Sunday newsagency marketing tip: use regular competitions to drive traffic
Competitions are a terrific way of attracting new shoppers to any retail business.
Key factors in the success success of competitions are:
- Running them regularly.
- Carefully targeting different demographics.
- Not overthinking the process.
- Not being too hung up on the prize.
- Recognising all participants.
- Celebrating winners.
- Promotion outside the business.
I know of small local retail businesses achieving engagement of 500+ in competitions. They have got there by being consistent and following the points noted above.
The best competitions are those you run yourself for your own business. Show yours is a genuinely local business.
A terrific window display sure to attract shoppers
I love this Christmas window display from the team at newsXpress Bairnsdale for it pitches the business outside of what people might expect from this shop, it is fin and inspiring.
This is what the front window is all about, especially for retail businesses in high street situations country towns where attracting impulse visits depends on the window display.
This window display says come on in, this is a fun place to shop. Most important, the window appeals to kids and anyone who buys for kids and this time of the year that is most important.
The best place to start to redefine any retail business is from the front window. Start there, set your messaging and then work this into the business. Of course, any strategic change should start deep within the business, however, starting with the front window can unlock inspiration that demands to be addressed in the business itself.
This window display at newsXpress Bairnsdale is excellent, a proud representation of optimistic retail.
I hope it inspires plenty of newsagents to work on their window.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: 40 Christmas marketing ideas
Each year, my POS software company, Tower Systems, publishes Christmas marketing tips for independent retailers. Here is this year’s list:
- Make it easy. People often talk about how hard Christmas is. Be the local business that makes it easy. The ways to do this are with easy Lay-By, free wrapping, better shop floor help, guide buying advice or tips on perfect gifts no one else will think of. Consider making Christmas easy as being a key part of your messaging.
- Be thrilled people are in your shop. Your personal smile or greeting is something they may not see in a big business where employees are less invested in each shopper and where the owner is usually thousands of kilometers away.
- Make the giving easy. If people purchase items from you to send somewhere else. Offer a one-stop shop. Save them the trip to the post office.
- Make the shop less about Christmas. Consider pulling back on the Christmas visual noise. Go for something simple, muted, respecting the season but making a calm statement. Consider declaring the shop a Christmas carol free zone – not because you hate carols but because you want to help customers take a break.
- Help people rest and recharge. Create a Christmas shopping rest and recovery zone. Offer free tea, coffee, water and something to eat. Encourage people to take a break in your shop – without any obligation for them to spend money with you.
- Let your customers help each other. Setup a whiteboard or sheets of butcher’s paper, yes keep it simple. Get customers to write gift suggestions under different age/gender groups. For example: Girls 18 – 25, Boys 55+. Encourage your customers to help each other through their suggestions.
- Make price comparison difficult. If you sell items people are likely to price compare with other businesses, package them so price comparison is not easy. Put items into a hamper as a perfect Boy 8 to 12 bundle for example. Or offer the item with pre packages services if appropriate for an item.
- Less is more. The stack em high watch em fly mantra can be wrong. Indeed, it is often wrong in retail. Shoppers can be store blind because a shop is too full or a display is too busy. Consider creating simpler less cluttered displays and window promotions. Draw attention to what you want people to see by promoting that one thing. Every time someone asks if you have something that you think through should be able to find easily – take it as a challenge for you to address rather than a commentary on a facility of the customer.
- Change. Christmas season in your shop should evolve. Major change weekly is vital for people to see what you have that they could buy.
- Be socially engaged. On Facebook, Instagram, twitter and elsewhere, be the calm voice, the person people enjoy reading or seeing photos from. Provide entertainment this Christmas rather than the usual retailer shrill of come and shop here!
- Be community minded. Choose a local charity or community group to support through Christmas. Consider: a change collection tin at the counter; a themed Christmas window display; promotion on your social media pages; a donation to their work; a collection point for donations from customers.
- Facilitate sharing stories. Find space in your shop for customers to share their Christmas stories. It could be a story wall inside or in front of the shop. This initiative encourages storytelling by locals and better connects the business with the community.
- Award a prize at a local school. Fund a year-end prize at a local school. Attend a school assembly to award the prize. Work with the school leadership on a prize appropriate to your business.
- VIP preview. Host a VIP shopper preview night when you show off your Christmas ranges ahead of being available to the general shoppers. Respect and reward your local shoppers with deals and the opportunity to preview ahead of others.
- Leverage Christmas traffic. Encourage the Christmas shopper traffic surge in after Christmas. Give them a reason to come back. A coupon promotion or a discount voucher on receipts could be the enticement to get shoppers back in-store. Note: the Tower POS software produces discount vouchers to rules you establish.
- Become a gallery. Work with a school, kindergarten, community group or retirement village to bring in local art for people to come and see through Christmas. A small space commitment can drive traffic from family and friends of those with art on show.
- Dress the shop. Fully embrace Christmas. Create a Christmas experience such that shoppers know they have stepped into somewhere special this Christmas. Go for more than some tinsel and a tree. Fully embrace the opportunity.
- Make your shop smell like Christmas.
- Send cards. Send Christmas cards early in the season to suppliers, key customers and local community groups. This connects you with Christmas. Invite all team members to sign each card.
- Host a Christmas party. For shops nearby. You are all in the season together – let your hear down before things get crazy.
- Ensure you have gifts targeted at occasions. For example: Kris Kringle, by price point and by recipient. Make it easy for people to know what they could give.
- Stocking stuffers. At your counter always have one or two stocking stuffers for impulse purchase.
- Offer gift vouchers – for someone to give when they are not sure what to give.
- Be local. Ensure you have a selection of locally sourced products available for purchase. Make it clear in-store that these products are sourced locally.
- Tell stories. On your Facebook page, talk about what is important to you at Christmas. Personalise the season and deepen the connection with those who could shop with you.
- Offer a free gift. Bulk purchase an item to offer those who spend above a set amount. For example, spend $65 and receive XX where XX may have cost $5.00 but could have a perceived value of $20.00.
- Keep it fresh. Every week make significant change to your Christmas displays and promotions to keep your offer fresh.
- Share Christmas recipes. Each week for, say, four weeks, give customers a family Christmas recipe. This personalises Christmas in your business, creates a talking point and makes shopping with you different to your bigger competitors.
- Free wrapping. Sure, many retailers offer this. Make your offer better, more creative and more appreciated.
- This is essential in any business. Manage it through your computer system with strict rules.
- Work the floor. Increase time on the shop floor. Be present to manage shopper flow and to facilitate purchases.
- Christmas is crazy busy I most retail situations. Give yourself and your team members sufficient time to recharge so the smile greeting shoppers is heartfelt.
- Keep a secret. If yours is a business selling gifts a partner may purchase for their loved-one, create some mystery with a closed off display for the shopper to see the products.
- Free assembly. If you sell items that require assembly. Offer to do this for free.
- Free delivery. Offer free Christmas Eve delivery for items purchased for kids for Christmas.
- Sell training. Leverage the specialist knowledge you have in your business by selling as gifts places at classes you run sharing your expertise.
- Hold back. Don’t go out with everything you have for Christmas all at once. Plan the season to show off what you have as the season unfolds. This allows you multiple launches.
- Share a taste. Regardless if your type of business, bake a family recipe of Christmas cake, Christmas pudding or Christmas biscuits and offer tastings to shoppers on select days. This personalises the experience in your shop.
- Offer hampers. Package several items together and offer them as a hamper. Time-poor shoppers could appreciate you doing this work for them. We have seen this work in many different retail situations.
- Buy X get Y. Encourage people to spend more with a volume based deal. Pitched right, this could get customers purchasing items for several family members in order to get the price offer you have. Use your technology to manage this.
Christmas is the perfect time to plan for next year. It is the time to do everything possible to leverage bonus Christmas traffic to benefit your business through next year.
Tower Systems offers Point of sale / retail management software tailored for your specific type of retail business. Our software can help you leverage Christmas traffic for year-long benefits.
The simple Facebook posts work the best
With social media content being swiped past quickly on phones, the short and simple posts are the best.
Here is one post I did two days ago that worked a treat online and in-store:
Can you see what I did? Three different panda products, from different categories, together in this one post. And with a single word text message, which was suggested by a colleague newsagent and for which I am grateful.
The engagement with and from this post made the $5.00 spend worthwhile.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: use Nexus emails
Newsagents that are members of the Pacific magazines nexus program has access to a free email service allowing you to send an email to customers in the database you have built every two weeks.
I know form personal experience these emails work. I have had people in the newsagency as a direct result of receiving an email.
The service is free. Emails are easy to setup.
This is no brainer marketing in my view.
newsXpress launches national TV campaign today
newsXpress kicks off a national TV campaign today, launching its EXCLUSIVE National Beanie Boo Week, to coincide with the launch of six exclusive to newsXpress Beanie Boos. Here is the call to action TVC:
This campaign is not costing newsXpress members anything. In addition to the TVC, newsXpress has provided members free stock to give away, A1 posters for in-store, flyers for local distribution, a colouring competition and more. Do a Google search for Beanie Boos and see our online strategy. The store-connected newsXpress site is the second highest ranked Australian site – ahead of Toys R Us and KidStuff.
The Beanie Boo TV commercial and National Beanie Boo Week campaign by newsXpress are part of an integrated campaign of transformation. Regulars here would know I think transformation is mission critical for newsagents.
Through careful targeting, newsXpress guides members to find new shoppers in four valuable and specific demographics with little overlap. This is all about finding new traffic, which is vital for any newsagency business.
Through new products and some exclusive products, in-store engagement, online marketing and other activities, newsXpress is helping members not only find new traffic but to lift overall business GP.
The newsXpress online strategy is driving in-store traffic as well as online sales. In a few hours yesterday, for example, one of our six public websites generated more than $1,000 in sales for several newsXpress stores and led to calls and emails to newsXpress members seeking out products.
My opinion is the old-school traditional newsagency has no future. Further, the old-school traditional retail business website has no future. The brand focus is paying off with local newsXpress businesses being found easily when people are searching on their phones and online for popular brands.
I am a Director of newsXpress.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: stop listening to your suppliers
Marketing advice from newsagency suppliers is usually advice that best suits the supplier. This is all about their products being presented in a consistent way. Following their advice can mute your voice, your point of difference.
My advice today is don’t blindly promote as a supplier suggests. Promote in a way that best suits your specific business.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: market what you are not known for
Out of store marketing is best focussed on what your you are not known for as this marketing is likely to attract people who would not usually shop with you. Differentiate your business from expectations rooted in history through change-driving buying and leverage those products in new traffic targeting marketing.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: how to pitch magazines on Facebook
Too often newsagents include a photo of a cover of a magazine say say something like out now or the new issue of xxx is out now. This is the type of post many retailers do.
To me, the best posts about magazines either focus on an image on a cover or some other aspect of an issue of a magazine that lets you personally endorse it.
Take the current issue of Yours. We do love Denise Drysdale – who does’t?
This posts is a perfect opportunity to give something of ourselves and pitch a magazine without being too loud from a sales perspective.
Here is an example of a food related post, a close up of the cover of Better Homes and Gardens.
What is interesting is the shares and where they took the post. Looking at comments with shares, most were about how delicious the Christmas pay looked.
These are two examples of Facebook posts newsagents can do with magazines that work and look different to what others do with magazines. I am sharing insights with newsagents on how to use social media at a social media masterclass workshop series over the next few weeks. This is a newsXpress run workshop and is based on newsXpress training. Access is free and any newsagent can attend.
- ADELAIDE. November 9 @ 10am. Rydges South Terrace. Book now.
- GOLD COAST. November 10 @ 12 noon. Sofitel. Book now.
- MELBOURNE. November 15 @ 10am. Hawthorn Arts Centre. Book now.
- SYDNEY. November 16 @ 10am. The Lakes Golf Club. Book now.
- BRISBANE. Nov. 17 @ 10am. The River View Hotel Kingsford Smith Drive. Book now.
I will add Perth as well. The sessions will be interactive with plenty of time for questions. Spaces are limited as we want to ensure everyone can engage.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: calendars help you find new shoppers
This Star Trek calendar is beautiful. Star Trek fans with a passion for the original TV series will love it for sure. The challenge is, many will not know newsagents have the Star Trek calendar. So, we are hitting social media to promote it. I expect this targeted marketing will bring new traffic to the newsagency business. It has in the past.
We will run a series of social medial posts using calendars to attract new traffic. There are some excellent calendars in the 2017 range and the time is right to call these out in a way that is sensitive to the niche interest each calendar represents.
This is my marketing tip today – use selected calendars to attract new shoppers.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: photo selection can drive Facebook success
Using a close-up photo of part of a magazine cover can get you a significantly better result from a Facebook than using the whole post. Take the current issue of Better Homes and Gardens. While it looks terrific, a close up of the pav was the hero so that is what I used for a post yesterday. And it worked a treat. Hundreds of shares in a few hours – extending the reach of the post beyond the like base of business I was promoting.
Here is my marketing tip: If promoting a magazine, look for the image that differentiates your pitch from what others will do to promote the same title. If you pitch the whole cover you are not offering a differentiation for your business.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: hold an event to showcase something you don’t sell
I have participated in marketing events in several newsagencies this year where feature products have not, until the event, been available in the business. A purpose of the event was to test if there was sufficient. In each instance, there was. In fact, in some cases, several thousand dollars in revenue for the new products on the day of the event.
Hosting an event for products you don’t usually sell is another way to extend the reach of your business, to attract shoppers who do not usually shop with you. It can be a valuable marketing activity.
I also love this idea for the excitement it provides when the retailer sees products they don’t usually stock selling in their business.
This is a great way to build optimism.
Halloween in the newsagency
We have Halloween up and running in the newsagency with the front third of the shop established as the scary (in a good way) zone.
This year our focus is on style with three major displays (only one display is in the photo) targeting a specific aesthetic.
We have left the lower price point disposable Halloween items to the Reject Shop and Coles supermarket located a few doors from us. Our buying goal has been to focus on products different to what they will stock.
We are particularly focussed on adult Halloween parties as this is a differentiating and lucrative market.
If you are not in Halloween 2016 it may be a bit late. We ordered most of our stock more than six months ago.
Halloween is an important season for us and many newsagency businesses. We put it up after Father’s Day and ahead of the major Christmas rush. it is a way of easing into Christmas. Plus it is fun (and scary).
Supermarkets drive confusion around loyalty points value
I don’t get why any small business retailer would run a loyalty program based on points when the supermarkets have ruined the value of points programs with change after change and a value proposition that is dreadful.
News Corp. published an article about this in August. Consider the Woolworths supermarket pitch:
$1 spend will earn one Woolworths Point, with no minimum spend.
$2000 spend on anything in the supermarket, BWS and Caltex will earn 2000 Woolworths Points, which can be redeemed for $10 off your next shop.
Now, take a look at the Coles supermarket pitch:
$1 spend will earn one FlyBuys Point, with no minimum spend.
$2000 spend on anything in the Coles supermarket, Target or Kmart will earn 2000 FlyBuys Points, which can be redeemed for a $10 gift voucher in Coles or Shell petrol, effectively $10 cash off your next shop.
Now, if you run a points program, think about your offer. I know newsagents who accuse a point per dollar spent and the points are worth 2.5 cents each. In this scenario, $2,000 in purchases results in a value to the shopper of $50.00 – considerably more than the $10.00 you get from the same value purchase at Coles or Woolworths.
The comparison is reasonable because the currency is the same – the currency is points. Regardless of the value of the points.
I don’t understand why any retailer would offer a loyalty program that can be easily compared with a big business competitor, especially where the competitor actively runs a loyalty program that is anything but.
In small business especially, the loyalty program you run needs to be an easily understood point of difference. It needs to be something people will switch to your shop for.
If you run a points program, ask your customers if they understand it. Next, run your management reports to assess whether you are actually making money from the program. you know what it costs each year, are you achieving incremental business to justify the investment?
Many years ago we all jumped into points based loyalty because it was the big new thing and because we wanted to be like big businesses because that’s what we thought was right back then. However, that sea quickly became competitive and bloody. In fact, now it is so cluttered and confusing that copying big business is not a smart move at all.
Be smart about your loyalty offer. Ensure it is easily understood, differentiating and offering understood and appreciated value.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: use your voice to promote your business
My advice to newsagents is that you do not use a consultant to run your social media campaigns. rite your own Facebook and other social media posts. No excuses. I am yet to see a social media consultant who speaks with a voice that best represents a local retail business like a newsagency. Save the money and spend it more productively in the business.
Fresh approach to Halloween generating foot traffic
This Facebook post on the weekend pitched masks we have in-store for Halloween. The idea was to get people in our area thinking about is for Halloween party items. We deliberately are not promoting the cheap Halloween products discount stores and supermarkets carry. We have chosen a less cluttered space – and it is working based on the terrific response.
This approach is what they call a blue ocean approach – making a deliberate choice to place or pitch the business in a less cluttered ocean – a blue ocean of clean water rather than a cluttered red ocean full of blood from all the competitors swimming there.
While in-store we will pitch traditional Halloween, our external marketing right through Halloween will focus on innovative products through which we appeal to a broader audience.
Halloween is a wonderful retail season. We love it.
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: light your shop to be noticed
What does your shop look like when you are closed? Smart lighting and a good window display can help your closed hours be profitable. I saw the different smart lighting can make last week in Manchester in the UK. Here is a photo of a real-estate agency on Deansgate:
Here is another real estate agency right next door.
I took the two photos one after the other and from the same distance from each window – to facilitate comparison.
The first agency looks more appealing at night. It is the one of the two you are drawn to.
Take a look at how your shop looks at night time. Are you making the most of any night time traffic?
Sunday newsagency marketing tip: bring Spring into the shop
It is Spring, time to celebrate the end of Winter and there is no better way to visually do this than with a colourful display of artificial flowers in the business. This type of display, seen from outside the business, ia perfect marketing activity. Promote the display on social media too and invite customers to share photos of their garden.
Scottish model promotes newsagents
Good to see Scottish model Sasha promoting newsagents on Twitter with this tweet:
Any publicity and all that…
Typo teaches us a thing or two about discounting
Typo hit Twitter just now promoting a 40% store wide discount at their Chadstone, Melbourne, store today.
This tweet teaches us several things:
- Be bold. 40% is a good discount. Too often retailers start small and don’t get the traction they need.
- Make it each. The Typo store wide approach is easily understood.
- Promote on social media. It is free and outside your four walls.
- Set boundaries. The Typo discount is off full priced merchandise. This precludes the Typo 3 for offers they have throughout their shops.