Has old media given up?
Good piece by David Kirkpatrick, FORTUNE senior editor, at Yahoo Finance.
What is the News Ltd strategy for newsagents?
I’ve been thinking more about the deal between News Limited and Gloria Jeans to sell their newspapers in the coffee outlets. Much has been made of leveraging off the “coffee experience†in pursuit of incremental sales for News. My feeling is that News sees newsagents playing less and less of a role in the retailing of their product. News has a right to draw such a conclusion and make appropriate changes to their retail strategy. However, as a newsagent partner I’d like them to let me know because in my small business I and my team are busy chasing same store growth. We’re winning too. Our biggest competitors and the outlets News is supporting with its initiatives.
I invite News Limited to engage in open dialogue about the role they see for newsagents in the future. Not through newsagent industry associations which are likely to filter information (like the Australian Newsagents Federation did in yesterday’s Gloria Jeans announcement). No, News should to talking direct with newsagents so that newsagents are appropriately informed when making business decisions. For example, Victorian newsagents are being told to put in a newspaper stand which costs upward of $3,000. Why invest such capital in a product being pushed to more and more retail outlets?
I know from my own experience that I can get a much better sales kick from a $200 stand than I would from the $3,000 stand.
Good luck to Gloria jeans. I just wish News would work more strategically with newsagents.
UK publisher calls for financial support for newsagents
The Guardian carries a story reporting that former UK Deputy Prime Minister and owner of Haymarket Publishing Group, Lord Heseltine, is urging the magazine industry to provide financial support for local newsagents. The story says, in part:
The former deputy prime minister believes that the industry should raise an “administrative levy” to help independent retailers sell more of their magazines.
Although the details of such a fund are still to be worked out, Ian Locks, chief executive of the Periodical Publishers’ Association, said Lord Heseltine’s suggestion had “a lot of support”.
Newsagents in Australia are challenged in carrying magazines which their competitors choose not to carry. We know from recent cash-flow research that around 65% of titles are cash-flow negative. Any support from publishers to underpin the viability of such range in retail would encourage newsagents who might otherwise be looking to reduce range. It will be interesting to see if Lord Heseltine’s proposal gains traction in the UK.
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Newspapers and coffee
A few hours after my post this morning about how newspaper publishers might be damaging the golden goose by pursuing petrol and coffee outlets for newspaper sales, News Limited issued a press release trumpeting their relationship with Gloria Jeans. My view is that the News Ltd strategy is flawed on several fronts. It disrespects and diminishes the value of the newsagent retail channel and it increases browse without increasing sales.
In a newsagency newspapers are the premier product whereas in Gloria Jeans they are the low GP add on. Newsagents actively promote newspapers and all their promotions. At Gloria Jeans promotions will always be about margin, that is, coffee.
I don’t see the sense in creating specialist retailers (which newspapers did in newsagents in the 1800s) and then bring about their break up by facilitating more competition through deals like this one with Gloria jeans.
While News needs to put the needs of its shareholders first, newsagents need to do the same. This decision by News will make newsagents question the News commitment to the newsagency channel. News will make more if the release newsagents from stifling rules and reward newsagents for above average growth. Many newsagents will become entrepreneurial if these changes were made and the result would be solid sales growth.
Here’s the full press release.
Newspapers and coffee
Monday April 10, 2006.Coffee and newspapers in the morning – it’s a combination that’s hard to beat. Now News Limited and Gloria Jean’s Coffees have teamed up to make it an even more irresistible way to start the day.
From today (Monday, April 10) The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Weekend Australian and The Sunday Telegraph will be for sale in over 120 Gloria Jean’s coffee houses across NSW.
This national program will see the 174 Gloria Jean’s coffee houses in other states progressively start to sell The Australian, The Weekend Australian and the News Limited metropolitan and regional newspapers in their area over the next six months.
“This deal gives the readers and coffee drinkers what they want,†said News Limited circulation director, Mr Mark Webster.
“Recent consumer research has identified that the growing numbers of Australian coffee drinkers are significant newspaper buyers and that at the same time, drinking coffee while reading the newspaper is a habitual pleasure. It is a formidable combination.â€
Gloria Jean’s Coffees is wholly Australian-owned and locally operated. It is the country’s largest specialty coffee retailer, and was recently awarded Australian ‘Franchisor of the Year’. Gloria Jean’s Coffees expert baristas serve nearly 1 million customers a week – whose favourite drinks are cappuccinos, lattes and gourmet iced chocolates.
More than 9,515,000 Australians aged 14 and over read at least one News Limited national, metropolitan or regional newspaper each week.
“Through our partnership with News Limited, we are enhancing the ‘coffee moment’ experience at Gloria Jean’s Coffees,†said Gloria Jean’s Coffees Australia CEO, Mr. Mike Devlin.
“Our coffee houses are a community meeting place where people come together to share delicious hand-crafted coffee in a warm, ambient setting and escape the daily grind. Now they can also relax with the very best in news, views, gossip and sport in Australia and from around the world.â€
Mrs Rayma Creswell, CEO of the Australian Newsagents Federation, said the federation supported the initiative. Newsagents will have the opportunity to grow their overall sale by exclusively supplying Gloria Jean’s Coffee houses within their territories and sharing commissions as they currently do with other sub-agents such as service stations, convenience stores and supermarkets.
“We support this because it ensures newsagents will continue to play a pivotal role in the newspaper supply chain. This opportunity provides the majority of newsagents with opportunities for growth in their overall sales. This is about meeting consumer need, it’s about reacting to consumer trends and it’s about ensuring that we maintain involvement and grow our businesses – businesses we rely upon as a cornerstone to long term sustainability,†said Mrs Creswell.
Mark Webster said the goal was to make newspapers more accessible to consumers.
“We expect to increase impulse sales by encouraging new readers to give our newspapers a go whilst also increasing the frequency of sales to existing casual readers. Newsagents, News Limited, Gloria Jeans Coffees and our customers should all benefit from this initiative,†he said.
Why newsagents are better for newspapers than petrol and coffee retailers
Some newspaper publishers in Australia are aggressively pursuing petrol and coffee outlets as part of their retail strategy, to the detriment of their relationships with newsagents. This is a mistake and this past weekend is perfect evidence of this.
Buying coffee is a leisure activity. It’s discretionary. Depending on the queue, I can satisfy my interest in news by browsing the newspapers as I wait. No purchase necessary. Also, since I am on the go, I’m less likely to buy a newspaper to juggle with the coffee.
Buying petrol makes me grumpy with the prices rising and falling as a mark of how far the oil companies think they can dupe the government. (Not a big challenge based on pre-Easter prices.) I’m not happy by the time I get inside to pay and face a long line of people who are usually paying with a card and therefore further delaying me. Newspapers are more often than not near this line and there is no push for me to consider the purchase – they prefer to push, push and push candy.
In a newsagency I’m in the purpose built retail space for newspapers. The newspapers are better displayed. Newsagents actively engage with in-store promotions. The overall environment is more conducive to supporting newspapers. Take this past Saturday for example. Thanks to the $21 million super draw newsagencies had more of a carnival atmosphere. There were plenty of happy shoppers thanks to the possibility of them winning $21 million. This happy demeanor means they spend more and newspapers are one category to benefit.
Newspaper publishers ought to try harder to re-connect with newsagents. They have a better opportunity for growth from their existing partners than trying to create a new relationship with more demanding corporates like petrol and coffee chains.
Beading is the new scrapbooking – magazine sales strong
There is no magazine category more attuned to fashion than crafts. For ages it was quilting and then scrapbooking took over as the popular segment in the category. Now it is beads magazines. Sales are very strong thanks to new titles and the phenomenal growth of beads at retail – Kleins, Diva and others. Smart newsagents will use the bead magazines to anchor the craft area to make it more appealing as well as co-locating the titles at the counter. We’ve been doing this in my newsagency in recent weeks with excellent success.
This is where newsagents can excel – driving what other retailers would consider ‘fringe’ titles to underscore newsagents as having the depth of range to satisfy interests in areas such as beading.
Craft magazine customers are more likely to buy more than one title compared to most other category customers.
Scrapbook titles did well for two years and is still reasonably strong. Let’s hope beading stays popular just as long.
Who owns the maps wins
The Telstra owned Sensis owns what many online developers consider to be the best online mapping data and this means that if you want your site to offer the best mapping interface you’ll need to deal with Telstra. My only concern with this is for those businesses seeking to compete with Telstra’s Trading Post and other businesses. You’re having to support your competitor in order to get close to their capabilities. Sure it’s businesses and maybe I need to get over it. However, that a competitor can present a barrier and risk in such a way is concerning at least. While others are in the mapping space for some reason they don’t offer the quality of the Telstra mapping data.
Theft in newsagencies: it’s the women!
Talk to any newsagent and they will tell you that teenage boys are those most likely to steal products. The data suggests otherwise. Women’s magazines are stolen more often and I’d bet that these are being stolen by women and not teenage boys. Sure there are adult magazine plastic covers left on the floor, but Woman’s Day and New Idea have no plastic cover so the only evidence is in the data and few newsagents look at theft data to understand the nature of the problem. Women and tidy thieves too, they leaf little in the ay of tracks. Boys rifle through adult, sports and computer magazines and make it look life a theft scene but the reality is these categories generate less theft for newsagents.
Newsagents and a response to publishers
Some newsagents have been discussing how the channel could/should respond to the story in Crikey yesterday newspapers taking their brand online and mobile. Newsagents were created by publishers and are feeling somewhat left out of future plans by publishers. I posted a response to the email based discussion and thought I’d post it here as it covers some of the areas I’ve blogged about in recent times:
Our three key traffic areas are newspapers, lotteries and magazines.
Newspapers are reinventing themselves based on US and European experience. This reinvention is in pursuit of the online and print customer. Online they are acquiring businesses left right and centre. Offline they are developing new direct channels – petrol, coffee. While newsagents will remain important to them, they are not where they expect to achieve growth. Publishers will disagree but time will prove this assessment right. For our part we need to reinvent how we retail newspapers. This means breaking some rules. Smart marketing groups like newsXpress provides members with strategies which are boosting newspaper sales.
Lotteries are moving online. Tattersalls is there and have been for close to a year. It’s their biggest growth area. LotteryWest has announced and Golden Casket is online too. This will have a bigger impact on our stores than the newspaper online play. We can respond through exceptional service and providing product offerings not available online. Now more than ever we need to be exceptional retailers at the lottery counter.
Magazines are playing online too. Look at www.explode.com.au, www.vogue.com.au, www.zooweekly.com.au, www.cosmosmagazine.com.au. These websites demonstrate a focus on online compared to the newsagent channel. I don’t begrudge what they are doing – it’s smart for their businesses. Our response on magazines has to be to demand more equitable supply arrangements. The current model is broken and we are bearing the cost. Magazine sales will rise and fall for a few years yet before we see a significant drop in all but the major weekly and monthly titles. Newsagents need to focus on these popular titles now. Spending time of fringe titles provides a lower return. My magazines were up 22% in March 05 compared to 04. That’s in an old shopping centre. There are strategies which work.
There are ways newsagents can respond to these and other challenges. The scope of change we are confronting is equivalent to a business tsumani. We can see it coming and have seen it for some time. My pitch is that we get on a surfboard and rise the wave. No one is going to protect us. No one is going to fling is a life raft. Our suppliers must do what is right for their shareholders. Newsagents need to do what is right for their businesses. They need to embrace change for their benefit. I am happy to be an investor in newsagencies because the future is bright. This is why I joined newsXpress and have invested in the group. Newsagents have other options. To do nothing might give you some nice pictures of the tsunami wave coming in but you’ll have no-one to show them to.
Rather than the fluff at the ANF Hamilton Island Conference, the ANF ought to have invested equivalent dollars in mini conferences around the counter closer to newsagents so these issues can be discussed and strategies is response developed. Newsagents crave practical ideas they can implement today. If I want to feel warm and fuzzy I’ll cozy up to an open fire with a bottle of red.
Another free home delivery paper in the US
The Baltimore Examiner, the latest FREE home delivery daily in the US, is delivered daily to 250,000 homes – more than the 169-year-old Baltimore Sun. This strategy of free home delivery newspapers is scaring some publishers. The strategy seems to be working for consumers and advertisers. The Examiner owners have registered in 60 US cities. More at the Wall Street Journal.
Memo to newspaper publishers: lotteries work better than coffee
We’re in lottery heaven at the moment in Australia – from a retailers perspective. Powerball is $6 million, Tattslotto (Saturday) is $21 million, Super 7 OzLotto is $10 million. These are ALL jackpots and they’re driving bonus traffic to newsagencies across the counter. I’d say traffic is up 25% on regular times. So, while newspaper publishers are in a lather over how to leverage the latte traffic through their deals with Starbucks and Gloria Jeans, they could be making more by working with newsagents to achieve incremental sales at their lottery counters. The lottery counter is where the action is. Upselling is easy. All newsagents need is the right sales levers and incentives to pursue the opportunity.
Customers in denial over Herald Sun price rise
It’s ten days since the Herald Sun increased by 10 cents to $1.10 (for the Monday to Friday edition) and customers still come in, lay $1.00 on the counter and walk out. You can almost see them walk fast in the hope of you not noticing their scam. When you call them back they claim no one told them of the price rise. Based on past experiences this game will continue for another couple of weeks.
Visits to US newspaper sites grow 21% in 2005
Newspapers Association of America has released a report which says unique visitors to newspaper sites jumped 21 percent from January 2005 to December 2005 and that the number of page views soared by 43 percent over the same period.
Tattersalls pushing online lottery sales in competition with the retail network
Tattersalls is emailing its online customers to drive sales for this Saturday’s $21 million super draw. I’d prefer they invest their marketing dollars to drive consumers to their retail network of accredited representatives and not the Tattersalls owned online outlet. Tattersalls has excellent coverage through its retail network and there is no need for it to build an online presence other than to compete with the retail network. It’s retail partners have invested heavily in shop fits, employee training and brand building.
Celebrity magazines moving online
This story from Mediweek claims that US celebrity magazines are about to significantly ramp up their online presence. As better mobile devices become available and a viable advertising offering emerges for publishers and advertisers over the counter will suffer at the hands of online. While publishers will disagree, logic dictates that moves like those forecast in the Mediweek story have to be considered in the context of the best revenue model for publishers. This means online, ultimately.
Footnote: This story from the New York Times is also on the same topic and talks about Conde Nast beefing up online presence for some of its titles.
The economics of newsstands – a rare insight into the mind of a ‘fringe’ magazine publisher
The publisher of The Perl Review, has blogged about the economics of retail sales of magazines, providing a rare insight into the mind of a publisher and what I’ll call a ‘fringe’ title. Fringe titles are those outside the top 500 or so magazines. They are the titles the major retailers (supermarkets, convenience chains, petrol chains) refuse to carry.
You’ll see from the post below how this publisher justifies losing money on newsstand sales on the basis of boosting subscription sales. This strategy has been a regular complaint of newsagents – that publishers push product to their shelves just to promote subscription sales. It’s a strategy vigorously refuted by publishers.
The words below from the publisher of The Perl Review speak for themselves. My comments follow.
The Economics of Newsstands
Powell’s Technical Books in Portland (that’s the one on 33 NW Park Avenue) is going to carry The Perl Review. It’s our first newsstand distribution.I had to set a newstand price. The deal basically works like this: bookstores keep most of the profit. Magazines make money when the single-issue buyers turn into subscribers. After Powell’s cut, which we set at 40%, and my costs, $2 an issue, I have to figure out a price that also motivates people to give the money to The Perl Review directly instead of the book store. That’s why you see big discounts for magazines when you subscribe: that’s the real price, and everything else is markup. The Powell’s price ends up being $5, which is 50 cents more than the subscription price.
That’s not to say that newsstands are bad. It’s like better-than-free advertising since it sits on the shelf and I cover my costs plus a little more for every issue sold.
Forget about absolute numbers for a moment. At my price point, if they sell 75% of the copies, I break even. That would be fine with me because any copy sitting on the actual magazine display means people see that issue. Some might subscribe later even if they don’t buy it. Now that I have a price point, I have to figure out the right number of issues. That’s something I just have to guess.
I left 16 copies of the Spring 2005 issue, but I also have to consider that I sold about 10 at the Intermediate Perl book signing. We’ll see how that goes.
Now, a good magazine accountant has to keep track of the actual number of newsstand sales too. As much as I’d like to pretend that we sell every single copy, the Post Office wants to know where all the issues went to verfiy that we abide by all the periodical rules. It’s not enough for the newsstand to simply tell me what they sold. They certainly aren’t going to tell me they sold everything when they didn’t since that’s money out of their pocket. They can’t really tell me they sold nothing because that’s money out of my pocket.
If you’re a late night person living in a city, you might have seen a bunch of guys tearing off the front pages of newspapers and magazines. Instead of sending back the unused copies, they send back the cover (and they do that for books too). Every cover they don’t send back is a sale that they owe me money for.
You might think those unsold issues represent lost money, but they really don’t. They are a sunk cost, meaning that I would have spent that money regardless of the sales. That starts way back at the printers when I have to decide how many issues I want. That number includes all subscriptions, complimentary copies, samples to user groups, and all the issues I’ll need to fulfill orders for back issues. Not only that, but the more copies I print, the lower the incremental cost (the cost per each copy). Each printing job has a fixed overhead for the job preparation, machine set-up, and so on. That’s the make ready. I end up printing many more copies than I need, partly to amoritize the make ready. Not selling at the newsstand is slightly better than not selling while sitting in boxes in the office. At least people see them at the newsstand.
Remember that magazines make money on subscriptions, so that’s the goal. I don’t care about selling more at the newsstands. If someone subscribes because they see an issue on the newsstand, the profit from the subscription pays for about three unsold newsstand copies, so five subscriptions from people seeing the issue at Powell’s would make up for no sells. That’s just breaking even, and nobody makes any money. That also means I’m spending $6 to get a new subscriber.
If you’re already despondent, you don’t want to read about distributors. Most bookstores don’t want to deal with every individual publisher. They’d have to keep track of a separate deal for every magazine. Instead, they want to deal with a single source in the same way they deal with books. I know my costs, and I know the newsstands cut, and I have a price point that I can’t change to much because people won’t buy it at too high a price. If I use a distributor, perhaps to get into the big chain book stores, they are going to want a big cut too. I’ll end up either breaking even or losing money on every newsstand copy, and I’ll want to convert that to a subscription as soon as possible. That’s why you see so many wonderful subscription cards in the magazines.
So far I’ve just talked about money from sales. We can also sell advertising, which we do for the special friends of the Perl community. Since magazines know they are going to lose money at the newsstand, they make up the difference with paid advertising. Ever wonder why magazines such as Wired are mostly advertisements? That’s making up for the money they’ll lose on the newsstands. Remember when I talked about keeping track of the number of copies sold? Advertisers want to know those numbers. They don’t care how many copies the newsstand bought. They care about the number of copies that shoppers bought. That sets the rate at which the magazines can sell ads. More eyeballs equal more dollars. There’s a separate industry of companies that audit magazines to verify the numbers. That’s even more money that gets sucked away.
The short story? Subscribe to the magazines you like. It’s the only way they can survive.
Considering these comments from the publisher of The Perl Review in the context of Australian newsagencies, there is evidence to support his views. One only has to look at the number of subscription cards, placed loose, in magazines. Often three or four cards. Especially in the Special Interest magazines – crafts, hobby, science, cars, music etc.
Subscriptions are more lucrative than over the counter sales otherwise publishers of the fringe publications would not push them so hard. The magazine supply model in Australia provides a low cost low risk distribution channel for fringe publishers. They can get their titles into thousands of shops with the retailer carrying the risk of customer theft. It puts their masthead in the right interest category and in front of, potentially, millions of eyeballs. That exposure has to rub off. We know from the blog post that the publisher of The Perl Review would only do this to support subscription sales.
Newsagents don’t get any share of subscription sales. Nor are they compensated for the use of their real-estate or labour. While this is okay for the top 200 or so titles, it is at the other end of magazine titles that the publisher’s intent and strategy are crucial.
The magazine supply model in Australia was created back when the industry was regulated under ACCC authorisation. Someone forgot to reconsider the model when it was deregulated by the Federal Government under the watchful eye of the ACCC in 1999.
The golden goose (the newsagency channel) is suffering from an out of date supply model and under the weight of fringe titles being distributed by publishers who think like the publisher of The Perl Review.
Australia discovers citizen journalism (at last)
It’s interesting to read that our TV networks are embracing citizen journalism concepts to attract content. We’re only 18 months behind the rest of the world. Check out this (incomplete) list of Citizen Journalism initiatives in the US.
Content is king to any media outlet. Good content. This means professional filtering if the citizen generated content is to be on the same platform as professionally generated content.
University students and the newspaper deal my customers miss out on
University students can get daily newspapers on campus for an annual fee of between $7.00 and $20.00. At the start of the school year they buy a card and show that when they visit the campus bookshop (or some other central location depending on the campus) to collect their newspaper.
While I support the strategy of getting university students in the habit of reading the newspaper daily, it frustrates me that I don’t have a similar year in advance offering I can make to my customers. I am sure that if newsagents had an over the counter paid in advance offering they could lock in customers. I am not proposing $7.00 for a year of newspapers. No, the fee to a newsagent customer could be closer to the home delivery subscription offer which is generously discounted.,
I recall discussing this with a newspaper circulation executive in the early 1990s. His only concern was tracking the collection of the paper by the right customer. I know that at the universities they are not even verifying student cards. It is easy for one card to be shared among many since the subscriber card is not looked at.
In newsagencies it would be easy to give customers a card with a barcode and to scan that barcode each day to track that only one newspaper is collected.
Newsagents and newspaper publishers know that subscription customers are, in the main, loyal. Not addressing the loyal over the counter customers leaves their business vulnerable from a newsagent as well as publisher perspective.
Local, local, local, Google beefs up local advertising offering.
Local is the online advertising game in town as this story from ClickZNews reports. Advertisers can have their business displayed on a local map along with an appropriate image. The Google page describing the service can be found here. It’s an enhancement to the AdWords service which local businesses will want to embrace and which puts static local newspaper advertisements under more pressure. It will be interesting to watch the Google roll out in Australia.
Newspaper flat wrap home delivery trial
I was fortunate to see a presentation from Simon Coulter, a newsagent in Queensland, on the trial he has been participating in with News Ltd in the delivery of flat wrapped newspapers. Simon was speaking last week at the Queensland Newsagents Federation state conference. Simon has declared flat wrap a success and he’s sticking with the $15,000 flat wrap machine to prepare newspapers for his home delivery customers.
Simon compared the flat wrap machine to a half fold machine and the more traditional tightly rolled machine. The flat product, while slower to deliver, resulted is considerably superior consumer experience. The newspaper is delivered to the home as good as it was coming off the press.
The key issue is one of cost. Flat wrap is more expensive in terms of equipment needed and the labour required at various points along the way. The current newspaper home delivery fee structure controlled by the publishers does not provide enough for most newsagents to make money with the lower cost rolled model let alone coping with the higher costs of the flat wrap model. If the fee structure can be addressed consumers cold be closer to flat wrap newspapers arriving on their front lawn.
I’m glad that News Ltd has facilitated this trial. It’s now time for action of the delivery fee structure so that newsagents with larger deliver areas can make the move to a flat wrap model if they choose. It is anachronistic that publishers control the delivery fee newsagents are able to charge and that this fee is set at the state level.
The big questions about flat wrap home delivery of newspapers are:
Who owns the delivery package? Will newspaper publishers allow newsagents to deliver other items in the bag?
Where will flat wrap paper have to be delivered? Will the driveway or just inside the property be acceptable? Or, will a doorstop delivery be required?
Will newsagents be allowed to have overprinting on the bag?
Will newsagents be allowed to deliver more than one newspaper per package?
Will newsagents be allowed by newspaper publishers to charge more for the service?
I like flat wrap delivery of newspapers. As long as the rolled product is delivered I will not get my papers home delivered. As soon as my local newsagent bring flat wrap in I’m happy to sign up. To me, it’s all about the consumer experience.
Publishers ought to allow newsagents to generate additional revenue and to charge a premium fee and reward newsagents based on sales growth. The right commercial levers will see flat wrap as a success story in suburban situations where it’s use is most appropriate.
Will flat wrap sell more newspapers? I doubt it. However, it improves enjoyment for consumers and this will stem sales losses and facilitate switching casual purchase to home delivery.
More UK lad’s magazines moving to the top shelf
The National Federation of Retail Newsagents has now published its guidelines for handling magazines with covers which may be offensive. Given the negative feedback some newsagents have received from customers on Explode, Picture, People, FHM and Ralph, it would be appropriate for Australian industry associations to consider similar guidelines or to at least discuss the situation with publishers. I’m not sure what I would do. I have had customers complain to me but then if I hide the titles I know sales will tank. It’s a challenge but cannot be ignored.
An update on the Australia Post magazine rumor
The rumor I first reported here several months ago speculating that Australia Post is investigating publishing a weekly magazine has made its way to me again. This time the suggestion is a monthly targeted at women – maybe leveraging an existing title? I think the rumor is part of the Australia Post strategy to gain magazine publisher interest in carrying magazines in Post Offices. Someone in Minister Coonan’s office needs to read the Act again, especially the section detailing what Australia Post can do.
Another publisher says embrace the internet
Mike Burgess, the wireless editor of London-based Emap Interactive, is quoted in this MediaWeek story (subscription required) as saying that an online strategy is crucial for magazine publishers. He outlined three key areas of a successful multimedia strategy: community, customization and user-generated content. This is exactly what we are seeing in Australia with successful online strategies from magazine publishers of titles such as Vogue, Explode, Better Homes and Gardens, ZOO Weekly and FHM.
I know of some newsagents who would rather magazine publishers ignore any online activity. My view is that it’s important for the brand and in most cases will not, in the medium term, take sales from retail. In fact, watching online activity is providing my shop with opportunities for in-store tie-ins since we have an internet terminal and can use this to connect the online with offline.