marketing tip

Rather than the usual Facebook post about a magazine with a photo of the full cover of the magazine, zoom in and show something more interesting. The photo with this post is part of the cover of the current issue of Australian Gluten Free Life. While the whole cover looks terrific, this image could gain more traction on social media.

The best way to promote magazines online is to do so in a way that reflects well on your business. A photo of a full magazine cover will not differentiate your business. This zoom-in photo of what looks like an Iced VoVo is more interesting and tasty looking.

The more different your social media posts the more interesting for people connecting with you on that platform.

People love their dogs. Pet shop owners will tell you of dog lovers who spend more of their dogs than they do on themselves. Some retailers miss the opportunity of pitching to dog lovers in their gift departments, they miss the opportunity of shopper engagement. Dog lovers engage when they see gifts representing breeds they love.

In buying products for your store, think about your customers, buy for them, buy what they love.

Your marketing message is more likely to gain traction if it is fresh rather than promoting something already well promoted. I see no value in promoting outside the business weekly magazines, lottery games or newspapers, unless there is a unique approach you can take that ill get your marketing noticed for your business.

Large front of store, front window or other marketing of these products is a waste in my view as all you are doing is adding your voice to the many voices already out there.

This sign seen by shoppers as they leave a Warhammer store is as much about promoting the business as it is appreciating the visit. It fits the business and promotes one of the characters available from the business.

Too often we see signs as signs and as not part of the narrative of the business. Warhammer shows how it is done.

Check your signs for their connection with your narrative.

The sign I saw at the counter of the coffee shop I was in was simple and to the point.

The message was a challenge and opportunity. If you are not given a receipt, your order is free.

While this is not new marketing, the language they use is more fun than similar signs I have seen.

Dear coffee lover. Look over here. Can you see me? Awesome.

The sign has fun with an important goal for this business – to give a receipt for every transaction. This goal is important where the receipt is used for more than is traditional for a receipt. If the receipt has another marketing message you’d want to get it into the hands of as many as possible – as is the case with this business I visited last week.

I love their approach and that they have turned a business objective into a cool marketing engagement.

Social media is a perfect place for connecting your newsagency business with adorable images people are certain to love. Take the dog and cat images in this post I did on Facebook a couple of days ago – they are images from greeting cards. In taking the photos I focussed on the face of each animal rather than the whole card. I figured this would gain more traction.

Sharing images that evoke a positive emotion is important in social media engagement. It is good marketing activity for the business, far more valuable than promoting products available elsewhere such as weekly magazines, newspapers or lottery products.

The more you use social media in a way that pitches you and your business as unique the better.

On my POS software company blog I posted these marketing tips for election day – suggesting easy ways small business retailers could make the most of the opportunity of the extra traffic out and about. I hope the ideas are useful to newsagents.

In writing the post I have sought to show ways we can be non-traditional so our businesses are enjoyed more and in order to provide a more memorable shopping experience.

We can’t rely on the usual for our businesses, we can;t rely on the usual shoppers. We have to find new shoppers and one of the best opportunities is when more people are out in the streets – like on election day.

Election day in Australia is a terrific opportunity for small business retailers with a spike in the number of people who are out and about. Smart retailers will embrace this opportunity as well as the opportunity of people standing in line waiting to vote and on their phone.

Here are some tips to get you thinking about marketing opportunities for any small retail business this weekend on election day:

1. Set the front of the shop so it looks completely different – make the most of the extra people out and about. You want people seeing the shop for the first time ages to be surprised at the changes.
2. Have a party. Plenty of music, activities, drinks and food. Make the day a celebration – to celebrate the end of the dreary campaign.
3. Have an election sale – but make it fun. Do better than a straight sale. For example, in good Asssie tradition call it keeping the bastards honest sale.
4. Setup sale tables in the name of local candidates.
5. Give a discount to any customer who tells you and everyone in the shop a joke about politicians.
6. Have a game of pin the tail on the politician in the shop.
7. Declare the shop an election free zone. Maybe have a fine jar for anyone talking about the election on the day – raise money for a local charity.
8. Promote your business online all Saturday with a series of social media posts so those out and about in lines waiting can see you are engaged.

All these ideas are about having fun on the day and offering a different shopping experience to usual. We hope they get yo8u thinking of what you could do, thinking of ideas of your own.

Here at Tower Systems we are not your usual POS software company. We are engaged with our customers deeply on a range of fronts to help them enjoy their businesses more and to get more from their businesses every day. In addition to excellent POS software for specialty retail businesses, we provide business management advice and support – way beyond the POS software itself.

Whatever you do this election day, have fun.

The best newsagency marketing campaign on right now is the Pacific Magazines newsagency channel exclusive $150,000 competition. If you are not actively promoting this in your business you are missing the opportunity. In-store, on social media, through flyers to shoppers in your area – this campaign is one to leverage as it separates your business from Coles and Woolworths. Pacific is promoting the competition widely – your engagement leverages this.

I continues to be surprised at how much time newsagents spend marketing lottery games, newspapers and the top selling magazine titles on social media and other marketing platforms for their businesses.

This marketing is not differentiating for your business.

The only time I see value in promoting a lottery game, scratch ticket, a newspaper or top-selling magazine is when the context of the marketing message is unique to your business. That uniqueness could be convenience of the shop, the hours or some other genuinely unique factor.

Unless there is a unique factor to offer context, the marketing of the lottery game, newspaper or magazine is not useful to your business.

For every social media post or every ad, you have to ask: what does this say about us?

Some of our national suppliers have been good at training us to promote their brands in a way that is not unique to us. That has to change with their products now widely available on many different retail businesses.

Some smart and engaged local newspapers and magazines actively support their display advertisers with a promise to share Facebook posts and re-tweet tweets.

What this means is you run an ad and beyond the ad itself, what you post on social media can reach a wider audience as they promote you.

In one situation recently a newsagent reached 500 people on their business Facebook page and the share by an engaged local publisher helped them reach another 6,000. That single share brought in excellent new traffic business.

Sometimes, the value of an ad spend comes not from the ad itself.