While Coles supermarkets may gave the fancy, season specific, stand, there is nothing stopping newsagents pitching gift cards with Mother’s Day cards, especially gift cards for their own business.
Gift cards are an easy gift for this season of notoriously last-minute clueless male shoppers.
I share this photo as inspiration to engage with the gift card opportunity in the newsagency.
Telling a in retail story is like 1 + 1 + = 5. This card, by itself, in the usual card display will do okay. The Olaf plush item in the usual plush display will do okay. The Olaf key chain, too, by itself will do oaky. Placed together, for impulse purchase impact, and they sell very well, and easily, as a pack.
We make our own success as retailers through the strategic and tactical decisions we make in our businesses every day.
Here is an approach that I have found works well when promoting special interest magazines on social media.
Special interest magazine shoppers are valuable as they are more likely to make other purchases and they are more loyal. This is what basket data show.
So, which the 25% gross profit not what we need, at least with special interest titles you can drive a greater whole of customer value.
Using photos of parts of a cover like this is, in my experience, more useful than a full magazine cover.
People will travel a distance to purchase a title covering an interest they have.
This type of post works for me. I think it could work in any size or location business with the right facebook post reach parameters.
Australians are searching Harry and Meghan in good numbers. Here is the number of times each is currently being searched each month through Google in Australia:
This is rom verified search data.
You can position your newsagency business to leverage this with tactical inshore placement of magazines featuring them, running related in-store marketing and engaging on social media around the impending wedding.
If you are in a marketing group you should already know this and have been receiving information for months. That is what we have been doing with newsXpress.
The Pacific Magazines Nexus program is promoting in-store engagement with some excellent opportunities, which I encourage Nexus members to engage with.
If the royal wedding is not part of your marketing plan I urge you to make it so. The commercial value is set to be c considerable.
School holidays are a wonderful opportunity its for finding new shoppers for your business.
To win new customers you have to act different to what you have done, you have to pitch your business in fresh ways and to people who otherwise may not have seen your business or considered your business.
But most of all, to make the most from school holidays, you need to have fun!
Here are marketing suggestions to help school holidays be more valuable for your newsagency. They are just some of the ideas you could embrace. Hopefully, you will think of plenty for yourself.
These ideas are designed to help you create a business during any holidays period that is looked at differently to the rest of the year, to help you gain a reputation as the best school holidays place locally.
I received this A5 double-sided flyer from Woolworths at my software company Monday this week. It is another piece of business to business marketing from them, the second I have received this year already.
Promoting to local businesses is important. As Woolworths shows in their offer, the actual offer does not need to be substantial. The most important part of the business to business offer is ease of transacting.
Make it easier for local businesses to get supplies from you and you are more likely to get the business.
I like the idea of a professional flyer as it is a low cost way to reach businesses in an area. If you decide to go this route, the flyer had to be professional, contain an engagement offer and easy to read and understand.
I know of newsagents who visit local businesses, pitching for their business. While I think a personal touch like this is important, it is not as efficient as a flyer pitch where you can reach many businesses for a lower cost. Does this mean you should stop visiting? No! Add a flyer to the marketing mis and maybe this will lift the success rate of your business visits.
If I was doing a flyer like this in my business, my flyer would pitch:
The flyer would be different to the slick corporate flyer from Woolworths. I’d try and tap into the local small business emotion without being ham-fisted about it.
I think this type of flyer is vital for retail businesses in the high street, not in a busy shopping mall. These high street businesses often have a traffic challenge already. The flyer is a vital way of reaching outside the business to find those valuable new shoppers. A business is a very valuable new shopper.
The Woolworths flyer was, to me, a reminder that all businesses need to promote their businesses outside their business, to reach out and attract new shoppers, some of whom will never actually personally shop in the business.
Warning because here comes a newsXpress pitch: The newsXpress newsagency marketing group provides a flyer template for its members, so they can create a personal, professional, flyer in a couple of minutes for their business without any graphic design skills. This is what marketing groups do to help newsagents find new shoppers.
All of us in business want to connect with major holidays, for business and for community connection. It is challenging with holidays meaning different things to different people.
Australia Day is challenging as we learn more of what happened on that day, especially that is marked the start of the systematic reduction of the 700,000 aboriginal population down to 70,000.
Without wanting to enter the politics of change the date, through my newsXpress business and my POS software business we sought to recognise the day in two different ways, away from the usual green and gold and barbie approach.
The reaction to each was terrific. We received some wonderful feedback.
I have written this post in the context of earlier posts about the need for us to evolve how we pitch our businesses. This involves us playing beyond the traditional, giving people other reasons to consider us.
POS software can be pretty boring, especially to small business retailers who are passionate about their family and about their specific type of business.
The marketing folks at my newsagency software company, which also develops and sell software for other specialty retail channels, create social media posts to reach out to retailers who might not look at a traditional POS software ad.
I share some of the images here as inspiration as they reflect ways to change how a traditional business might be considered.
There are many tools available today that enable businesses to create visual messages like these. While it takes creativity to come up with the ideas, execution is easier than ever.
News outlets and some social media commentators / consultants have been saying the sky is falling following the announcement from Facebook last week of planned changes to their news feed algorithm.
As often the case, plenty has been said about what might be. I think we are better off waiting to see what actually happens, how the algorithm changes actually play out. Once we see those facts those of us who make active, daily, use of Facebook for our businesses can adjust accordingly.
Facebook is a business. It’s sole focus is share price. Share price is driven, in part, by revenue. Revenue is tied back to boosted posts and advertising. Advertisers will spend money if they can make money.
While we need to wait and see, I suspect facebook will ensure it has a healthy revenue model. That benefits those of use who use the platform commercially.
In the meantime, no, the sky is not falling.
newsXpress yesterday kicked off a national TV campaign promoting jigsaws. 93% of purchases with jigsaws have only one jigsaw in the basket. The goal o the TV campaign, in-store promotion and social media engagement is to drive basket depth – in addition to making newsXpress stores destination stores for jigsaws.
Last year, jigsaw sales increased by more than 10% in Australia, off a strong base. Jigsaw shoppers are loyal.
The more newsagency businesses are promoted outside what have been traditional traditional traffic attracting offers for the channel the better.
One of the easiest ways to attract a new shopper into any retail business is to pitch products that connect with passion(s), theirs or those for whom they purchase gifts. Some passions are easy to spot while others are obscure.
Once you have found products that can tap into a passion, like Kombi vans, the best marketing approach is too pitch outside the business, using social media. I have found a simple post with a good image can be widely shared. better still, I have found it can generate net new traffic for the business.
The success of this marketing approach starts with sourcing products that connect with passions.
Remember, your key target is the shopper buying for the person with the passion.
Packaging items together to create a unique item is a terrific way to position your business away from others with similar products.
While other retailers may sell journals, erasers, pencils, rules and similar products. Only you might have the items in a package under a name you created. The photo shows how a premium stationery brand does this.
You can create a unique package with what you have in your shop today. You could package together based on function, colour, brand or more.
For what it is worth, I think packaging by colour is a good starting point.
A small business retailer told me last week they were paying a social media consultant $500 a month for Facebook and Instagram posts. The agreement called for two posts a week. The consultant overdelivered with there to each platform a week.
Six months in to the agreement and the retailer was concerned as they were not seeing any result in revenue.
While the likes for posts were good and likes for the business Facebook page had grown considerably, there was no tangible benefit, no new faces, no in-store mentions of the posts.
In my opinion, social media posts are best if they come from within the business, are simple, entertaining and serve to pitch the business against whats people would assume the business to offer.
Paying a consultant to write posts is dead money as no one can speak for your business sin such an immediate and interactive platform as you and those who work in the business with you.
It is easy to spot social media posts by an agency or social media consultant. It is overthought, often bland, smelling commercial and, usually, overwritten.
Social media consultants can make a strong pitch, helping you with something you may not understand, making it seem easy, coming across as the expert, winning you over with marketing charm.
When it comes to small business social media engagement, the experts are those in small businesses doing it successfully, doing it with a direct revenue benefit. While there may be some consultants achieving this, I am skeptical there would be many.
Sure it is an extra task to complete. The thing is, in today’s world, it is probably the single most important marketing task for the business.
You control how prospective customers see your business. This matters if you want to attract people who are not looking for what they think a newsagency is.
Your front window, social media posts, advertising (if you do any) … in fact, anything you write, say or do outside your business that can reflect on your business determines how people see your business.
If you are concerned people think of your business as traditional newsagency, you know you do not have your messaging right.
This image is another example of how an image can drive social media engagement, which then drives in-store purchases.
A brief moment taken to put items together and photograph them pays off when a post drives outcomes at the register. It is easy to do this yourself, without using an ad or social media expert.
This is simple and effective marketing, for which your business can be known and through which your business can break free of the usual advertisements that hit people on social media and elsewhere.
Easy visual marketing is the best given the platforms to which we have access to today.
When photographing products for use on social media, photograph to a story. Ic you do this you will achieve better engagement. The best story brings together multiple items in a single shot. Here is a good example. My text for this photo would be Happy Monday or Inspiring or Desktop support or Portable inspiration.
We love the reaction to this social media post pitching a card. It’s the type of post I was referring to when I wrote abut Facebook recently. It connects emotionally with Facebook users.
The more we pitch our businesses with a look that is unexpected for a newsagency the more people will not identify use as a newsagency.
Growth in the number of likes for your business Facebook page(s) is as important as growth in shopper traffic through your front door.
I see a direct correlation between the two, if you use Facebook well. Of course, if is the important word in that statement.
I have been actively using Facebook for business for many years. It is an excellent platform of reaching new customers and talking with existing customers. It is an important tool in business growth.
HOW DO YOU GET MORE LIKES ON FACEBOOK?
This is simple, provide good content, content that gives people what they come to Facebook for – entertainment, inspiration, a laugh. The more you do this the more your post will be liked and shared. The more likes and shoes the more people you reach.
Growth in likes for your page begins with your content. If your page likes are not growing, look at your content.
While you can ask people to like your Facebook page, resulting likes may not be as valuable as those who like your page of their own accord.
You can also buy likes. That, however, is a waste of money.
HOW DOES A BUSINESS USE FACEBOOK WELL?
Businesses that use Facebook well entertain. This can be by making people laugh, smile, feel emotional or be happy overall. They do it by being human, real and engaged. They do it by not trying to sell. They do it y not being commercial.
Photos are real, not studio shots, showing products in use more so than on the shelves. They show customers, happy customers.
They share something of themselves.
A newsagency uses Facebook well by not writing about products newsagents sell.
HOW DO MORE LIKES OF YOUR BUSINESS TRANSLATE INTO MORE SALES?
Someone engaging with your business Facebook page is similar to someone browsing your shop. Both can lead to sales.
People being on your page and engaging with your page brings them close to you and proximity = sales.
The more people who like your business Facebook page the more people you can pitch and offer to or reach out with an event or product announcement, them more people who will hear what you have to say.
Take Facebook seriously as a key business tool. The benefits are real and valuable.
Using a video on social media to pitch a product range can be far more effective that still photos. Experts disagree on time and other factors for videos. I have found that for most products I pitch, a video of between 15 and 30 seconds works best. It needs to be not over-produced. It needs to feel it is from you.
Here is an example of a video I used in a Facebook promotion recently, the engagement was terrific, including plenty of shares of the video. Purchases flowed as a result. It is simple, not produced. Those types of videos tend to work better in my experience.
This simple and colourful post on Facebook worked exceptionally well for us. In addition to terrific online engagement, we saw action in-store as a result. What I love the most is that the product gave us a way to pitch diaries in a way that was more engaging, more successful.
The post is from over a week ago. The engagement data shows it to be one of the most successful promotions in months.
Simple is best when it comes to social media.
