Who owns the news?
ABC’s Background Briefing team has produced an interesting program on news ownership. It’s worth a listen if newspapers and news interest you.
Limited Edition Cookies & Cream Rocklea Road
It is good to see Darrell Lea continue with their counter units. They introduced these a year ago – a departure for the company which preferred that their products were displayed on their units. The Cookies & Cream Rocklea Road at the counter shows that there is more to the Darrell Lea range than the traditional. I like that they bring in new products like this for a season. By the way, a check online revealed that Darrell Lea products have fans in the US.
Memo to newspaper publishers: Help us sell more newspapers
While newspaper publishers continue to focus attention on driving home delivery subscription sales and chasing retail sales outside the newsagency channel, I have been thinking about tactics which could be used to help drive single copy newspaper sales in Australian newsagencies.
Sure, CDs, DVDs and promotions like the Simpsons stickers drive sales, the incremental sales are more about the giveaway product than the newspaper. We need people to buy a newspaper for the newspaper itself.
I’d like to see publishers invest in the news part of newspapers. Not magazines and supplements which are more ads than content. Enough already. Here’s an idea, focus on the news. Make newspapers appealing for the news.
Once the product is more compelling, engage with newsagents in a marketing strategy to drive over the counter sales. Use the specialist retail channel for the purpose for which it was created.
Here are four newspaper marketing ideas I think are worth trying worth trying in a direct partnership between retail newsagents and newspaper publishers:
- Would you like fries with that? Offer a newspaper for half price with a lottery ticket sale. Very simple offer. Just asking the question will win some business. Kick it up a notch with a coupon for redemption within seven days for another half price newspaper from the same newsagency. The coupon could even offer a discount for each of seven days.
- Upsize Offer a customer buying a newspaper any other newspaper for half price. While publishers may argue about who pays for this, why not try the idea at least and measure consumer engagement.
- Bulk buy and save Pay today for 25 newspapers and we will give you 30. This respects the regular newspaper shopper and locks them into the newsagency. This will drive loyalty from the newsagent back to the publisher.
- Go and play Give participating newsagents, say, fifty extra newspapers a day and ask them to develop their own tactics for selling these. The key is they must sell them for something and to customers who would otherwise not have purchased the newspaper. The feedback could unlock other marketing ideas worth rolling out across the channel.
I know that publishers have considered some of these before. Indeed, I have been involved in such discussions My experience is that they over complicate single copy marketing. They let the glory of a home delivery subscription pull focus from a very different yet lucrative opportunity.
I want to sell more newspapers but I want to do it in a way which builds repeat business and which does not dilute my return from this already slim margin product.
I’d certainly like to try any or all of these ideas and I bet other retail-only newsagents would too.
Magazine publisher reduces internal competition
US publisher Conde Nast announced the closure of four of its magazines yesterday including Modern Bride. The significance of this move is indicated by the 450 stories on Google News about the announcement. Two of the four closures are wedding titles. The move ends what some consider to be self cannibalisation – Brides, another Conde Nast title is expected to benefit from less competition.
Newsagents should take a walk down their magazine aisles and consider what would happen to sales with a more efficient assortment of titles in some overloaded categories such as weddings, fashion, music, crosswords and crafts. The question I ask is whether I could achieve the sale sales with a significant cut in range. The answer, of course, is yes. The bigger question is where is the sweet spot. The follow up question is how to navigate this with the three magazine distributors here in Australia.
Promoting Zoo and playing cards
We are pitching Zoo this week next to where the title is located – at the aisle end. The collateral received with the title yesterday morning was excellent. The placement of this display is ideal and more likely to drive sales than a display which is ‘off location’ – away from where the product is located.
Zoo qualifies for counter space – thanks to the free pack of playing cards. But this does not suit our customers. Hence the display at the end of the men’s aisle. It should work well here – the display is very noticeable. The display will stay up for a week.
Promoting New Idea and CSIRO kids diet
We are promoting New Idea and the free CSIRO wellbeing plan for kids which comes with the magazine this week. The display is between our two busiest registers. It’s a good promotion since we are just out of school holidays.
The Women’s Health Diary did not work so well in this counter location. Last year it sold well on our Diary table so it goes back there.
Promoting second issue of Prevention magazine
The second issue of Prevention from Pacific Magazines went on sale today. We are repeating the promotion strategies which worked for us last month including this display with our main newspaper stand. We sold three times the initial allocation of the launch issue.
In addition to the display in the photo, we have the new issue of Prevention on display with our weekly magazines (Woman’s Day and New Idea)and in our health section.
It is good to see allocations have been increased based on sales of the first issue.
I have high hopes for Prevention because of the sales last month and the considerable marketing bidget which should drive traffic.
New crossword poster for newsagents
Click here for the free artwork for this poster promoting crosswords. The creative team at Tower Systems has put this together to help newsagents promote crosswords. It is a free service from the Tower AdvantageTM program and demonstrates the value added to the relationship with newsagents beyond newsagency management software.
Tatts jackpot confusion at 7-Eleven
I have visited four 7-Eleven stores in Melbourne over the last two days and three of them were advertising the wrong jackpot amounts for Powerball and OzLotto. One of them had the wrong jackpot amount for the Monday / Wednesday game. While I am certain that there are newsagencies demonstrating basic lack of compliance around the correct collateral, it is a surprise to see this in the usually well disciplined 7-Eleven group.
Reviewing the value of comics in a newsagency
Comics are not performing well. Not just in my newsagencies but in many for which I get to see data.
Overall, comic sales are down. Unfortunately, supply for some comics is not falling in line with the sales decline. This suggests that these suppliers are not respectful of the newsagency channel.
A consistent sell through of less than 60% means that I am losing money. Hence the decision to review supply in my own newsagencies. This means cutting some titles and resetting base supply figures for others. Based on stock I pulled off the shelf yesterday, I expect to save in the order of $500 in cash-flow.
I suspect that print comics will be an early casualty to digital platforms, certainly with the consumer (as opposed to collector) audience. iPhone apps, see here, here and here, make them readily available.
The review in our own shops will focus on selecting a range for the smaller amount of space allocated to the segment and ensuring that we are not supplied beyond this.
The saved space will be used to expand other magazine segments.
Halloween at Forest Hill
Our team at Forest Hill has created a terrific display in the window to promote our extensive Halloween range. Using some of the products we sell and collateral from newsXpress, the display draws excellent attention and, most important, sells product.
This first photo shows the display from inside the window looking out into the mall. This shows just over half the Halloween stock we have available for the season. Click on the image to see a larger version. It is a shopper-friendly display, easy to navigate.
This photo shows the Halloween window display looking from the mall into the newsagency. The reflection from the glass hides how good this really looks. It certainly draws passers-by in to see what we have on offer.
newsXpress has been promoting Halloween in newsagencies since 2005. It is good to see others getting in on this fun and retail friendly season. I know of newsagents who will sell in excess of $10,000 of Halloween product – at excellent margins.
Newsagents can own Halloween. While the majors play, we can do better thanks to easy access to suppliers with good product and our ability to embrace the season in a more practical way than you will see in a Coles or Big W. I have seen newsagency staff and customers dress up. It’s about fun after all. The newsXpress posters make that point: Scary can be fun.
Halloween is a good break in the lead up to the craziness of Christmas.
Promoting Melbourne Cup Carnival magazine
The Melbourne Cup Carnival magazine has never worked for us at Forest Hill. This year we are trying something different, we have moved it from our small racing section and placed the magazine in our women’s weeklies magazine section. This should drive impulse purchases whereas leaving it in the racing section only serves the destination purchase which history shows is small for us.
US magazine publishers to create their own iTunes?
The Financial Times and others report overnight that Time Inc is working with a group of magazine publishers in the US to create a digital store for magazines to avoid control over distribution as has happened with music through Apple’s iTunes.
The new service would serve as a digital shopfront for magazine content. Reports say it will be announced in a month. Given the growth in eReader devices, movement in the distribution of content was inevitable.
Matt Buchanan writing at Gizmodo thinks this plan by magazine publishers will fail.
Great, except that it’s not going to work. As Peter Kafka points out, they have to convince people to sign up for another service—not an easy feat if they’re already tangled up with a Kindle or Apple. Especially if this new service will be just magazines, and not include newspapers. And there’s no way Amazon or Apple will let the publishers tie a separate service into their devices, pissing in their pool.
Consumers have already gathered around iTunes, Amazon and others for digital content. Smart magazine publishers will use these established new media distribution channels rather than create something new with its own costs and marketing challenges and with a connection to old media distribution.
In this new world, as music publishers have found, content wants to be set free. Those who embrace the most flexible distribution models will prosper.
Unfortunately for newsagents, in the long term, this means we need to reinvent our businesses. And before people say I am in a gloomy mindset, no, I did say long term. Also, the change opportunities are excellent for us.
Technology companies to save newspapers?
Time has published a report about proposals from technology companies to help save newspapers in the US. While technology will play a key role in news distribution in the long term, publishers today ought to focus on their readers.
Readers buy newspapers, not advertising consumers as some publishers (and advertisers) seem to think. One only has to see how much of the overweight Saturday or Sunday newspapers is shed to see what the majority of newspaper readers want.
London’s Evening Standard to go free
After more than 180 years as a paid newspaper, the London Evening Standard will go free later this month. The Guardian has details. The newspaper’s current circulation is 250,000. They are chasing a circulation of 600,000 from the move. From what I understand, this is the first quality newspaper to adopt a free model – a significant shift in newspaper publishing and, I suspect, a seismic shift in newspaper distribution.
This is how to include a CD or DVD with a magazine
Linux magazine shows how to distribute CDs and DVDs with a magazine. Check out the latest issue. Inside the magazine you will find a CD. No plastic pack. No box glued to the front. The CD is in a slim pack in the magazine. The magazine remains browser friendly. This is a nice way for the publisher to distribute digital content and deliver a product which works for retailers and browsers. Now if only other publishers could follow this lead.
Julia Gillard – cover girl for The Monthly
We are promoting the latest issue of The Monthly next to our newspaper stand from today and for the next few days. The Julia Gillard cover looks good and should appeal to people from both sides of politics.
This is one of those covers which needs to be seen in total – rather than just the masthead as would be the case in usual magazine fixturing.
The Monthly is also a title which works better for us in a impulse location than its traditional location with news and current affairs titles.
New trader service launches in newsagencies
Overnight, a new trader classifieds service was launched in Victoria. The publisher of the Melbourne Observer launched Melbourne Trader on the 3AW Overnighters program. Reader ads have started to roll in. The newsagency distribution channel will be promoted in radio ads in the coming week. Click here for a listing of newsagents already selling the Melbourne Observer.
Given the announcement of the closure of the Trading Post, the Melbourne Trader provides Victorian newsagents with an excellent opportunity to retain and even grow classifieds business connected with the newsagency channel. I’d suggest placing the Melbourne Observer where the Trading Post usual goes as well as the existing position for the Observer.
We sell between 65 and 100 copies of the Melbourne Observer every week. It’s customers are loyal. As a publication, it supports newsagents by promoting our putaway service and through other promotions in the year. I’ll happily support Melbourne Trader.
Professional newsagency customer newsletter
Click here for a PDF version of the customer newsletter for our newsagency for October. This is available free to all customers from a stand at the front of our newsagency. We switched this more promotional style of newsletter in August. It works better promoting our offers than the more newsy style newsletter it replaced. We pitch price (ink, cards and magazines) range (cards) and being green (O’Bon pens and journals). We are pretty happy with the corporate image this presents for our business.
How bagged magazines hurt publishers
We didn’t have space for a new country title which arrived on Wednesday and had to make a decision as to which title to return early. Australian Country Collections was chosen because it took up more space than other titles as it was bagged with a giveaway. the title had been on sale for close to two months and we still had stock in three pockets. Had this issue not been bagged we could have kept ito one pocket and not returned the issue early.
September sales results
September has been an interesting month for newsagents. I have seen stores with excellent growth and others with dreadful figures. From what I see, it continues the patchy economic condidions we find ourselves in.
In our own case, we had a good month overall: books – down 17% (due to differences in sales cycles over the two years); calendars – up 14%; cards – down 16% (due to run down to a complete card relay and 25% supplier replacement yesterday); confectionery – up 2%; Gifts – up 83%; magazines – down 7%; ink – up 25%; stationery – down 24% (fluctuation in some corporate business). Overall traffic is up 3% but average sale value is down 10%.
We are moving to higher margin product and this is creating a healthier business.
In magazine categories, partworks is the big drop – if we take these out of the figures, the magazine department is down around 3%; food – down 22%, sport – down 18%; women’s interests – down 12%; women’s weeklies – down 3%; computers – down 29%; craft – down 17%.
Apple tablet to reshape how we consume news?
There has been plenty of noise online about the soon to launch Apple Mac Tablet including speculation of negotiations between magazine publishers and Apple about getting magazine content available through iTunes. PC World has a good summary of news.
Such a move is guaranteed to happen as I have noted here before. Once newspaper and magazine friendly devices appeal to consumers, publishers will embrace them. This happened with music. It makes sense.
Smart newsagents are building flexible businesses to cope with change while also working hard to make the most from print product in serving consumers who prefer this medium.
Dust storm magazine shows off innovation
Strange Light is a one-shot 40 page magazine about the dust cloud which enveloped Sydney last week. The magazine was created in a day and a half using MagCloud from Hewlett Packard. The storm occurred on September 23 and the magazine was published and available for purchase on September 25. Amazing. Read the publishers blog post about the process here.
This is an excellent example of how MagCloud and similar technology could change special interest publishing, especially around an event or a single topic.
I am grateful to Andrew Batt of Bangkok Station tipping me off to Strange Light.