How many times do you promote your newsagency business with message similar to other retailers?
For example, promoting back to school when Officeworks, K-Mart, Big W, Staples and others are promoting Back to School means your little voice will struggle to be hears.
Promoting back to school before them or after them and you will be heard more.
Or, promoting something non back to school related during the back to school season for be even better.
This is what Renée Mauborgne, W. Chan Kim talk about in their excellent book, Blue Ocean Strategy.
Your marketing message will be more easily heard if the message does not have many competitors. I urge newsagents to think about when and what they promote, to do so in a way that is fresh and stands out.
The Hallmark Christmas keepsakes have been a hit this Christmas, attracting shoppers who previously have collected by shopping online from the US. They love that they have a local retailer then can purchase from. These are people who purchase dated keepsakes for each year – building a collection over the long term. They have been a valuable item for us this Christmas.
FYI the photo is one side of the four sided display atop the unit, showing off the keepsakes in a way that makes purchasing easy.
Limited retailer availability is key to success with the keepsakes.
Grab a magazine you sell, that you enjoy and is not available in supermarkets. Grab a coffee, or some other favourite beverage, and sit out the front of your shop or at a table in your shop for a read.
Hopefully, people engage with you while you engage with a product you sell. At the very least they see you loving something you sell.
Newsagents often ask how to promote magazines on facebook other than saying out now. Here is an example of the type of post I like. It is one I loaded this afternoon. You can see I am trying to appeal to those worried about the weight they gain over Christmas and those who like to look at nice bodies. It’s an attempt and being light-hearted.
I love this Christmas window display by one of the team members at newsxpress Middle in Ballarat, Victoria. It is inspiring as it creatively pitches a range of products for Christmas in a level of visual merchandising often only seen in major retailers.
I like that the display includes the tatts promotion on the side, maintaining the promotion obligation but doing it in a way that works with the stunning Christmas centrepiece.
Also, see the Christmas cards in the display. Showing how people use products they can purchase from you will absolutely drive sales.
I am told plenty of customers are commenting on the display. This is inspiring.
It is easy to say we small business newsagents cannot compete with major retailers like K-Mart, Target, Big W and others. While we do not have the buying power or the capacity to fund deep discounts, we have one advantage we can leverage to be competitive with the majors.
Our advantage is that we can be nimble. By this I mean we can choose when we do things – and timing can be everything.
Take this Star Wars R2D2 interactive robotic droid. K-Mart went out early with a low low price. Now that they are out of stock, we can offer the product for a good margin and achieve excellent sales.
The movie is a week away from launch and the publicity machine is in full flight. Right now is the best time to sell this R2D2 at the suggested retail price. So that is what we are doing, as part of a large in-store commitment to the Star Wars licence. We have products from five suppliers, three of whom do not usually deal with newsagents.
Our strategy of holding off our main promotion until just before the movie launches is working in-store and online. K-Mart going out early and at a low price for the hero droid product is not harmful.
All we need to be successful with an opportunity like this is between one and two weeks, the right one or two weeks in the context of the calendar followed by the majors. It’s a blue ocean opportunity – offering the products after the majors have sold out and enjoying a relatively competition-free marketplace.
This is one way we can leverage being nimble to compete with the majors. It is the type of activity the newsagency marketing groups can drive for their members – leveraging buying deals, sharing marketing plans of the majors and helping their members make the most of the opportunities that appear in cracks in the plans of the majors. Indeed, it is a valuable benefit of being in a group as especially shown through the Star Wars engagement.
Thank goodness for last minute shoppers as they are the ones who make these timing opportunities work for us.
What do you sell that you love to engage with yourself? Is there a particular magazine you enjoy reading? A particular pen you like to write with? A calendar you like so much you take it home? A newspaper you start the day with? A range of cards you love to look at and read because they inspire you?
Think about the product you sell that you enjoy and write about it on your business Facebook page and elsewhere.
Personalise your business through connecting what you enjoy with products you sell.
The more connected people feel with you the more they will trust you and trust sits at the heart of every business transaction.
Facebook has strict rules for the promotion of lottery products and the age of people you can promote any products to through your business page if you sell lottery products.
The rules are so onerous that it may be worth not losing lottery products as something you sell.
Imagine you have products that are ideal for 13 – 17 year-olds. If you have lottery products listed as something you sell, your posts will not reach 13 – 17 year olds because of the Facebook age guidelines. You can see the Facebook page term here.
I have seen retailers go from eating none in the 13 – 17 age group to reaching thousands simply by changing the mix of products they sell.
On the east coast, given that Tatts aggressively promotes its products on social media, there is no major loss in my view if you pull back from connecting with the Tatts brand from your business Facebook page.
Where can you buy dice? From a newsagency of course! Sure a toy shop may have dice as might a major like K-Mart. But good luck finding it from either. Your local newsagent is more likely to have dice and to make it easy for you to purchase. However, the newsagent is not likely to promote this in any way.
My marketing tip this week is to call out obscure items such as dice and promote then on social media and elsewhere.
Make sure you are known as the go-to retailer for hard to get and infrequently purchased items.
A test I did of this recently revealed stretch community interest in where people could reliably purchase such items.
Consider a feature somewhere in-store, away from Christmas business, promoting obscure items.
Doctor Who is one of those worldwide product licences we can use to drive traffic and revenue for the newsagency. Using the image of one of the various Doctor Who 2016 calendars, posters, figurines, books or other products we can get good traction on Facebook and elsewhere through regular posts as well as boosted posts.
We are using this to attract new shoppers to the business – and it is working. We find the best posts are those using an image like the one I have included here. It is colourful and therefore easily noticed in a Facebook feed.
Our newsagency businesses are full of licenced items like the Doctor Who calendars that we can use to drive traffic. Using them is free and takes little time. It’s no brainer marketing.
The Australian themed Christmas decorations we sourced from Gibson are popular among the early Christmas shoppers. We have had people purchasing these to send to family and friends overseas. To make the most of the opportunity we have them placed together in an Aussie Christmas section. They will sell out for sure.
We a ‘breathing’ plush dog on the corner of the Christmas display, just under the tree. It is working a treat at attracting shoppers to the business and driving sales. The small rise and fall of the dog’s chest is all it takes for this item to be a hit this Christmas.
Too often we think of marketing being advertising or some promotional activity we undertake. As our experience shows this week, product placement, of the right product, can be a valuable marketing activity.
I love the theme of the Christmas catalogue and collateral by the folks at Tech2Go, the airport based technology shops. With Christmas marketing cliched, it is good to see something genuinely different and fun. I like that they pitch everyday lines for Christmas.
Walking 400 metres or so to my car from the newsagency yesterday carrying the brightly coloured extra large plush item you can see in the photo, I was stopped twice by people asking where I bought the item.
The first to stop me was a guy looking for a present for his girlfriend and the second was from a grandmother looking for something for a grandchild. Several others along he way pointed and commented.
The experience reminded me of the opportunities we all have to show off items we sell when we carry them to our car or elsewhere. It’s like a moving billboard without clogging traffic. It provides people a safe way to ask about the item – as they will not expect a sales push.
We have these opportunities carrying products into our businesses and our from them. It works best with large bright products – like this large plush item.
Not that there is spare time in a busy day, but if there was – maybe get someone to walk around with a large item and a walking billboard. My thought here is that only a certain numb er of people near your shop enter your shop. It is likely you have items they would purchase if they knew you had them. This tip is about showing them. It only works, however, with items easily seen and understood and even then only if they can see it comes from your shop or they ask you where you ‘bought’ it.
This is a free marketing idea. You don’t have to pay a local paper, Facebook, Google or any media company to run your ‘ad’. You or someone working for you becomes the ad.
Woolworths shoppers have been venting frustration with changes to the loyalty program. The comments on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere remind of the personal connection people have with loyalty programs.
From what I understand I’d have to spend $100 a week for five weeks at Woolworths to get a free magazine whereas in my newsagency shoppers can get this value spending well under $100.
Letterboxes, local papers, radio stations and TV stations fill with advertising clutter this time of the year, much of it from advertisers with deeper pockets than small business newsagents.
This is why I recommend newsagents, especially city based newsagents, do not advertise through catalogues and in newspapers at Christmas time. I also suggest you do not discount at Christmas time.
Let your competitors drive shopper traffic. Leverage the extra traffic competitors who do advertise attract, lure people into your businesses, with stunning displays pitching appealing product. Ride on the back of the spend of others.
I am not a believer in the value of a Christmas catalogue filled with discounted gift items the shoppers these attract are less likely to be loyal through the year. Further, the catalogues from your business hit at peak catalogue season for your competitors – businesses that are regularly marketing whereas your business most likely is not.
Swim in the blue ocean that is not crowded with competitors. It is far more enjoyable.
While Halloween is still a relatively small season in Australia for some retailers, for others it is worth thousands. In my own case, it is bigger in terms of gifts and party items than Valentines Day.
Halloween is changing too. whereas in the past this season was about costumes, now it includes homewares, baked goods and plenty of premium products for premium shoppers.
Huffington Post has reported Halloween engagement in Australia is growing. I urge you to read the article.
The photo is an ad promoting Final Draft, excellent scriptwriting software for writers that I use. This is an example of a business to professional promotion around the Halloween season – showing the reach beyond dress-ups and candy.
Thinking about the Final Draft ad, newsagents could run Spooky stationery offers, Scary card deals (maybe for birthdays 50+) or Frightening party deals – for those having Halloween parties.
Halloween is an excellent opportunity for us. Now is the time to start thinking about 2016.
The announcement by Woolworths yesterday that it will replace offering Qantas points for purchases with Woolworths ‘dollars’ is one newsagents ought to take note of. The change is fundamental: points are being replaced by dollars, or, at least, something closer to dollars – that can be spent in-store.
The email from Woolworths to customers included this:
Members told us what they really want is money off their shopping, so we’ve changed points for Woolworths Dollars!
My own experience through my software company with a variety of loyalty programs including points, points for gifts, buy X and get Y (like the magazine club card), points for entries in competitions, discount vouchers offering a discount off purchases and points accruing to FlyBys and other programs is that shoppers want value now.
Value = real savings.
Now = today or at least soon.
People are tired of points based programs where the value of points is not easily understood. With good reason there is scepticism about points based programs.
For what it is worth, the discount voucher program, offering $$$ off purchases immediately, continue to work well, driving far greater value than the small cost to the business. The program continues to offer a terrific point of difference in the eyes of shoppers too. This is the closest to the Woolworths offer – except that with Woolworths you have to spend much more to get $10 in value. It does not sound all that good but compared to points it is better.
While not exactly what Woolworths is switching to, their program sounds like it will be pitched like discount vouchers – real savings available immediately.
This video I shot last year about discount vouchers is as relevant today as it speaks to how this type of loyalty offer works in a newsagency compared to the old-school points based program:
Stop any pitch that says shop here or buy me or promotes and offer or price deal. Instead, use your social media and other comms platforms to tell a story. Explain something about your shop, products you sell or your people that is unique. Share something that people reading or listening will appreciate.
Sometimes stopping the usual marketing and telling a story can get more attention than your usual marketing. This can help you as much as it helps your customers.
The bear in the photo is facing away from the shop window – and looking in the mirror. This simple placement is more effective than if the bear was staring straight out the window. It is fun and haunting, which is keeping with the Halloween theme. I love the use of the mirror. It offers a fresh approach to grabbing attention of those in the street and grabbing their attention is the first step to a sale.
I was pleased to see the manager of my newsagency embrace Back to the Future Day in the newsagency yesterday with this Facebook promotion. The Facebook post pitches relevance and fun in a way people may not expect from a newsagency. The more we engage online & offline with popular trends and events such as Back to the Future Day, the more relevant our pitch.
Halloween is a fun season. It helps you reset the business into Christmas. It is an excellent opportunity to let your hear down in the shop and in the community.
No, this is not a pagan season, something to upset religious people. It is also not a season to scare shoppers away. Done well, Halloween is a season with which you can show your business as being a fun and safe place for all – yes, including the whole family.
Even if you do not have much stock – as it is too late to buy now – you can still embrace the season.
Here are some marketing tips with which to have fun on October 31.
Have a fancy dress competition on the day.
A colouring competition for kids with a prize for the best and a charity donation to encourage engagement.
Print a recipe sheet and give this away.
Give away a Halloween cookbook.
Maybe even involve a retirement village and sponsor a ghost storytelling night in a local park.
These ideas are to get you thinking. Go on, have fun. Boo!
Promoting on the floor of the shop can work a treat in the newsagency as you connect with those who walk along looking at the ground and not up. The photo shows the floor striker supplied by the herald & Weekly Times for the new DVD promotion with the Herald Sun. We have two of these on the floor on the way to papers and then more collateral with papers. The floor sticker placements help drive awareness by the time people are at the paper stand. The shop floor is ‘free’ space and ideal for marketing certain types of lines.
