Click here for a copy of the letter sent yesterday to newsagents in NSW and the ACT about the trust fund established by NANA to support the daughter of the slain newsagents. Please support this – individuals and newsagents reading this blog post.
We have the latest issue of Australian Women’s Weekly on display right at the front of the shop to attract passers-by. There is tremendous interest in Magda Subanski’s weight loss journey and the opportunity for excellent sales from this the latest issue of AWW is, in our view, in the first few days. The coverage in this issue of the MasterChef winner will also drive excellent sales. We will maintain AWW in this premium location for at least a full week.
I am often asked by newsagents about displays I feature here and the thinking we put into them. Our decision on this issue of AWW is a good example of our process. We looked at everything which came in today and judged that we would achieve the best sales return from AWW in this location. The other title vying for this space was Better Homes and Gardens. We have this on a separate, BH&G branded, stand – next to our busiest lottery counter. It is well positioned.
The key about deciding what titles to feature and where is to do something – every Monday, Wednesday and Friday – and to learn from the results. Too often, newsagents puy up the posters and that’s it. Sales drive our display decisions, not posters. Our approach takes more time but we win and publishers win.
I was surprised to see that one of our team had placed TV Week on the counter after I left the newsagency on Monday. I am a bit anal about things like this and did not expect a change to be made. I need not have been concerned – in just two days, the placement at the counter resulted in a measurable sales lift for TV Week. Getting an extra few sales of TV Week is an opportunity to remind these customers about our newsagency for the regular purchase.
We can’t place TV Week on the counter every week – nor other titles we want to feature for that matter. However, some titles respond better to this placement than others. This week’s experience suggests to me that TV Week can be added to the list of titles which respond well.
We are promoting Dolly magazine, and the free beret and scarf which come with this issue, at the exit of our busiest magazine aisle. This means that mums and teenage girls will see the display – and hopefully purchase the magazine. We also have Dolly on display in the usual location – with teen magazines. While the display is not the usual billboard display publishers like to see, we are certain that it will work and result in excellent sales for the title – because of the magazine traffic in this aisle.
Crikey published a story yesterday about the dearth of newsagencies in Melbourne. It’s true. Melbourne is the worst-serviced capital city in Australia when it comes to newspaper and magazine range. As I commented to the journalist writing the article, I suspect that high rents, poor margins and static retail prices are the key factors in play here.
The Christmas in July promotion at our Frankston newsagency has been working well for us – driving sales and traffic. We have moved considerable product in the week that this display has been up. It has proved to be an excellent promotion to transition us from the latest Victorian school holidays with and to fill a gap before we start our Father’s Day promotion.
What has helped the promotion is that no other business in our centre or nearby is running anything like this. This Blue Ocean strategy approach is something we newsagents do not do enough of.
The large signs were printed professionally and smaller ones on the table printed in house – using the same artwork. The pitch is very professional. The stock pulled from a number of sources especially for the event.
The display is attracting customers from the mall as well as adding to the baskets of existing customers.
With limited display space available, we are pitching the new issues of Men’s Health and Women’s Health together this week – on an aisle end between our two busiest magazine aisles. Women’s Health is the stronger of the two titles for us.
What we are chasing with this display is customers buying Men’s Health and Women’s Health together.
NANA, the Association of newsagents in NSW, will announce tomorrow details of a fund to which newsagents and their customers can contribute to to raise funds to support the daughter of Min Lin and Yun Li Lin, newsagents from Epping in NSW who were slain several days ago along with two of their children and a relative. I will publish details here once they are released by NANA. I hope newsagents across the country get behind this.
Check out Printcasting, a website which lets people publish magazines by creating a way to package stories from multiple sources and generate advertising revenue. Anyone can create a “printcast” about their interests or community. Princasting has been developed with funding from Knight Ridder newspaper publishing company.
There is a supermarket in Victoria that does not open the lottery sales counter on Mondays. Instead, customers are told to go to the newsagency nearby. I can’t imagine that Tattersalls would be happy with this.
We have expanded the space available to sports magazines and achieved this by reducing the space allocated to car magazines. Both moves were based on sales data. We are achieving good growth in running, soccer and bike riding titles and needed more space to display these professionally. We are constantly looking for opportunities to finesse our magazine layout, to keep our offer fresh.
Newsagencies with the same layout today as they had three years or more ago should consider relaying magazines. Customers become as store-blind as retail employees. Change fights that and often results in sales growth as ‘new’ magazines are discovered by browsers.
Cameron Diaz is on the cover of four magazines this month. I must have been living under a rock – what has she done (or what is she doing) which warrants such attention? This level of coverage dilutes the differences between the titles – to me at least, as someone who does not read these titles. At our Frankston newsagency the team is creating a Cameron feature, to tap into fan interest. I like that idea as it shows a local connection with the product. Supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol outlets will stick with the same old boring corporate preset plan – an miss an opportunity for some fun.
Newsagents are mourning the tragic killing of Min Lin, his wife Yun Li Lin and their two sons and another female relative at the weekend. The family owned and operated the Rawson Street Newsagency in Epping Shopping Centre. They have been clients of my software company since they bought the business years ago. Those of us who had contact with them found them to good people to deal with.
I have opened this post for others who may want to comment.
Like many newsagents I suspect, we are promoting the latest issue of Healthy Food at the counter and showing off the bag of goodies which comes with the new issue our today. The bag is a brilliant offer. This issue will sell out – as happens every time they offer this size promotion. I am disappointed that there was no marketing collateral to promote the offer.
On the broader issue of promotions like this, our own sales data for Healthy Food shows that there is no measurable flow-on benefit to such a brilliant promotion. Others would need to have a diffeerent experience for this promotion to be repeated annually.
Titles like Dolly and Girlfriend regularly, successfully, use gifts (tip-ons) to drive sales. While tip-ons can be frustrating for newsagents, they can be crucial to driving sales. From what I can see, the key is regularity. With Healthy Food it is once a year.
We are promoting Grazia magazine at the entrance to our main magazine aisle this week. The half-price offer is an opportunity to introduce the title to new readers. This is a strategy which works well for some other titles. While our Grazia sales are low, I’m happy to try promotions like this to grow sales.
As I wrote last week, this location is proving to be a hit for us – we sold 90% of our Good Food allocation in six days.
Newsagents should be aware that in all states except NSW, this issue of Grazia has an incorrect barcode on the cover. Click here for advice for the Tower Newsagent community.
With more newspapers getting out of printing puzzles, there is an opportunity for newsagents to better promote the crossword range.
Click here to go to the Sky Business website where a video of the Mediaweek program from Thursday July 16 is available. The focus was magazines and the role of newsagents. I was a guest on the program along with Eugene Varricchio, Group General Manager – Retail & Distribution, for ACP Magazines. It was good to participate in such a public discussion which respected the role newsagents play in magazine distribution and sales.
Power problems at the News Limited printing plant overnight will see some, maybe many, newsagents without the Sunday Telegraph today. There will be calls from customers asking, in various levels of agitation, where’s my paper? There are also billing issues. For Tower Newsagents we issued advice this morning reminding how to handle this easily.
I cannot find any mention of this on the Telegraph website. That makes me wonder if the problem is not as widespread as newsagents tell me.
We are actively promoting the Powerball $50 million jackpot from the front of our newsagency through the shop. We have resurrected an old (years old) vinyl sign for above the entrance as it presents a visual point of difference to the usual corporate image promotion. We tested this with during the OzLotto jackpot and it worked well – we noticed customers noticing the sign. Click on the image for a larger version of the photo. we still have the corporate image display behind the counter and in our Tattersalls dedicated area.
Deep inside our newsagency, above our magazines aisles, we have A3 posters promoting the Powerball $50 million jackpot. Click on the image to see just one of the aisles. Both look this good – better in real life than the photo. Our thought here is that we want to get customers as they either head to the counter to make a purchase or leave after browsing. While Tattersalls does not recognise this extra effort, we know from our own tracking that it is good for our business. If we can add a lottery ticket to a magazine purchase, it makes the magazine purchase that much more valuable.
Inside the shop, these displays and others we have in the store give a feel of an event, something big is happening. Sales today and yesterday tell us that it is working – and without detracting from sales in other departments.
In six days we have sold fifteen copies of Good Food magazine from ACP. This is already our best result for this title in our Forest Hill location. I expect we will sell the remaining five copies in the next week.
While I would like to think that it is our display, I suspect that there are other factors are at work with the success we are seeing for this issue. If there are not any other factors at play then I’m thrilled as it reinforces the value of the new, slim, display space we have created at the end of our main magazine aisle.
Looking at the sales data, Thursday and Saturday are our best days by far for this issue.
The campaign run by The Age for the free carry bag with today’s copy of the newspaper has been very successful – considerably more so that past bag campaigns. More customers are coming in knowing that a bag comes with today’s newspaper than we have experienced previously. There is good humour around the offer. We feel good because we are the ones handing over the free gift. I had one elderly customer today expecting to have to pay us at least something she said that it was free made her day. Based on our experience I would expect this campaign to have lifted sales.
Based on the first day of sales, our experience is that there is a good appetite for tickets in the Powerball $50 million jackpot. The opportunity gives the newsagency a real buzz.
With excellent progress from the recent trials of the new link to Network Services, my software company, Tower Systems, has launched a new campaign promoting its newsagency software solution. This includes the very latest electronic returns facilities for Network and the other magazine distributors. For the first time, newsagents are able to lodge regular and supplementary returns submissions from within their software and without having to complete paperwork or re-enter data on a website. This is a tremendous time saving. It also benefits cash-flow.
I understand the value of the benefits from these latest advances because two of my newsagencies are in the trial. Owning newsagencies and a software company has allowed us to finesse the solution to maximum advantage for newsagents.
Click here for a copy of the flyer being faxed to newsagents.
Charlie Pickering features in the current issue of Money magazine. This is important to know and somehow promote as he is a star on Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation, the hit Network Ten TV show. He will also feature on The 7PM Project – the new nightly TV show on Network Ten which starts on Monday. The article about Pickering makes Money interesting to Gen X, a demographic to which the magazine would not usually easily appeal.
While it is impossible for newsagents to scan through every magazine for promotion opportunities such as this article in Money, scanning through the top monthlies usually uncovers an article which can be promoted or, at least, talked about with some customers. Recommending a magazine based on this knowledge can drive sales and further demonstrate the difference between a newsagent as a magazine retailer and all other magazine retailers.
The Charlie Pickering article provides us with an opportunity, especially if we serve a good Gen X community.
We are promoting the Powerball $50 million jackpot at every honey-pot opportunity. By honey-pot I mean popular places where people gather in our newsagency: daily newspapers, foreign newspapers (as in the photo), magazines, the counter, across the front of the newsagency – main destinations and stopping points when people visit our newsagency. Each display includes a list of popular ticket choices – to help guide their decision as to how much to invest.
We have set a sales goal and are supporting this with an incentive for team members.