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

Using competitions to promote magazine value

We love supplier competitions and embrace every opportunity possible to engage with these. We especially love it when suppliers provide collateral with which to promote a competition. Pacific Magazines have done this with the kitchen appliance package being given away in a competition promoting the latest issue of Home Beautiful magazine. In addition to collateral promoting the offer in-location,we have a small flyer for the counter with which to promote to shoppers who fit the target purchaser of the title. Each time we can pitch a valuable giveaway which is not on offer at most other magazine retailers is an opportunity to show off the bonus value of shopping with us.

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magazines

Sunday marketing tip: you don’t sell anything at the counter

Okay, that’s not quite true, I am sure that you do sell some products at the counter. By sell, I mean have a customer choose, at that moment, to purchase the item. In most situations, however, in a newsagency the customer comes to the counter with the items already selected.  If we are lucky they will ask us a question and we can leave our command post and venture onto the shop floor and help them and maybe sell them something.

As newsagents have taken on more counter based services over the decades, we have moved the selling, what little of it is done, in our businesses from the shop floor to the counter.  I first worked in a newsagency when I was in High school too many years ago.  My recollection is that we had people on the shop floor serving customers helping them. This was what the more experienced people did. The school kids were left to take payment once we were trained. Now, the counter is the area where the most senior skills appear to be in many newsagencies.

If you agree that selling is what we do when we help, guide and encourage a shopper to make a purchase from us then this is where you need to focus more attention in your business … on the shop floor. This is where your best people at dealing with customers should be.

This is the tip – to look at where you sell in your newsagency and to adjust resource allocation in pursuit of more sales.

  1. Track your employees and learn who delivers the best return by hour worked.
  2. Consider a financial reward for the employees you charge with selling, genuinely selling.
  3. Be careful in allocating your resources, focus on the busiest times of the day.
  4. Make sure that your people have excellent product knowledge with which to add value.
  5. Drive this personal shop floor experience as a point of difference for your business. Shoppers will pay more if the shopping experience is more satisfying.

It all begins with understanding where you sell … it’s not at the sales counter.

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marketing tip

Tapping into One Direction interest

Newsagents chasing the teen and tween girl market should check out the latest issue of Girlfriend magazine from Pacific Magazines. It has a free poster of UK boy band One Direction. I found this out by checking out the Facebook page for Girlfriend magazine. This is a nice bonus on top of the excellent One Direction promoting in this week’s TV Week from ACP Magazines.

Also at the Girlfriend Facebook page is news of a One Direction one shot coming out on April 4 from Pacific Magazines. Go to the Facebook page if you are not sure about the passion of One Direction fans for content about the group.

All excellent opportunities for attracting young girl shoppers and those who buy for them.

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magazines

What is it with governments and big business?

I was disappointed to read that the government has this week extended the rebate to TV networks, reportedly adding $275 million to the aid they will receive over three years. Seriously!

The power of the TV networks is amazing in being able to tap into such river of gold. What does a small business have to do to get in on this government funded gravy train?

The TV networks get a bag of cash yet small businesses like newsagents,dealing with consolidation and structural change, receive nothing.

I’m not suggesting small business newsagents and other independent retailers need a hand out. No, I would prefer to see good public policy supporting nurturing small business success, policy delivered without politicians thinking about what might be in such a move for them. I suspect this is a bit much to ask given the politicians, on all sides, we have.

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Social responsibility

Tapping into the Facebook marketplace

We have created a new display behind the counter to promote a range of Facebook related products: Like and Dislike rubber stamps, coffee and tea mugs and fridge magnets.  Combined, the products tell a story.

I love the collateral created by the team to promote the display – it actually looks better in person than my average photo here. It’s quite stunning form the other side of the counter.  The display is in the line of sight of shoppers when they take to one of our counter staff.

I love that we are displaying something completely different yet reasonable connected with what people could expect to purchase in a newsagency.  There are plenty of what I’d call, transition products like this available to us.

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Gifts

It’s Comedy Festival season in Melbourne

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival will be big news in Melbourne from now until the end of April so the feature of the latest issue of Time Out is, well, timely. We have placed it with newspapers as we know it sells well from this high-traffic location. Plus Time Out is challenging to place elsewhere as there are not similar titles in-store. I expect the Comedy Festival related cover to drive early sales with this.

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magazines

Leveraging swimming interest

While I would have liked to receive The Complete Guide to Swimming last week to tap into the interest around the olympic trials, we are giving it a good run at the front of sports titles.

We have a gym nearby so there is a fitness aware market shopping with us.  We plan to give it a crack at the counter for a few days to see if that generates interest.

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magazines

Harness Racing Weekly data issue

It appears that IPS has not rolled over the addendas of Harness Racing Weekly to reflect the new year. The current issues addenda as printed on the paper is 21 however the electronic invoice the store received (info from the file below) has the addenda of 73 (52 issues from last year+21 that is printed on this issue). Other titles on the same invoice appear to be correct. Through Tower Systems, my newsagency software company, I have escalated the matter with IPS.

UPDATE (10:18) IPS has advised that this has now been resolved.

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magazine distribution

Cuts to newspaper supply

Both Fairfax and News are engaged in trimming supply of newspapers to newsagents in Victoria from what I am told. The cuts are about reducing wastage. The challenge in some situations can be the knock-on effect for retail only newsagents who rely on a nearby competitor newsagent for supply. In this situation, the retail only newsagent can be cut by more than the cut in supply established by the publisher.

It is frustrating to me that publishers will guarantee supply numbers to major supermarkets but not too retail only newsagents who could, in some cases, sell the same volume as the supermarkets.

While I appreciate the need to trim supply to reduce wastage, there are some points in the distribution model where selfish decisions are made which can hurt newspaper sales.

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Newspapers

Easter card sales up 22%

In a year on year comparison our Easter card sales are up 22% so far this year. This is based on looking at sales for the same number of on sale days from the start of the on-sale to now for both years.

We are thrilled with the result and hope it is reflected by sales through to the Easter weekend … which I expect it to be.

There is no doubt that Easter is a growth season. We have experienced double digit year on year growth form some years now – of cards and gifts. Part of the key I think is going out early with the season.

Easter chocolate has been a challenge. For years, in another newsagency, I had Darrell Lea and that always worked well.  Then, for two years in our current location we had Ernest Hillier and it was okay. The switch to cadbury this year is working a treat. While Coles has some of the items we have, we are matching them on price and enjoying a good margin.

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Greeting Cards

Tablets taking over in the US

A Magazine Publishers of America conference in the US earlier this week spent considerable time talking about how tablets are taking over.  AdWeek has a good report on proceedings.

There’s no doubt about it: tablets are taking over. Eleven percent of the total U.S. population used iPads and various other tablet devices last year. By 2014, that percentage is estimated to rise to 27.7 percent—more than one quarter of the total population, or about 89.5 million people.

Magazine publishers simply have to reach out to this wildly expanding audience, said eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna, the keynote speaker at Tuesday’s MPA Digital: Swipe Conference. He pointed to statistics that showed that with print failing to bring in new revenue, it’s a necessity that brands jump on the digital bandwagon.

The conference also looked at how publishers attract people to their digital offerings. One contributor commented of the strategy of offering something for free and then charging does not work as people don;t want to pay for what was free.

The US magazine market is quite different to Australia with subscriptions counting for a far greater percentage of magazine sales there compared to here in Australia.  US publishers often have a more direct relationship with their customers as a result.

Australian Newsagents have played a key role in providing publishers with a means through which they can showcase titles to shoppers. in our businesses, shoppers can freely browse titles and try before they buy.  US publishers don;t have this opportunity and this is why they are leading the charge to embrace digital platforms in pursuit of a more economical route to market.

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magazine distribution

52% increase in supply of Moshi Monsters magazine

The magazine experts at Gordon and Gotch have increased our supply of the Moshi Monsters magazine by 53% with the latest issue which went on sale yesterday.  We received five copies for two issues and sold out so they increased us to twelve copies and sold out then they cut us to eleven copies and sold our. Next, we received seventeen copies and returned ten copies. Next, with the latest issue we received twenty six copies.

So, I am wondering if there is a special promotion we have missed or some other reason not obvious to us for the supply increase.

Magazine distributors should not be allowed to send such a supply increase without our permission, not in any circumstance. It’s my money, my retail space, my labour. They have no right to take here resources from me on this scale.

Other publishers please take note of this. If you’re a Gotch customers, ask why the increase in supply and ask Gotch what they communicated with us. If I have missed something then I’ll apologise. If there is no reason and no missed communication then Gotch owes me an apology and an immediate credit.

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magazine distribution

How are your sales of Triple J magazine?

We have not sold a single copy of the latest issue of Triple J magazine and it’s been out for almost a month. We have treated the magazine in the usual way … it’s in with our music magazines at eye level, easy to see, easy to browse. Maybe it is the Bon Iver cover story, we just don’t now. I’d be interested to hear whether others are experiencing flat or even no sales of this issue.

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magazines

Promoting Girlfriend magazine and the free Living Doll scarf

We are promoting the latest issue of Girlfriend magazine with this aisle end display – showing off the free Living Doll scarf which comes with this issue.

The scarf is the sort of gift you need to display opened out like this – this is what we do with all magazines which come with a gift bagged in this way.  It makes the gift easier to see and the package easier to browse.

We also have Girlfriend on display in its regular location like this.

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magazines

Wendy Harmer can’t have looked at too many country newsagencies

Writing at the New Matilda website, comedian and media personality Wendy Harmer talks about newsagents:

You only have to live in one of Australia’s regional towns to understand how vital diversity in our media really is.

The offerings at most newsagents — if the town still has one — are paltry. A copy of The Australian; an out-of date metro title like The Age or Daily Telegraph and a weekly local paper are usually what’s on offer.

I am not sure how many regional newsagencies Wendy Harmey has visited or how recently. I suspect not that many. A typical regional newsagency has the current newspaper(s) from the nearest capital city. If may have newspapers from other capitals depending on customer interest. It will also usually have around 1,000 magazine titles on all manner of topics.  That’s some diversity

Harmer’s piece is really a promotional piece for the New Matilda website. Fair enough, they can promote their site how they like. They should not, however, do it by talking down newsagents who play a vital role in delivering local access to a diverse selection of print media products.

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Media disruption

Online lottery sales start in the US

Illinois is the first state in the US to offer online lottery sales and its causing a bit of a stir. It’s been interesting reading some of the comments online, concerns by retailers and the like … in the context of Australia having online lottery sales for quite a number of years.  For example, 7-Eleven is calling for government protection, citing concerns at the prospect of loss of jobs as a result of online competition.

The petroleum marketers have weighed in on the issue too:

“They say that with the Internet lottery, you will see a reduction in foot traffic and a reduction in ancillary sales, and because of the income loss, it may mean a loss of tax revenues and there will be a significant loss of business revenue,” Bill Fleischli, executive vice president of IPMA & IACS, told the newspaper, adding, “If that happens, you would see a reduction in the workforce.”

My recollection is that here in Australia the key argument was for retailers like newsagents to try and tap into revenue from online sales. This worked only in a limited way.

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Lotteries

Selling legal services in a newsagency

One of the WH Smith newsagencies I saw in London last week was promoting a legal firm at the front of the shop, in what otherwise would be a relatively dead part of the business. The promotion is about getting you to take literature and make your own contact with the solicitor.

This particular WH Smith business (on Oxford Street in London) is big with a large range of magazines, books, stationery and greeting cards and a bunch of other product in-between.

While this space to one side out the front of the store would be a challenge to fill with any product requiring customer service or which could be stolen, it felt odd to me that they were promoting a legal firm here.  That said, if it works, keep doing it.

I wonder what a lawyer would pay for this space?

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Newsagency management

Bridal glasses drive traffic

Check out the bridal wine and champagne glasses display crated by the team at one of my newsagencies.  This display faces into the mall, and pitches the glasses at a very competitive $4.95.

Our margin is 80% for one of the products and 90% for the other. Talk about the value of opportunistic buying.

What I like about the terrific display is that it promotes an excellent value product offer  with a visually exciting and fun display. The display is not your usual newsagency visual merchandising display.

Glassware is a strong product category for us, delivering excellent year on year growth. Some shoppers are attracted by these products while others visit for a magazine or a card and buy a glass on impulse.

The side benefit of the bridal display is that it helps to promote our range of bridal magazines.

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Gifts

Promoting Australian Move to Mac magazine

We are promoting Australian Move to Mac is a couple of locations as the gift which comes with the magazine alone costs far more than the cost of the title in some shops.

iPhone users would understand the value of the free cable with the magazine.

I’d encourage newsagents to get this title into a prominent position – with the gift on show.  We are seeing good sales of these product specific technology magazines.

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magazines

Inked Australia magazine uses Facebook to drive newsagency traffic

The publisher of Inked Australia and related tattoo magazines has excellent and successful social media engagement, connecting people interested in their titles through their terrific Facebook page.

I love that they actively promote newsagents as the place to purchase their titles: Inked Australia, Inked Girls and Inked Artists. This type of external promotion direct to a community of close to 30,000 people who have declared their interest in the titles can be more valuable for our retail channel than in-store marketing collateral.

Whereas posters and other retail collateral promotes a title once shoppers are in-store, this Facebook engagement around the Inked titles targets getting people into newsagencies where the titles are sold.

I would not have known this had the publisher not made contact with me.  Here is some of what the publisher had to say in as email to me recently:

As a very small publisher based in Sydney apart from walking into as many newsagents I can – it’s good to get a perspective on the frontline of newsagents. Your Blog is a good resource for this, the challenges you face – what works for you and what doesn’t. Like all publishing we are all battling to manage change and develop sustainable business models.

In regards to your latest posts regarding Social Media I thought I would make you aware of one of our magazines Inked Australia/NZ– we have 12 issues a year (6 of Inked Australia, 4 of Inked Girls and 2 of Inked Artists)

In the last 2 years we have managed to grow our Social Media page  https://www.facebook.com/InkedAustralia to:

  • 29,500 fans 90% of which are Australia and NZ based.
  • 55% women 45% Men.
  • It grows now between 500-1000 fans per month and has done since we started the page.
  • We have NOT spent any money with facebook this has been purely organic growth through interaction with our readers and fans.
  • Every time and issue is about to hit newsstands we publish a teaser campaign and then show the cover and push the fans to the local newsagent.
  • As you can see (attached screenshot) the main page always has driver to newsagents and we reinforce this on a weekly basis.
  • Put simply Time and effort to engage our readers have resulted in our community growing and we are seeing a result in sales (Slowly BUT its getting there)

I would encourage all businesses to engage with facebook – after all its free to use and its great to get one on one feedback with customers.

Beyond the support for newsagents by the publisher of the Inked titles, this blog post is a reminder to newsagents to engage with Facebook – in a clever way which reflects the uniqueness of your business … in a way which connects with your community.

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magazines

Newsagents miss an opportunity to try a new magazine distribution model

Not enough newsagents engaged with the publisher Vintage Caravan Magazine and their invitation to order the magazine for direct supply.  Newsagents ordered less than 10% of what would be sold through the channel.  It is no surprise therefore that the publisher has decided to use the traditional approach of magazine distributor drives scale out.

So, for all our bleating about problems with magazine distribution, we don’t appear to want to try an alternative.

I respect the publisher of Vintage Caravan Magazine and what they tried to do. I also understand their decision to go back to the traditional route to market as this is vital to the commercial success of the title.

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magazine distribution

Great cover for National Geographic

I’d urge newsagents to seek out the current issue of National Geographic magazine and ensure that the full cover is on show. The clover is one which could / should drive shopper browsing … and browsing leads to sales.

We know we have plenty of dog lovers shopping with us, based on sales of dog calendars and other dog items. Hopefully, by putting the full cover on show we can drive sales of this title.

Our sales of National Geographic are all over the place – I think because it is a title people do purchase based on the cover story.

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magazines

Promoting Women’s Health magazine

We are promoting the latest issue of Women’s Health magazine with with this double space allocation in the usual location for the title as well as an aisle end display capping our women’s aisle. The placement in the photo sits between the health section and the women’s fashion section, it can be easily seen by anyone in the aisle given the double space allocation.

This is another example of where the full cover display is important for driving sales of the issue – it shows off the book of fifteen minute workouts.

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magazines
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