Newsagents in South Australia were sent this letter by from News Corp’s Adelaide Advertiser yesterday. It is a thank you for support for promotional activity.
While the letter is good and, I am sure, appreciated by newsagents, there is more to consider here beyond the commission made from selling promotional products. remember, these promotions are designed to serve sales of newspapers.
From the Advertiser and all outposts of News Corp. I would like to see data provided by News on the benefit to newsagents beyond the sale of promotional items. Here is my question: Did the promotional items generate sustained new sales of the supported newspapers or is it only revenue from the promotional products on which newsagents can count?
This question is important given the paltry margin on promotional items offered in most states. The case put by all publishers in such situations is the real profit is from a sales boost beyond the promotion. So, it would be good to see this data – what over the counter sales boost did the promotions generate?
I do note that in South Australia, newsagents receive the best commission for promotional products. Kudos to the local news Corp. office for this.
We usually receive orders just for the period the promotion is running but due to weight restriction on the plane that delivers our paper we can’t get any extra papers so the only extra sale we get is the book and regular customers who buy a paper most days miss out. We have no long tome gain in customers.
Over the years only about 10% of my newspaper sales were generated by this sort of activity and of that 10% half were to regular customers. News Corp however would increase the allocations by 50-100%.
80%+ of customers just came in for the promotional item with their coupon from home deliveries.
I stopped doing these promotions because they not only offered no value they are at a time when you are trying to focus on seasonal events.
They also run for too long, stock comes in too early for what is normally a two week promotion with an extra 2 weeks for redemption. A 5-6 week window for $200-300 in commission.
Not doing them has not hurt my newspaper sales when other outlets have them. I just send them down to Coles and let them deal with the hassle.
Congratulations to Newscorp Adelaide for reading the Australian Newsagency Blog and acting on this point highlighted here as it has been long overlooked.
As for your question Mark, we find 90% of customers are supermarket shoppers or home delivery subscriptions who we have never seen before and can’t quantitatively say we see again. They walk to the counter, pick up the item and walk out again, no upsell at all. The other 10% are locals we see everyday. The paper sales are only marginally higher if at all so the only benefit is the $200-$300 commission on the promo items.
I agree with Bill, the promos generally coincide with a season so we cannot give extra space other than placement of the promo posters. Our aim as a business MUST be to lever the most profit out of the seasons as possible, rent doesn’t get any less if we forgo profit to sell a low margin item.
This should be a point to consider at the upcoming “thinktank”, help newsagents by having promos outside of seasons, especially if the promo has no relevance to the season. I don’t think it will affect Newscorp sales at all.
With a new HWT promo about to launch this weekend, I took the time to review paper sales during and after (2 weeks) the past 3 promotions.
There is nothing in my sales data to indicate any increase in sales, maybe a 2 or 3 % spike for the 2 weeks of the promo, then straight back to the pre-promo levels.
Some of the promo items sell ok. Never to 100% clearance.
Conclusions – 1 – Selling to the converted.
2 – At the margins on offer, overall a loss making exercise.
3 – (Personally) I’d rather the $ be spent on some better quality editorial content. That’s what I can sell papers on.
Only increase is for the promo items and accompanying newspapers. Two weeks is a stretch for most ppl who normally do not buy a paper daily.
Many customers dislike the mechanics of the promotion.
Peter if only there was more transparency about this with hard evidence from the publishers who run such promotions.