newsagency marketing

Show Mummy the Money is the kind of independent magazine I had in mind when I wrote my blog post about helping independent magazines a week back. We received the new title yesterday – but no support material. The website for the magazine is packed with information. This could have easily been adjusted to help newsagents promote the title.

At the website I found the publisher pitching for subscriptions ahead of promoting newsagents. The page with this gives off a mixed message about price, even more mixed than I usually see around subscription versus retail offers.

The website also lists newsagents stocking the title. The static list is cumbersome to navigate – I ought to be able to enter my postcode and the site lists my closest newsagent stockist.

On the title itself, the magazine distributor has coded this to be placed in the parenting section. While this makes sense, Show Mummy the Money is the kind of title which is better launched to people who do not usually shop the parenting section – among the weeklies or, if the space is available, at the counter.

What newsagents need to make Show Mummy the Money and other new independent magazines successful is not much. To properyl launch this title I’d like to have been given:

• Cover run-ons.
• A product information sheet for my team.
• A poster or two.
• A competition to focus my mind on promoting the title.
• Inserted putaway cards to help build our business as opposed to subscription business.

Publishers need to treat newsagents as partners. We are investing our labour and real-estate to support this new title. We’re taking considerable risk – for the opportunity to make 25% of cover price. It’s reasonable for us to demand support from the publisher.

We have run two separate successful over the counter marketing campaigns for the Australian Women’s Weekly over the last two weekends.

We increased sales the first weekend by 32 copies and the second weekend by 19 copies – tabove our usual sales for equivalent weekends in the sales cycle.

The campaign was run at each counter sales point. We created posters in-house and pitched it to customers. For the record, we did this without the knowledge of ACP Magazines.

We are always looking for ways to differentiate our magazine offer over the the supermarkets and others in the shopping centre with which we compete. A discount offer on a known brand fits with the value proposition pitch we want to make.

We chose AWW because we sense that consumers like the title but see it as something they can live without for a month. It remains one of the most popular titles redeemed with our Magazine Club card.

Newsagents wanting to drive magazine sales ought to try this idea. We have been using it for a few months now and it works every time.

We have allocated space at the counter, between our two busiest serving stations, to promote magazines being sold a free gift we consider worthy of premium space promotion.

The space we are using works. It’s great to watch customers at the counter with their purchases – many notice the display, some pick up the magazine and enough of those purchase to make the space valuable and part of our regular activity for magazines.

Last week we sold out of Home Beautiful in days. Yesterday we setup the InStyle display in the photo. Prior to that we sold five times our usual allocation of Good Taste.

We change the display every Monday and only promote titles with a free gift people can easily see and are likely to know the value of and / or want. This is not a place for the magazines which come with a free gift every month, there’s nothing special in that. No, the real value of this specific issue has to be obvious.

It’s a simple display and takes a few minutes to setup. Nothing fancy here. It helps to have posters and cover run-ons to build into the display. While the display is not the prettiest, it works and that’s what matters.

It seems we’re in the middle of free gift season at the moment – there are some excellent gifts on offer and some excellent titles from which to choose.

This week’s magazine promotion at our busiest sales counter made me laugh when I saw it. It’s fun, innovative and, well, different. Jason, the manager at Forest Hill came up with the idea to feature magazines connected with models.

On the left we have fashion magazines with models on the cover. On the right we have magazines with a different set of models on the cover – boats, planes, trains. How funny is that!

It shows we have a sense of humor. While many customers don’t notice what Jason has done, some do and they have a good laugh.  I bet they tell someone else because it is so unique.

While I doubt this display will win us any awards or kudos from publishers, it is exactly the kind of display newsagents should encourage in their businesses. It demonstrates our diversity brilliantly.  I love it!

We’re taking a different approach with our counter based magazine offer this week. We’re not promoting magazines at all but educational books – as the photo shows. I liked the idea of resting magazines for a week.

The books were left from a book sale and rather than shove them to the back of the shop we made them a hero at the counter.

As is always the case with this space, it works – especially with the SALE sign (which took two minutes to do) on the stand and genuine bargains on display. Being located at our busiest sales counter helps too.

It’s a pleasure to see someone approach the counter with a newspaper and end up purchasing one of these impulse items.

I was interested to see this sign in the centre where we have our newsagency in Frankston. My initial reaction was wow, great promotion for Real Living. Then I realised it was an ad for K-Mart. At least that’s what I think it is.

I’d prefer to see our shop connected with this. We sell the magazine. Sure, K-Mart does too but their real focus is the products in the magazine.

Now when I look at the magazine on our shelves I feel as if we are promoting K-Mart. I know we’re not directly but this connection between the magazine and K-Mart is pretty strong.

Kudos to Andrew Symonds for his success in the IPL bidding in India overnight. I’m especially happy given that Symonds is on the cover of the latest issue of Alpha sports magazine. In response to the amazing bidding result for Symonds, we’ve placed Alpha in a high traffic area to capture heightened interest over the next few days. It’s the kind of opportunistic action we need to take as retailers. Hopefully it works and sales of Alpha kick as a result.

We are enjoying success with our small counter display for magazines – it is the ideal place to promote titles with a good free gift. This month’s New Woman is an excellent example – great sales yesterday (Saturday) off the counter location.

We have tried a range of titles in this space and it is those with a gift which perform best. What’s good is that the title can be for guys or girls. Last week it was the FHM offer with a free Gillette razor.

So, we’re locking this space, between our two main serving points, as the place we will promote titles with a good giveaway. This solves a magazine fixturing problem since the traditional fixturing is a challenge with the more bulky giveaways such as sun glasses, aprons and the like. It also works in with our desire to go hard as soon as the title is out

The elements of the display will remain the same – making creating a new display each week time-efficient.