Category: Newsagency marketing group

newsXpress concept store attracts newsagents looking for the newsagency of the future

nxsthlOur latest concept store reflecting a creative, exciting and flexible shop fit is attracting plenty of interest in the newsagency channel. Plenty of newsagents and newsagent suppliers have been to the store to see the innovation for themselves.

This new business, which continues to evolve in response to data tracking and shopper feedback, reflects considerable investment by newsXpress in developing intellectual property.

Some come and visit and try and photograph our ideas while others introduce themselves and talk about what we are doing. We’re happy to share to a point, keeping the golden information for newsXpress members and strategic partners only.

This new location and all corporate stores are where newsXpress experiments, to harness learnings for newsXpress members.

Optimism helps drive retail sales for newsXpress

optimismMany newsXpress members have embraced optimism as a theme in their product purchasing at recent gift fairs and the toy fair in Melbourne. By bringing in products that reflect optimism in words and images the newsXpress members are creating happy shops … happy shops make for happy customers.

Optimism is infectious. It plays out well for the shoppers and the business. We encourage all newsXpress members to make the conscious choice to play in this space of optimism – it’s better than playing the price game as history has shown chasing a price point difference to be a mugs game with little shopper loyalty and no long-term upside for the business.

newsXpress thinks about moves like this carefully and shares insights designed to help members to make the most of moods like optimism. The result is good for our member businesses, suppliers and, most important, shoppers.

Messages of optimism sell.

The importance of magazines to today’s newsagency

nxmagsnewsXpress is proving the importance of magazines as a net traffic generator yet managing the floorspace allocation to drive the best possible financial efficiency for the business. In our latest corporate store, following the principles we have been espousing for some time, we have been able to deliver a consumer-satisfying experience while ensuring maximum floorspace for higher margin product to be offered to magazine shoppers.

Getting the floorspace balance right is key to driving the GP$ outcome.

newsXpress respects magazines with a considered and layered strategy to drive traffic, facilitate basket depth and ensure a cost-effective range. The newsXpress magazine strategy is available to members as part of our membership deliverables – demonstrating our understanding of the value of magazines in today’s newsagency, in way that provides flexibility for tomorrow.

newsXpress launches training videos

As announced at the newsXpress national conference last week, we have completed production on ten new training videos. These are the next step of an expanded training suite of services from newsXpress for newsXpress members, delivering access to  a growing resource you will be able to use to share with your team members and to use yourself. Our feeling is that video based training will be appreciated because of the flexibility you will have in tapping into the resources as and when it suits you.

Produced by us in house, these latest videos reflect a new skill set within the newsXpress team. They also demonstrate a platform we will use to deliver some training previously delivered by RDMs. Some of these videos reflect content from the conference. The two on outposting cover content we had to eliminate on the day because of time over-runs. Here are the new videos available to you:

  1. Planning for 2020
  2. Who is newsXpress?
  3. Getting Started With Outposting
  4. Practical Tips For Outposting
  5. Getting Started With Candy Lanes
  6. NXP Benchmarks
  7. Business Assessment
  8. Getting Started With Visual Merchandising
  9. Post Xmas NXP Comm
  10. newsXpress communication December 2012

Please share with newsXpress your feedback at help@newsxpress. Also,let us know other topics you would like to see covered.

newsXpress conference a hit with newsXpress members

conf2013Two hundred people packed the member’s dining room of the MCG in Melbourne earlier this week for the newsXpress national conference. It was a jam-packed day with on-topic speakers, excellent product opportunities and exclusive newsXpress initiatives.

Feedback from members to the conference in the days since has been excellent, inspiring. Here is a sample of the feedback from members so far:

Many thanks for your hospitality over conference. Thank you for all of the hard work that is put in, in order to provide better buying and opportunity for the group.

There is no doubt that the industry has changed and the business operators need to change with the customers taste and demand and anyone who does not see that and who does not want to participate and support the NewsXpress team should consider whether they should actually be a part of the team.

Whether it is a Franchise or a Marketing Group, it requires consistency and compliance across the group with a vision that they can all see and work towards.

Keep up the good work.

…..

I’m just writing to thank you sincerely for an outstanding National Conference.

It was what I call a “Pattern Interrupt” and “Change of State” message for all Newsagents. The day was chock full of information, data and ideas  and I look very forward to receiving the videos …especially the one on Mark’s very thought provoking spread sheet of a new NXP business transitioning through to 2020.

Having had my own international seminar business for 17 years when we would have between 1000 and 8000 attendees at our sales, marketing, business and personal development 1 day events, I know first-hand the time and effort that goes into running any conference.

Congratulations on an excellent event.

…..

WOW! What a great event. Inspirational.  Thank you newsXpress!

…..

The leadership you are providing newsXpress members and all newsagents is fantastic. Keep it up, we are changing our business thanks to you and, yes, we are making more money.

…..

It was a struggle to get time to come to Melbourne but I am so glad I did. You have helped me fall in love with my business again. I am so excited by what you showed us and the ideas I know will work in my newsagency.

…..

Great conference!

I appreciated your transparency and the excellent business opportunities I have come away with.

 

Yes, it was an excellent event, one we could not have pulled off without the support of our two strategic partners –  Pacific Magazines and Hallmark Cards and our supportive community of preferred suppliers – who wrote some excellent business on the day … by the way – and our team of wonderful people in newsXpress who work tirelessly for the group.

newsXpress helps newsagents promote St Patrick’s Day

newsXpress has provided members with promotional material with which they can connect with St Patrick’s Day celebrations and product sale opportunities.

For small seasonal opportunities as well as large, newsXpress is helping members make the most of opportunities, tapping into  existing traffic as well as attracting new shoppers with fresh collateral in a variety of sizes and formats.

This collateral is provided to all newsXpress members.

newsXpress helps newsagents make their businesses more valuable.

newsXpress hosting a retail tour of Melbourne

newsXpress last week announced details of a retail tour to follow our national conference next month. taking in some key retail locations, newsagencies and non newsagencies, the tour is a free add on to the national conference – giving newsXpress members another opportunity to network, soak up ideas from others and to consider these in the context of the newsXpress experience.

Hosted by newsXpress head office staff, the retail tours will present many opportunities to participating newsXpress members.

This is another way newsXpress helps members build more valuable businesses – by sharing ideas and helping members see opportunities that could work in their businesses. The mix of businesses to be visited has been carefully selected to ensure that each provides takeaways for newsXpress members is city, rural and regional … high street and shopping centre … situations.

newsXpress is a very open group. We research many formats and ideas and share the best with members, leaving members to decide what works best for them. We do not force formats or products on members as each business is different and each owner needs to be able to make local choices.

Brilliant Valentine’s Day display works a treat at newsXpress Wetherill Park

valwetherillThe team at newsXpress wetherill Park has made excellent use of the newsXpress collateral, the Hallmark Lavazza coffee machine gift and their own creative skills to make their shop the Valentine’s Day display in the shopping centre.

The display is even more stunning live than this photo shows. From outside the shop it has acted as a beacon for shoppers and delivered excellent traffic and sales for the business.

Collecting all the key elements together: products, the unique prize, collateral and packaging it in a visually stunning way makes for a winning season.

Well done to everyone at newsXpress Wetherill Park.

Great use of cut-through newsXpress Valentine’s Day collateral

valelinewsXpress Eli Waters in Queensland has been making excellent use of the newsXpress Valentine’s Day collateral and products from preferred suppliers with this and other promotional displays in-store.

By providing landscape and portrait versions of collateral for all major seasons, newsXpress provides members with the opportunity to create displays with more impact – as has been done here at newsXpress Eli Waters.

It is seasons like this that are vital to driving overall GP performance of the business. newsXpress helps beyond collateral – by ensuring easy access to suppliers with deals to drive margin and therefore the overall return for the business. It’s a newsXpress difference … money in the bank.

 

newsXpress says no to major shopping centre opportunity

newsXpress is regularly offered opportunities by shopping centre landlords. Each opportunity is assessed and negotiations undertaken. If the opportunity does not meet our minimum requirements, we do not proceed.

This happened recently with an opportunity in a major centre in Queensland where the store, trading under a different newsagency banner group, is in hard times. We engaged with the landlord, talked terms and eventually said thanks but no thanks this time.

We will not take on a tenancy just for the sake of it. It must work on its own, the numbers must be right.

Sometimes, a smaller newsagency outside a major centre will deliver a far more valuable return than the higher profile business. Our focus is on the size of the return on investment.

newsXpress announces confidential business performance workshop

newsXpress has announced details to members of a confidential half-day business performance workshop, to be held the day following our national conference.

This closed-door session will see a group of newsXpress members share with each other business performance and other data for open discussion on performance and exploration of opportunities.

The purpose of the confidential session is to have members challenge each other, to uncover new opportunities and to take newsXpress member networking to a deeper and more engaged level.

Participation is free and only available to newsXpress members. The event is being held in the boardroom of our office.  Here is the invitation shares with newsXpress members:

On Wednesday 6th of March, the day after the conference, newsXpress is hosting a three hour workshop to discuss business performance. We have room for up to eight people to meet in the boardroom of our Hawthorn office to share their business performance and discuss these with other newsXpress members. Moderated by Mark Fletcher, this will be a confidential under the hood look at the performance of the participating businesses, to learn what we can from each other, and to challenge ourselves. This session will start at 10am and end by 1pm. Participation is free Confidentiality and openness are important for this session to work.

newsXpress members benefit from Nexus platform opportunities

With all newsXpress members included in the Nexus program from Pacific Magazines, we make sure that newsXpress members understand and embrace the marketing opportunities provided. These include the ability to send emails to customers through a professional email service and with appropriate privacy checks and balances.

newsXpress has recently been helping members in the preparation and sending of emails, offering content and advice through the head office and thereby helping newsXpress members to more fully leverage the nexus platform for commercial success.

With newsXpress members having sometimes more than 1,000 email addresses on their database, free professional emails can be an effective way of inviting shoppers back into the business. the newsXpress advice and assistance is aimed at making the most of this opportunity that is freely available to all newsXpress members regardless of size.

HOT ink! rocks … newsXpress members love it

hotink2Here’s the second page of the latest newsXpress HOT ink! flyer, the flyer sent to hundreds of thousands of businesses and homes as part of our latest HOT ink! campaign.

newsXpress members have been sharing stories this week of the success of this campaign … new customers coming in and purchasing for the first time, older customers coming in and buying ink for the first time.

newsXpress has in HOT ink! a consistent and proven ink strategy backed by professional marketing, competitive consumer pricing, good margins and excellent business support and expertise to enable newsXpress members make the most from the opportunity.

newsXpress members running HOT ink! can bank on excellent results for their business through strong support from their customers.

Love is in the air at newsXpress and in emails

ValentinesEmailBannerNewsagency marketing group newsXpress is promoting the season of love, Valentine’s Day, with a professional email banner reflecting the collateral provided by newsXpress to newsXpress members across Australia.

Connecting the in-store collateral with email banners and other customer and supplier touch points in a visually consistent way speaks to the professionalism of newsXpress and the belief in the group about visual consistency.

The Valentine’s Day collateral for the 2013 season has received wonderful feedback from newsXpress members as they proudly place it in store to help drive excellent sales for Valentine’s Day 2013.

All newsXpress members and team members are using the Valentine’s Day 2013 email banner to spread our message of love far and wide.

newsXpress cluster meetings next week

newsXpress is hosting cluster meetings in Newcastle and Townsville next week, providing regionally located newsXpress members easy access to networking and business development discussion opportunities.

These cluster meetings are another way newsXpress helps members connect with each other and with newsXpress corporately.

These are not buying meetings,there are no supplier presentations.  The meetings are hosted solely to provide newsXpress members an opportunity to explore and discuss business.

Participation is free.

This is another valuable newsXpress point of difference. The cluster meeting value can be seen by each session being booked out by all members in the region well in advance.

newsXpress Radio connects newsXpress members across the country

newsXpress is the only newsagency marketing group in the country to offer alive in-store radio service.  This is a commercially valuable asset, a connection of all newsXpress stores playing the same music and running the same promotions across the group.

Our live in-store radio network is a newsXpress point of difference others envy. It provides a valuable marketing platform as wells as a community connection platform. The store shout-outs, product promotions and shopper reminders help connect us and drive shopper in-store engagement.

newsXpress Radio is provided free to newsXpress members.  This is more than $800 a year in value delivered at no cost to our members.

newsXpress magazine club card drives sales

magclubcardnewsXpress members who engage with the newsagency channel’s longest running group-based loyalty marketing program have reported excellent magazine sales results for the last quarter of 2012. Year on year sales for the quarter in newsXpress stores are better than the newsagency channel average.

This is an excellent result for newsXpress and participating members.

The magazine club card is an easy to operate loyalty program, a program shoppers understand and a program that alters shopper behavior.

Whereas other loyalty programs reward average behavior, the newsXpress program drives shoppers to act above average. This results in additional sales for newsXpress members.

newsXpress provides the collateral for the program for free.

newsXpress phonecard saves money for newsXpress shoppers

The newsXpress phonecard is a perfect card to help people cut interstate and international call costs. This exclusive newsXpress branded phonecard is an excellent value phonecard, offering access to low cost calls inside Australia as well as overseas.

This is a what you see is what you get phonecard. There are no hidden fees or charges.  It offers excellent value and wonderful customer service.

Every time the newsXpress phonecard is used, customers connect withy the newsXpress brand. The money they save, the calls they make, the service they receive … these all connect with the newsXpress brand.

Now is the perfect time for newsXpress members to be promoting the newsXpress phonecard and offering it to regular customers as well as to those travelling in our areas.

The newsXpress phonecard is a product of which we are most proud.

Diversity in newsagency marketing group membership helps all newsXpress members

nxmembershipbaseThe survey of newsXpress newsagency marketing group members late in 2012 provided an excellent insight into the types of businesses operated under the newsXpress shingle. The results show a diverse group of members covering a good geographic spread and a nice range of retail situations.

There is strength in diversity with members being able to learn from each other and with the group being able to attract an excellent range of suppliers.  The breadth of coverage demonstrates to prospective newsXpress members that size does not matter, what is important is the people joining and that they are committed to growing their business and representing the newsXpress brand professionally in their area.

While there are many common offers, threads and products weaving the newsXpress network together, there is also diversity from which many opportunities in the future will flow.

the up-to-date understanding of the types of businesses in the newsXpress community was a small part of the data harvested through the survey.