The Week offers a free trial copy in pursuit of subscriptions

I noticed the ‘voucher’ for The Week inserted in The Age on the weekend.  I’d love to see the money behind this campaign invested in promoting the title in newsagencies.  I appreciate that this may be easier requested than done.  However, newsagents represent the best opportunity the publisher of The Week has at accessing incremental business.  We have excellent foot traffic, are the key retail channel for selling news related products, are connected with ur customers in a more personal way than other retailers and can respond to local type campaigns.

Here are a few ideas the publisher of The Week could consider:

1. 50% margin for two months.  This would encourage better placement, over the counter promotion and greater attention all round.
2. Trialling a lower cover price with margin dollar protection.  Say, $1.00 for a week with newsagents earning their usual commission at full price.
3. Bonus margin for growth.  Lock in an additional 25% margin for every sale beyond the average weekly sales achieved.
4. Giving newsagents a gift coupon for handing or mailing to customers so they can redeem a free copy of the magazine from the newsagency.
5. Offering newsagents a cash bonus and 25% per issue commission for putaways committed to in store.

I am sure there are other ideas for driving newsagent engagement and lifting sales of not only The Week but other magazines.  Many newsagents are showing every week that they can lift magazine sales through creative and energetic engagement.  What we need is publishers on board and transacting with us as business people and not part of a logistics business.