Author: Mark Fletcher

We are promoting the latest issue of Prevention magazine next to our main newspaper stand.  We are still using the display unit provided by Pacific magazines when the magazine launched last year.  We also have Prevention located in our women’s health section.  But is this newspaper position which works best for us for this title.  Right through the month too – we continue to sell copies of Prevention right through the last week of the on-sale.  We flip the position from the right to the left side of the newspaper stand – to combat store blindness.

We have refreshed the ACP Magazines basket builder stand next to our busiest counter position. We have selected four ACP cookbook titles for promotion here for the next week.

We know that Slow Cooker will work because of past success.

Moroccan food is the new title out yesterday. With the surge in sales of tagines I’d expect this title to work very well for us. I may be wrong but I think this title has the potential to come close to the success of the runaway success Slow Cooker title.

Here is some information which ACP did not tell you which may help you understand the opportunity for the new Moroccan title:

• Moroccan cooking is the new foodie ‘thing’.
• Tagines, used to create many of the dishes, are selling like hot cakes in homewares stores.
• The keyword tagine is the subject of 110,000 searches a month currently in Australia using Google. That is a quarter of all global searched.
• The keyword moroccan is searched 368,000 times a month in Australia using Google.
• Moroccan food is delicious!

The in-store promotion opportunities for the Moroccan title are as good as for the slow cooker: sell tagines, do some cooking, start a recipe club, sell other Moroccan recipe books.  Create a niche, get known for it and watch your sales grow.

If you don’t have room to feature a range of the new titles, focus on the new Moroccan title.  It should work in a wide variety of situations.

Based on the questions from customers yesterday, the latest issue of Donna Hay kids magzine (on sale yesterday) looks set to be a huge success. We are pushing the title hard with a great display out the front of the store, facing into the mall. We will run this display for a week. We also have Donna Hay kids magazine displayed in our food section as well as in one pocket in the column of food titles in with our weeklies

I made the decision to run the front of store display as well as our in-store co-location strategy on the basis of the attractive cover and the strong Donna Hay brand. We know from past experience that sales will reward the effort.

We are promoting issue #3 of the master chef magazine next to our main newspaper stand, in with our weeklies as well as in our usual food titles section.  If Issue #2 is anything to go off we expect to see another lift in sales. That’s right, issue #2 sold out and achieved a great increase on the launch issue.

The key to success is tactical placement in high traffic areas – hence our placement next to the main newspaper stand.  Next week, we will run the title at the counter for a few days.  Constant movement is essential in chasing impulse business for a title like master chef.

The over the counter feedback on the title is very strong.  People who have purchased the magazine comment positively about it.  This is where master chef is a stand out from title launches in recent years.  I cannot recall such unsolicited and positive comment for a new title.

We have thankfully accessed additional stock of Diabetic Living.  The last issue is selling very well.  Again, our success is being driven by tactical placement in-store.  The title performs well in high traffic locations: with the weekly magazines, with health titles and a stint at the counter.

If you have Diabetic Living in only one location you are probably missing out on sales.

We are promoting Famous magazine at the counter this week thanks to the offer is a $100 WISH card which could be won with a purchase of this or any of a range of titles from Pacific Magazines.

Given the decay curve for Famous we are likely to leave this display up for most of the week – it performs quite differently wo Woman’s Day and New Idea.

The other important reason for having Famous at the counter this week is the text message and email marketing campaigns running in support of the $100 WISH card promotion.

We are promoting the Woman’s Day / NW double pack in a dump bin on the shop floor.  Since this is a discounted deal I did not want to place it in the usual location for the titles.  I am chasing impulse business rather than educating our regulars to switch to the discount pack.

This dump bin approach worked for the last discount package from ACP – it sold out.

We have the dump bin in a high traffic location on the dance floor.

Further to my post yesterday, here is how I am choosing to use this premium space at the moment.

Bliss Victoria is a title which responds to placement away from its usual location.

Our Real Living sales are up thanks to placement here above the weeklies.

We start each week with a seven pocket waterfall for weeklies – leaving the top two pockets for other titles.  As the week progresses we shrink the waterfall and bring other titles in, titles we choose.

By yesterday morning we had sold out of Philosophy Now magazine.  Our usual sell through is between 25% and 50%.  Our tactical placement of the title with newspapers last Monday is what created the opportunity for the sell-out.  The brilliant cover is what drove the impulse purchases.

We have opportunities like this every day in our newsagencies. It is vitally important to our health that we work tactically on extending a shopping basket with just a newspaper to a newspaper and something else.