I served a customer last Saturday who wanted a clothing marker for new school clothes. The Artline 750 was perfect for their need. While looking at this they discovered the Artline Garden Marker next to the 750. They took that too.
The customer was thrilled as they had looked everywhere for a clothes marker. You should have looked here first, I joked. I forgot about newsagencies, she said. Gee that hurt.
Price was not an issue – because of the difficulty they had experienced in finding what they wanted.
I have found myself thinking about the interaction over the last few days. While it is easy to bemoan the fading interest in newsagencies as the first stop for people looking for any stationery item, we have a responsibility in this. We have stood by and watched as Typo launched, Smiggle grew, Kikki.K grew, Officeworks improved, supermarkets introduced better stationery departments and variety stores such as K-Mart and Target introduced better stationery departments.
But in our businesses, through products like the Artline 750, we have products we can pitch that no one else has or that are too hard to find in large businesses like Officeworks. We can use these long-tail products to promote a point of difference, a finely tuned customer care a a seasonal pitch that draws attention.
With Back To School in full swing it is a crowded marketplace. But who is promoting clothing markers? It is easy for us to pitch these online, in-store and elsewhere – because no one else is.
This is how I am responding to what my customer taught me on Saturday – I am promoting the Artline 750 on facebook and at the counter. This is one of several niche products around which I am promoting the newsagency, to draw attention to the specialty stationery we sell and through this to reinforce that shopping with us ought be more top of mind than it has been.
We, all of us, have to give people in our communities more reasons to shop at our newsagencies. The shingle is not enough nor is the general Back To School marketing. The best approach is result promotion of niche items like the Artline 750 to build the impression that your business is the go to place for stationery – because you care, because your service is knowledgable and personal.