I did a full-on magazine relay in the newsagency on Saturday, in the middle of the day, while the shop was busy with customers. The relay was unplanned. It started out as me venting frustration and ended up with a fresh magazine layout to challenge regulars, drive sales from them and those shopping with us for the first time – and with my frustration resolved.
Getting into a hot and sweaty mess doing the work and then seeing the outcome, I was reminded that a magazine relay can be the single most effective marketing activity we can undertake for magazines.
It makes us more house proud.
It demonstrates us managing magazines.
It reflects our specialisation.
It frees space for other activities.
It trains our team.
It teaches us about magazines.
Once I processed the frustration that got me started I had a good time. I love a good magazine relay. I finished the job with a sense of achievement and pride. I also got to implement a couple of ideas to shake things up, to pitch magazines differently to what we have done in the past.
In the photos you can see magazines tossed on the floor. This is how I do it. I have found by tossing them around like this I have to be more thoughtful when rebuilding the display and this leads to a better outcome.
Click here to see my latest advice on how to do a magazine relay.
I urge all newsagents to do a magazine relay every six months. The result is a fresh pitch for magazines in-store, better product knowledge, greater shopper engagement and a reinforcement to you and your team members that you are magazine destination, that you take the category seriously.
Newsagents need to do the magazine relay themselves. This demonstrates leadership. It also demonstrates your commitment to the category. Okay, I get that you want more than 25%. The thing is, your margin is what it is. You probably bought your business knowing it was 25%. Suck it up. Make the most of it. Use magazine traffic to help the rest of the business. A magazine relay is a step toward making this happen for you. You doing the relay yourself is you being serious about being a newsagent – whatever that term means now in 2016.
Regardless of what you achieve sales and traffic wise form a magazine relay for the business, you will feel a sense of accomplishment and that, in itself, is terrific. The accomplishment comes from you exerting more control over your business, from you making your business your own.