I was talking to a couple of supermarket people recently and realised that newsagents could make some moves which should help drive sales of Famous magazine. They were saying that it performs very well for them as a impulse title. This could be because of the $3.95 price point. It could also be because of the cover and content.
Newsagents should be able to sell more copies of Famous. Here are my suggestions which we could try this week to see what we can achieve:
- Promote Famous at the counter at your busiest traffic positions – even if this is a lottery counter. Clear space around the title so it is the hero product at the counter.
- Place Famous next to or even between Woman’s Day and New Idea in your women’s weeklies section.
- If you have a flat stack in your women’s weeklies section, make space for Famous there too so people who buy off the flat see the title.
Check sales after a week and see if you have achieved a lift. You could make one of these moves, if they are new, each week and check the results. Based on sales in other channels newsagents ought to be able to achieve sales growth for the title. All it could take is some active engagement.
Why care? I care when I see a competitor retail channel doing better than newsagents with a magazine title. Whether we like it or not we are in a war with supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol outlets for magazine sales. We need to fight for market share of every title. Tactics will vary title by title. If we do nothing, our competitors will grab more sales from us.