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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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:
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.
We are following up our National Conference with member meetings in
The first members meeting will be in
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.
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:
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.
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.
We took a moment during the newsXpress conference last week top get a photo of our team. It is appropriate that we are standing in front of the slide showing the suppliers who contributed to make the conference the success it was.
Missing is Michelle Caia – our calendars and gifts expert – and Chris Hicks – our leasing consultant.
An important aspect of the National newsXpress Conference last week on the Gold Coast was the Show and Tell presentations from members. Five members spoke about specific experiences relating back to their newsXpress involvement. These presentations included:
Jim Carlile from newsXpress Buderim speaking about the importance of alignment of all in the group behind the brand and the brands it supports. Jim spoke about his experience with Terry White Chemists and how alignment was successfully used to strengthen that group and its members into a successful retail group.
Nici Hilder spoke about how they grew card and related sales at newsXpress Castle Towers, taking us through through several major transitions of their business to the showpiece newsagency her family has today at the Castle Towers centre in NSW. Nici shared some important learnings applicable to everyone.
Jarryd Moore spoke – connecting with the about how to communicate with Gen. Y. he connected with the keynote address from Peter Sheehan. Jarryd spoke from personal experience is methods which help improve communication between employers and Gey Y employees including mobile phones, email, websites and even My Space.
A highlight of the last day of the newsXpress National Conference was the presentation by Zoe Petrou (pictured left) and Jane Peterson-McIllhatton from Pacific Magazines to newsXpress with the completed Better Homes and Gardens painting. This painting was completed over the course of the conference by attendees and the Pacific magazine team. This painting will be proudly displayed on the wall at our Head Office and remind us of our first conference.
To celebrate Inaugural newsXpress Conference on the Gold Coast this week and the 30th anniversary of Better Homes and Gardens, the folks at Pacific Magazines invited conference attendees to share in painting something for the wall of the newsXpress Head Office. The photo captures Shelley Petersen of newsXpress Sarina with brush in hand adding her touch to the painting. Some of us less skilled at painting than Shelley were thankful that there were lines to guide our painting.
This was a fun activity from Pacific Magazines for the trade show part of the two day conference.
Annette Sym set the newsXpress conference alight yesterday with her presentation on why she sells her Symply Too Good To Be True cookbooks exclusively through newsagents. Her weight loss, personal development, business success story is inspirational and commitment to newsagents and the newsXpress group in particular deeply appreciated.
Annette Sym is one of many speakers at the conference helping us connect with the theme of embracing change and propelling our businesses to a higher level.