A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

newsagency marketing

Promoting The Age Good Food Guide

good_food.jpgThe Age 2007 Good Food Guide (and it’s Sydney cousin) provide newsagents an excellent opportunity to promote fresh product and drive some good impulse business. This year we capped a card aisle with this display prior to Father’s Day. Sales have been excellent – all included other product meaning it’s not a destination purchase.

The more we actively promote fresh product such as the Good Food Guide the more we reinforce that we’re up to date. This is on my mind because too many newsagencies are set and forget businesses in my mind – too few changes are made and customers become store blind.

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magazines

Promoting my newsagency

nx_nl_sep07.JPGWe have released our September newsletter and placed it at the front of the newsagency. We have tweaked layout and content based on feedback.

This issue reinforces the launch of Little Ears magazine, promotes our green credentials (we have been buying carbon offsets for more than six months now), our commitment to cartridge recycling and that we’re a lucky place to shop. It also promotes our Spring range of magazines. The newsletter genuinely connects with in-store features and promotions.

As it must be, content of the newsletter is personal to my newsagency – it’s important we reinforce the local nature of our businesses in such communications.

We have found that more shorter stories work – this is one of the changes this month. They reflect the breadth of our offering and speak to a broader community. What we don’t want is the newsletter to feel too commercial – like one big ad.

While suppliers, magazine distributors and publishers mainly, are selfish want aisle end promotions and measure us by our compliance in creating these, I’d suggest that initiatives such as this newsletter are as valuable and they take our offering beyond the four walls. Plus they promote the whole of the business and this makes for a healthier newsagency channel.

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newsagency marketing

Newsagents gear up for gift vouchers at Christmas

Through July and August, Tower Systems gave newsagents using its software a module to manage the selling of gift vouchers. The take up of this gift from Tower has seen newsagents access hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of software at no cost. The feedback from newsagents is that many will pitch gift vouchers strongly this Christmas – now that they have a robust means of managing the cash deposited onto vouchers.

I remember reading somewhere a few months ago that in the US now gift vouchers account for as much as 20% of all Christmas sales in some stores. By tapping into this, newsagents can win the sale without needing to have the perfect gift on display at the time. Selling gift vouchers is all about connecting the store with the recipient. If the giver feels the recipient will like the store then they will buy in and purchase a voucher.

This is what the Tower mission was – to give newsagents something else to sell without it costing them anything.

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newsagency marketing

Beware the contract

If you are considering joining a newsagency marketing group, be sure to thoroughly read the contract. Check to see if there is a minimum term – locking you in for years with a financial penalty for early departure. Groups without such an onerous minimum term demonstrate faith in their offering.

Disclosure: I am a Director of newsXpress.

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newsagency marketing

Newsagents of the year

Congratulations to Chris and Julie Leonadis of South Eastern Distribution for winning the Distribution Newsagent of the Year award at the Australian Newsagents’ Federation annual conference on the Gold Coast last night. Congratulations to Damien, Karen and Phil Vanden Bergh and his parents of West Wyalong Newsagency for winning Retail Newsagency of the Year last night. Both business owners share a common aggressive use of technology to drive their business decisions. They actively participate in user meetings and regularly challenge our us to help them extract more benefit from the Tower Systems technology

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newsagency marketing
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