newsagency marketing

We have seen Christmas VIP shopping events in four of the seven centres where I have businesses so far this Christmas season.  They have been a considerably better success for us this year compared to previous years.  The offers are almost the same but probably better executed.

We promote through the marketing run by the centre and connect with every opportunity they provide – signs in the window, voiceovers on the PA and external marketing.  We ensure that the offer on the day is genuinely good value and that execution in-store is consistent.

We have had the most success this year with boxed Christmas cards.  In one store we offered 25% off and in the others 20% off.  This was for one day only – no laybys, rainchecks or special orders.   The smallest uplift in sales we achieved was 100%.

In addition to mailing to homes and businesses around our centre, we have our December newsletter – IN STORE OFFERS – in a stand at the front of the shop.  We will also distribute this to businesses in the centre.

This newsletter promotes several of our Christmas offers from a range of departments.  It also connects with marketing distributed to thousands of homes around the centre in recent weeks. It respects core departments – magazines (suggesting a Christmas gift pack) and cards (the very successful Hallmark sound cards) – while promoting calendars (great margin and range point of difference), the new moon board game (competing with the big guys and winning!), Scotch gift wrap cutter (everyone needs one!) and our digital photo key rings (also competing with the big guys and winning!).

Regulars here will notice that we have evolved the newsletter considerably over the last four years.  This latest incarnation reflects our research on how shoppers engage with the newsletter.  Items are less wordy and more outcome focused.

The newsletter focuses on brands and value – we see these as a key point of difference for us.  The pitch is the same in our catalogue marketing as well as our advertising.

As Halloween is getting closer, the team at Forest Hill has created a brilliant display at the front of the store which connects our range of Halloween products with the newsXpress collateral and the Saturday Tattslotto draw for which Tattersalls has provided excellent collateral.

Moving seasons like Halloween is an important part of a fresh retail strategy.

Over two and a half days in Melbourne last week, more than 250 newsagents and newsagent suppliers gathered at the Grand Hyatt for the 2009 National Newsagent Conference hosted by newsXpress.  From the welcome dinner Wednesday night featuring “Fast” Ed Halmagyi from Better Homes and Gardens and the opening speech of the conference by Shane Jacobsen (Kenny, the movie), the event was abuzz with excitement and opportunity.

While I am biased as I am a Director of newsXpress, I am certain that if you asked any attendee, including non newsXpress members, they would say it was an inspirational conference focused on building a healthier business future for newsagents and newsagent suppliers.  The mood was positive and the focus was on the future.  There was no discussion of industry politics.

I have been to many newsagent conferences and none has packed so many speakers genuinely relevant to our channel as happened at this conference.  Shane Jacobsen, while hilarious, gave us an insight into his journey to success on the world stage, business leader Geoff Lord followed with an excellent presentation on determination.  Over the course of the two days, we were treated to excellent presentations including three from key suppliers: Russell Parker, CEO Hallmark Cards, Nick Chan, CEO of Pacific Magazines and James Simades, CEO of Jenlist.  Each presented relevant practical insights into our channel and how we can grow core categories in our businesses.

Eric Beecher, former Fairfax editor and publisher and now publisher of Crikey.com and other online properties talked us through the challenges for print.  James Manning from MediaWeek outlined how publishers are adjusting to change.  Rob Smith CEO of Paper Plus in New Zealand provided an insight into how their group is dominating in key categories, similar to what we have in newsagencies, in New Zealand.

Costa Anastasiadis and Michael Rose from Crust Pizza and Simon Crowe from Grill’d Healthy Burgers talked about competing in traditional channels.   Both businesses have reinvented the offers in their respective channels.

As I said, the conference agenda was packed.  The social events were equally enjoyable and exciting, the food excellent and the positive networking a real treat.

The details of the 2010 National Newsagent Conference hosted by newsXpress were announced: September 8 through 10 in Sydney.  If you want to mix with positive proactive newsagents, mark the dates in your diary now.

Father’s Day season shopping is always quite last minute.  This year is no different.  While we have achieved some sales, good business did not start until yesterday.  It will get busier through the week and peak on Saturday.  The best indicator of Father’s Day kicking in is when Darrell Lea Dad’s Bags take off – this started yesterday.  They are a great gift, easy to sell and easy to merchandise.

We have revamped our in-store customer newsletter following a review of how customers engage with the publication. Our new style newsletter focuses more on value propositions and encourages engagement. Hence the name: INSTORE OFFERS.

You can see that we are pitching a mix of impulse and traffic generating offers.  The phonecard pitch is about educating customers about the popular cards we offer.  The Clint Eastwood DVD partwork series pitch is about connecting us with the offer on TV.

We place the newsletter in a stand at the front of the shop and send it out with customer accounts.

Click here for a copy of the new style newsletter.

We are fortunate to have access to our own in-house design and marketing team. Newsagents can easily create their own newsletter using Microsoft Word or Microsoft Publisher – both offer templates which make this process easy.

The GNS trade show in Melbourne this weekend has been successful. I know that yesterday’s numbers were on par with last year. Today’s numbers were good too. Newsagents were feeling good about business and the economy, plenty are investing in their businesses. This is a good sign. Some of the product talk I heard from newsagents was about new business opportunities but not enough.

It was good to see some suppliers expanding their offering and new suppliers participating expanding the traditional newsagency offering. We need to see more of this.

GNS opened the trade show to newsXpress and Nextra as well as Newspower. This sends a strong message to newsagents about the role of marketing groups. It also gives newsagents an easier choice between the three.

I have been going to GNS first since they started in a small room in Sydney many years ago. They have come a long way. For a business owned by newsagents it is a good success story.

The Christmas in July promotion at our Frankston newsagency has been working well for us – driving sales and traffic.  We have moved considerable product in the week that this display has been up.  It has proved to be an excellent promotion to transition us from the latest Victorian school holidays with and to fill a gap before we start our Father’s Day promotion.

What has helped the promotion is that no other business in our centre or nearby is running anything like this.  This Blue Ocean strategy approach is something we newsagents do not do enough of.

The large signs were printed professionally and smaller ones on the table printed in house – using the same artwork.  The pitch is very professional.  The stock pulled from a number of sources especially for the event.

The display is attracting customers from the mall as well as adding to the baskets of existing customers.