Yay. Not.
You have to laugh if their was not a seriouness about these wedding mags that are sent out. The hunter and surrounding do have a lot of related wedding stuff, I wonder if it is intertwined with the wine industry.
It’s correct, I dont see any logic other than the same old story.
Regarding Wedding mags distribution, Qld, Vic etc should not be distributed with mags specific to an area within another state in this case NSW.
The idea of Pay when you sell comes to mind in some categories. This might encourage Newsagents to stock more or even put on shelf instead of instant supplementry, it eliminates the grab for cash mentality via distribution companies.
even though we are located in Sydney, I have not remembered selling a single copy of White.
With the previous issue I have early returned them and so it shall be with this issue. Even the Hunter Valley Wedding Planner did not do well at my shop too.
I was just wondering how “Real Weddings” does in your newsagency? It was voted by Publishers Australia as the best consumer magazine of 2008. I am a little dubious of these awards, so was wondering if it actually sells?
I’ve sold 2 real weddings since Dec 08
usually I do manage to sell a couple of the real weddings issue.
I used to do quite well in Cosmopolitan Brides (Aust) but last couple of issues, don’t seem to do very well.
We have a very small selection of wedding mags, mainly because the majority of our customer base (in store) is male. Even so, mags like this one, from specific regions in other states, are immediately returned. They are irrelevant, too long on sale and too costly.
Derek,
Yes, the number of wedding magazines that are hunter related are very much intertwined into the wine industry. Weddings are a big business for the vinyards.
I can see why White would be distributed to Sydney, but Melbourne? The publisher needs to address this, if only to reduce unneccessary printing costs.
For the record White is one of our better selling wedding magazines (we’re in the Hunter Valley and close to the Pokolbin vinyards).
Hi everyone, I just came across your blog and have spent all morning reading. Its great!
I am actually the publisher of WHITE magazine. 🙂 Thanks for the feedback, its great to know what is happening in the world of news agencies. I’ve been trying to work out how to get through and understand what they want and need. We do sell a lot of WHITE in Sydney as a lot of couples do come to the Hunter and Newcastle to get married. We have tested the waters in other various parts of Australia, as we sell some but not loads outside of NSW.
We do try get the balance right as we cannot afford to put thousands and thousands of magazine out that do just get trashed. I hear of other magazines that just pump out loads of mags just to get the numbers high to impress advertisers but in fact are not actually selling many. We are being more honest with our advertisers and ourselves. (i think) 🙂
Have a look inside of white, you’ll see we dedicate at least 75% to editorial rather than advertising. We cannot afford to print magazines that won’t sell.
We never want WHITE to become another wedding magazine full of ugly adverts and a small amount of token editorial. We are passionate about marriage and our magazine has a lot to do with marriage not just planning a wedding (although there is a lot of that too). Its a very beautiful magazine! (but i’m biased)
I’d really love to hear more from Newsagents to see what we can do to help them sell more and get more out.
We are thinking about packing 2 issues together with a gift or something for the next issue, what do you think?
I was interested to learn from my friend who runs a weding shop seven doors away, that nowadays the internet is essential for sales. Girls choose their dress and then hit the web to buy it cheaper.She has shipped entire wedding outfits (bride and bridesmaids) as far away as Cairns and Perth (from Albury), never meets the bride. Likewise she gives customer service allowing stock to be tried on, advising on accessories etc, then may lose the sale to another store on dollars. Its all very competitve out there.
Luke, I think the worst thing you could do is package two magazines together. I’ve seen women spend lengthy amounts of time going through the entire display of wedding magazines looking for a certain something, and if your magazine can’t be browsed because of packaging, it’ll miss out. If you add in a free gift, please consider fixturing so that the item won’t get damaged by being squashed, and is not so thick that it won’t fit a magazine pocket.
Luke, don’t include the old issue as this is a barrier to browsing, takes up more space and adds to return costs.
Consider a bonus offer for newsagents. More sales = more money.
Very good point, I had thought about that but did not know how much people browse.
I have heard girls say they like the really thick mags as it seems like good value, but do find they are just full of advertising. So I thought a double pack would be good value and they’d buy up.
Have you seen successful packaging of double issues? Gum glued back to back? Get free issue from sales desk? Buy one get one free?
What bonus offers for newsagents have you seen before?
Luke, Gum glued back to back often makes the magazines too thick which hampers the number you can put in a pocket. This can cause newsagents frustration as they need to make the decision to either give up additional real estate in hope that it may sell or return the bulky item – the latter is generally easier and more cost effective.
The relevance of back issues is also a question. Customers do not see the value in getting 2 for 1 if the one they are getting “free” is out of date.
It is nice to see a publisher who seems willing to work with agents on marketing issues, though it still remains to be seen whether you follow through on that.
Either way, goodluck.
Luke,
Best deal you can offer is this, more margin for agents. The one publisher who has tried this has seen agents use prime real estate to move more of their product. Getting your product to stand out from the crowded marketplace ultimately rests with the agent so give them encouragement.
Luke you are to be congratulated for talking with us through this forum. I support the comments of others made here.
Thanks for the feedback (again) 🙂
The older issues do not date. They do not have the same content and due to our mag being jammed with inspiration and idea’s the older ones still provide lots of idea’s. At expo’s that we attend many couples like to buy every issue we have available. So I think this would indicate they’d like to get more if they could.
I thought we could have a voucher where they can claim a free back issue on our website, rather than getting it from your counter. As I am sure you have very limited space behind there also. Maybe we’ll give our bigger selling newsagents some to have on hand.
Thanks so much for your comments. I hope that by them we’ll be able to get more mags out there also assist newsagents, rather than annoy them 🙂