The value of promoting cards outside the newsagency

Now more than at any time in our history we need to promote cards outside our businesses. We have more competitors pitching cards, more businesses taking sales from us.

Relying on a good range of cards in the card department is not enough. Expecting the card company to attract shoppers to our businesses is not a plan. No, we need to promote cards ourselves.

We need to promote cards outside our businesses. We need to do this in an entertaining and appealing way, drawing attention to our business as a place for purchasing cards.

This promotion is best done outside seasons as that is the period when we are most at risk from people shopping at competitors and from people choosing to not send a card at all.

Selecting specific cards works well too as this enables you to shine a light on cards shoppers ,may not have expected to find in your business. When I have suggested newsagents select cards for such a promotiuon they have been surprised, in a good way, at some of the cards they find.

Social media platforms like facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest lend themselves to promotion of cards. There are tools we can use to easily create visually appealing content. If you are in a marketing group they may have content you can already use.

Here is some of the card-focussed marketing material published by newsXpress this month for its members. The first is one of several new videos in-house produced promoting cards:

Here is another video, this one with a retro style:

Here are some still images for static social media use as well as use through other platforms – all promoting cards.

You can’t rely on a card company to do this as they have more customers than your business, including mass retail outlets.

Reaching outside our businesses to attract shoppers for cards is important. Not once, but regularly. We must do this to remind shoppers of the wonderful cards we have, the range and that we are local.

While you can take a photo of your card department, that will not work on social media. My experience is that it is best to focus on single cards or a caption theme, and to do this is a visually appealing way.

Doing nothing here is not an option. I suspect if you do nothing card sales will decline.

Footnote: in case you think this is promotion of newsXpress, it is not. newsXpress is a reference point for me as it is where I work, it offers examples I can speak to.