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Next round of member meetings planned

newsXpress has set its final round of member meetings for 2008. Following today’s Victoria member meeting, Graham Randall, Mark Fletcher, Ben Kay and local newsXpress team members will host member meetings in Brisbane (Nov. 11), Sydney (Nov. 13) and Perth (Nov. 18). These member meetings will recap some content from our National Conference, preview Christmas 2008 and Back To School, discuss several new supplier offers and provide training is some exclusive newsXpress intellectual property which we know will drive good business outcomes.

Our member meetings are open to newsXpress members as well as to newsagents seriously considering joining the growing newsXpress community. They are a great way to assess the value of newsXpress to a business and to experience the transparency of the group first-hand.

newsXpress on Facebook

newsXpress has established a page on Facebook, the social networking site being used by close to 100 million people worldwide. The newsXpress page will be used as a meeting place for newsXpress members and others connected with the group – suppliers, employees of members and former employees of members.

newsXpress will use the Facebook page in a way which is in keeping with the social context of Facebook – to connect people through the common link of an interest in newsXpress.

As the first newsagency marketing group in Australia to use Facebook, newsXpress is demonstrating an understanding of the importance of social media and the value of this medium for facilitating new conversations.

Anyone is welcome to become a fan of newsXpress on Facebook – search for newsXpress, once you are at the page click on become a fan. fans are kept up to date with newsXpress news through Facebook.

Playing golf for newsagents

newsXpress is a proud sponsor of the Gippsland Newsagents Golf Day at Lakes Entrance today.

Supporting this Golf Day is one of several ways newsXpress puts something back into the newsagency channel – beyond our day to day work with our member businesses. A day away from the business, enjoying the outdoors, can be excellent personalls and for the business.

Days like this are more about socialising with colleagues than the scorecard at the end of the round – that’s what some of the golfers say at least.

Good luck to everyone playing in Gippsland today!

Smart business at Bathurst

Geoff and Virginia Dale at newsXpress Bathurst wholeheartedly embrace the opportunity of the Bathurst race at Mount Panorama each year. They transform their newsagency into a Bathurst race souvenir and memorabilia shop. This year was no exception. They replaced greeting card and other fixturing with Bathurst product including a huge range of clothing. For several weeks, newsXpress Bathurst was THE go to place in town for all things Bathurst.

It is terrific seeing newsagents embrace opportunities such as this. We are proud to count Geoff and Virginia as newsXpress members. We will learn considerably from their input to our group, especially around special event marketing.

Branding the businessa

As newsXpress expands and more members complete shop fits, the brand itself is strengthened. There is nothing like a well-designed, professionally executed, new shop fit to best represent a retail brand.

newsXpress Gateway City in Western Australia is a good example of excellent representation of all that the newsXpress brand stands for. Owen and Robyn have created an strong design with appropriate flexibility to enable the business to evolve along with the needs of the marketplace. This is backed by a good mix of products and exceptional service.

newsXpress offers a range of assistance and advice to members as they approach shopfits. This ranges from feedback based on our experience in the newsagency channel through to access to specialist designed who understand the newsXpress mission and how to best represent this in a new shopfit design.

More fun with Halloween

Even though October 31 is still a few weeks away, newsXpress members and their team are happy to get into the spirit of the season with some dressing for Halloween. It is this team based approach which makes work fun and when work in retail is fun customers notice.

Happy customers are good for the business. This is another reason newsXpress puts considerable effort into Halloween – it is a season of fun before the busy Christmas season.

Enjoying Halloween

Wayne and the team at the newsXpress Upper Coomera Coles store are getting into Halloween. This photo shows part of their display.

This shop is right near Warner’s Brothers Movie World where they celebrate Halloween over three spooky nights. The newsXpress products and marketing collateral help the store be part of the area’s Halloween celebration.

Like any good promotion, there is an important balance to strike between pure fun and commercail success. With newsXpress having done Halloween for so long now, the group has a good mix and this is why our members enjoy the season so.

Having fun with Halloween

Visit a newsXpress Newsagency this week and you are likely to see cobwebs, spiders, snakes and witches paraphernalia. Halloween season is in full swing and newsXpress newsagents are immersing themselves in the fun of all things scary. Some staff will be dressed up and even some customers. While sales benefit from the effort so does customer enjoyment from the shopping experience as well as team member morale.

Above all else, retail needs to be fun. Halloween embraces that.

newsXpress is the only Newsagency marketing group to wholeheartedly embrace Halloween. This is another point of difference for our network of 150 newsagencies. A happy shop brings customers back again and again.

Exclusive Home Beautiful promotion

newsXpress members have benefited from an exclusive promotion in support of Home Beautiful. In addition to exclusive collateral material, one lucky newsXpress customer will win a generous cash prize. This event introduced a new element from traditional magazine promotions, with details of the competiton being directly marketed to consumers using the Home Beautiful database.

newsXpress is grateful to Pacific Magazines for supporting this promotion and helping newsXpress members offer a point of difference.

newsXpress Robina

newsXpress Beechworth

newsXpress Cairns

Trusting what we offer newsagents

newsXpress does not lock newsagents into a long contract. Our members can resign from our newsagent marketing group on thirty days notice. This is how it has always been and we do not plan on changing.

That we do not lock newsagents into a five year contract is a measure of our confidence to help newsXpress newsagents drive tremendous success from their relationship with us.

Newsagents considering joining a marketing group ought to question the length of any contract and be suspicious of anything longer than thirty days.

Calendar marketing collateral

newsXpress has enhanced its already successful calendar strategy this year with the development of several new items of marketing collateral for members.

To the left is the artwork for an A2 poster being offered for stores which want to boldly promote that calendars are now available in-store. On the poster, we are promoting products from several suppliers and covering several demographics. As calendar specialists, range is key.

We are also providing members with a combined calendar / diary catalogue to promote these products to homes and businesses in their area. Marketing outside the newsagency is crucial to driving traffic.

Thanks to the guidance from Michelle Caia our Calendar product manager, newsXpress does calendars well. Members embracing our strategies profit far better than if they were to follow the traditional newsagent calendar offering. Michelle has excellent supplier side experience with calendars and uses this when working with members on range and other strategies connected with the category.

On the road in Queensland

Belinda Adshead, our new Queensland based Business Development Manager has been on the road for the last two weeks, meeting newsXpress members and getting to know their businesses. Pictured in the photo with Belinda (right) and Vanessa and Nia from newsXpress Lowood.

Our Business Development Managers play an integral on-the-ground role with our members developing business strategies, acting ads a sounding board and helping implement newsXpress initiatives. Belinda is well equipped to help in this thanks to her years working a busy newsXpress newsagency.

Armed with newsXpress exclusive strategies and backed by Head Office resources in a range of areas, our on-the-road team plays a key road in the performance of newsXpress newsagencies.

Q3 sales benchmark

newsXpress has started receiving sales data from members participating in our quarterly sales performance benchmarking. The Q3 2008 results will, be compiled and analysed by the group in advance of release at our next round of member meetings.

newsXpress will use this confidential data to better serve members with product offers and strategies to grow member’s businesses.

It is our relentless pursuit outcomes which are valuable for our members which place newsXpress as the premier newsagency marketing group in Australia.

First online members meeting

We are proud to have hosted our first online newsXpress members meeting today. Ben Kay, our National Merchandise Manager, presented our Back To School and Christmas campaigns to members participating from their own businesses around the country. He also took questions about these and other merchandise initiatives from the group. Being online, people can participate in these meetings from anywhere. While online member meetings will never replace our face to face meetings, they are an excellent supplement for people who cannot attend or for businesses owners to involve employees without a high travel and time cost.

Magazine strategies pay off at newsXpress

Recent supplier briefings have shown how valuable the seven-point newsXpress magazine management plan is for our members. With newsXpress newsagencies delivering industry-leading growth we are better positioned to weather tough times.

Suppliers respond to our magazine initiatives with exclusive offers and insights which help us work smarter in the highly competitive magazine space.

newsXpress will be devoting time at the next round of member meetings (commencing in Melbourne of October 16) to discuss magazines and provide members with information on strategies which are certain to drive even greater success with magazines.

First online member meeting

newsXpress is proud to be the first newsagent marketing group to host an online members meeting. This industry-first will be held tomorrow, Thursday, at 10am. The meeting will cover:

newsXpress Back to School
newsXpress Christmas Promotion
Open forum for questions and comments from members regarding the Back to School and Christmas Promotions

We will bring together members from across the country who would otherwise have to travel some distance to participate in a members meeting. Hosting this and future online events is another way newsXpress is showing leadership by helping newsagents build better businesses.

Members meeting for Melbourne

We are following up our National Conference with member meetings in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. These will recap conference highlights, outline back to school and other forthcoming campaigns and preview several key initiatives. They will also provide an excellent opportunity for member dialogue with the newsXpress Directors and senior staff.

The first members meeting will be in Melbourne on October 16. Any newsagent considering joining newsXpress is most welcome to attend – it is a good opportunity to see the group in action and hear about our plans for an exciting 2009.

New website coming

Development of a new website for newsXpress is well under way. The new site will be a complete replacement of the current newsXpress website. It will deliver new consumer and member functionality as well as present a bright and exciting new face for newsXpress.

The new site will be released in stages with the full functionality we intend for the site not being completely released until the first quarter of next year. There are some exciting innovations coming which will help newsXpress newsagents continue to lead the newsagent channel in year on year same store growth.

Making money from Greeting Cards

newsXpress is proud to announce the launch of its first Workshop series: How to Make Money from Greeting Cards. Developed and run by Ron Thorpe, formerly a senior executive with Hallmark Cards, this four hour workshop (followed by lunch) will provide practical help for any newsagent wanting to grow greeting card sales. The workshop content will include:

How to see new retail sales opportunities
Planning for extra sales
How to increase the average sale
Why you need to embrace the greeting cards category

Too many newsagents treat greeting cards as a set-and-forget category. Our approach at newsXpress is to provide members with exclusive tools which help drive card sales and ensure that these are as valuable as possible. Click here for more details and a booking form for the Ron Thorpe workshop.

We know from sales data that newsXpress newsagents lead the newsagent channel in year on year card sales performance. This workshop is part of our strategy to help our stores to continue to lead the industry.

newsXpress will announce details of more workshops in the coming months.

Connecting remote members

In what we understand to be a first for a newsagency marketing group, newsXpress is proud to announce two online member meetings – making it even easier for remote newsagents to more actively participate in the newsXpress experience. The first two online newsXpress member meetings will be October 14 and 15 at 11am and 2pm respectively.

Offering opportunities for like-minded newsagents to get together and share ideas is a key reason newsagents join newsXpress. We run regular capital city bases members meetings as well as regular regional cluster meetings. The new online member meetings will enable members across various states engage with others they see less frequently.

Using world-class online meeting management technology, the online meetings will operate almost as if everyone is in the one room. Our head Office team will present our Back to School and other upcoming campaigns as well as facilitate open dialogue among members.

If the first two online members meetings receive positive feedback newsXpress will schedule more for 2009.