Category: newsagency marketing

newsXpress stores across Australia are embracing Halloween with special offers and wonderful in-store displays. The photo shows part of the display at our corporate store at Watergardens.

We see Halloween as a fun time when families and friends can hit the streets for a candy fix. In retail it is good to have opportunities to dress the store outside of the traditional Mother’s Day, father’s day and Christmas.

Halloween lets us play with some retail theatre – something which is important to newsXpress members.

newsXpress Margaret River sold a winning ticket in the Saturday night draw with one lucky customer looking foirward to a cheque for $800,000. The newsXpress track record wins is excellent! Congratulations to Tanya and Andrew Wagner and their team at newsXpress Margaret River.

newsXpress is helping its members really have some fun with Halloween this year. In addition to fantastic posters promotions and party products, we have also corralled Annette Sym for a recipe for Halloween pumpkin scones. Take a look at this tantalising batch made at the newsXpress head Office yesterday:

newsXpress newsagencies are a fun place to be this October – as well as all this Halloween fun we have amazing ink and toner deals and some excellent stationery offers.

newsXpress newsagencies have some excellent exclusive stationery deals at the moment thanks to this Hot Stationery Deald promotion:

newsXpress is the only newsagency marketing group actively promoting the Rugby World Cup. Through free posters to all member stores and a heap of marketing ideas, newsXpress newsagents are driving traffic and having a ton of fun as this photo from newsXpress Kingaroy shows:

Any newsagency marketing group can put its name on a stationery flyer or get a card company to pay for a card deal, it takes real marketing effort to create a campaign from scratch such as newsXpress has done with the Rugby World Cup.

newsXpress team members, like the folks at Kingaroy, are the ones really making this and other marketing campaigns a success. By painting their face they support the Wallabies and newsXpress and provide some entertainment for their customers. This is great retailing!

This is another reason newsagents are switching to newsXpress – they want to enjoy the difference.

Since its inception, newsXpress has been holding regular meetings with members to ensure open communication and active participation of all in the activities of the group. Last week, newsXpress hosted member meetings in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. There, several exclusive deals were announced and some valuable opportunities for 2008 explored. Our Brisbane meeting was well attended with more than 50 participating.

What is interesting about this from a newsagent perspective is that these numbers roll up every six weeks or so. Newsagents networking so regularly become empowered to strive for success – sharing great ideas with each other.

newsXpress members have done well at the Newsagency Excellence awards hosted by the Morning Bulletin in Rockhampton at the Weekend:

Employee of the Year: Margueite Powell from newsXpress Emerald.

Outstanding Marketing of Capricornia Newspapers: newsXpress Rockhampton.

Runner up Newsagency of the year: newsXpress Northside Plaza.

Choosing newsXpress newsagents is more about the people as it is about the business size and location. We look for proactive, positive, entrepreneurial people who want to business a bright future under the newsXpress shingle. Every new store opening is like a new baby to the family. Laidley is our latest – in Queensland. The happy team run a positive business which serves the local area well. We’re thrilled to have them on board.

The team members are proudly wearing their newsXpress provided Father’s Day t-shirts.

Warrick and Jo Hoskings and the team at newsXpress Gympie received long overdue praise from ACP and their peers at the annual ACP Gala Awards dinner last night in Sydney.

Beyond the bright green suit – to match the ACP magazines Emerald Club colours – Warrick and the team actively embrace every marketing opportunity possible in their business. They have to since Gympie in regional Queensland has seven newsagencies.

The team at Gympie drive newsXpress into new areas and this adds value to the 135 other newsagencies which are part of the newsXpress community.

With the Diddl range now in half of our stores and on the way to another 25, we are seeing some excellent results. Diddl is another example of newsXpress experts discovering a new range which works well in a newsagency environment and delivering this on terms and with support to ensure the best possible commercial outcome for newsagents.

The folks behind Diddl in Australia continue to be wonderfully supporting to newsXpress and its members and for this we are grateful.

Each store is giving over either a high traffic aisle end (as shown in the photo from newsXpress Buderim) or an area of free standing space where the range can be promoted. newsXpress is supporting this exclusively for its members by sharing learnings among group members and providing marketing materials for local support.

The team at newsXpress Robina were the frist from the newsXpress group to promote their business everywhere with this corporate image van. newsXpress has an arrangement with the team behind the design of the van and offers access to the design service to all newsXpress newsagents who want to promote their brand on the road.

newsXpress has launched a series of exclusive diary supply arrangements for its member newsagents. These deals make product available on substantially better terms than available to individual newsagents. The commercailk value of the arrangement is significant for newsagents of all sizes as the newsXpress deals trade off the collecting volume of our 120+ stores.

newsXpress Jamison is a new location opened to our brand recently. They have undertaken a creative shop fit which respects newsagency traditions yet pursues new sales opportunities in stationery and allied areas.

Take a look at the smiles on Ewan and Rod Carr from newsXpress Carr’s Armidale.

Ewan, Rod and their families are go getters in Armidale and have joined newsXpress to further grow their business and to help the newsagency group grow as well. We are thrilled to have them as part of the newsXpress team as they show how a regional / rural newsagency can be very competitive yet retain the enjoyment of a happy family business.

We are deep in the middle of building a new corporate store at the Watergardens Shopping Centre in Victoria. We are using this as a test bed for innovations we plan to share with our membership including plasma poster units, Irish magazine fixturing and a new warm and soft overall feel.

The store will open at the end of this quarter.

Central to the newsXpress offer is regular member meetings. These are held every six to eight weeks in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane with between 80% and 100% member attendance. Members leave the meetings invigorated with practical ideas ready to implement in their businesses and the newsXpress team leaves with good feedback which will help create a more successful over for member newsagents.

newsXpress is a unique marketing group for newsagents. We focus on the positive and use the member meetings to motivate and guide our members to greater success.

Congratulations to Warrick and his team at newsXpress Gympie for reaching the number 1 spot in the ACP Emerald Club. newsXpress Gympie is one of 7 newsagents in the town of Gympie and competes with all the major retailers in the area. This result has been achieved by participating in every promotion with ACP and continually driving sales of his magazines through Beacon Branding, the use of the Magazine Club Card and local store marketing. It is Warrick’s relentless focus on in store promotions and marketing that make newsXpress Gympie a credit to the newsXpress brand and we look forward to seeing more of the wonderful ideas and promotions that come from Warrick and his team.

It has been a busy few weeks with members joining newsXpress in VIC, NSW and QLD. Since we have a strict membership criteria and an evaluation process to manage, bringing new members on is not something which happens overnight. So, the eight new members reflects considerable time in the field and in the office checking to make sure that newsXpress and the newsagents are good fit. With our same store growth being above average for newsagencies in several key categories, it is important that we ensure we partner with people who want to push that further.

newsXpress members have been contacting our team over the last few days, full of praise for our decision to fund their participation in the Hallmark Alliance program. Our corporate decision means that our network of newsXpress stores will run consistent campaigns around the Hallmark brand at least five times a year. This is the most consistent local area marketing campaign undertaken by a group of newsagents ever. We are confident that time will show it to also be the most valuable.