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How To Increase Sales Of A Street Magazine.
Posted By: petrie* on 6/9/2005 3:45 AM (CST) 250 Points
I market a magazine which is sold on the streets by homeless and unemployed people. We operate as a social enterprise which means that we use business principles to achieve social goals. We recruit and train people to sell the magazine who buy it for $2.00 and sell it for $4.00 thereby giving them $2.00 for every magazine they sell. We are a non profit organsiation and our sole goal is to help our vendors to get back on their feet. The magazine is a quality current affairs publication .

Our vendors are not professional sales people and often the public do not want to approach them as they are not neat and tidy. How do I overcome this? What methods can we use to get more people to buy on the street? How else can we sell the mag? What publicity stunts work to raise our profile? What unusual ways are there to sell magazines like ours?

Posted by: ASVP/ChrisB Accepted Answer
6/9/2005 6:57 AM (CST)
WCB Jim!

Are your vendors allowed onto railway platforms and/or commuter trains? Or at bus terminals during morning/evening commute times?

How about targeting car-commuters at traffic-light controlled intersections?

Can you place people outside Centrelink offices in the CBD? Might be a degree of empathy there...

Can you do deals with cafes were they might take a stack of magazines from a vendor and sell them with a coffee, say, for $5? The vendor could take a smaller margin and allow the shop to make the usual margin on their coffee - if they establish multiple channels, their earnings will be leveraged by the channel for the same investment in time.

Did you pursue my previous suggestion of trying community TV/radio channels for free promotional airtime?

How about getting a current affair program to follow one vendor's search for sales, a job, a future, over maybe a 6-8 week period?

Or get one of the drive-time radio programs to have a regular spot where the speak to one of the vendors for an update on what's going on in the street, their job search, etc?

You need to get your vendors out of the "pity purchase" segment into an area where mainstream Australians understand what these folk are doing.

Also worth seeing if the State or Federal Govt can assist you with promotional funds to kick the program along.

Maybe there are spin-off products too... Big Issue umbrellas for rainy days, sunscreen for summer???

Just rambling... But hope these thoughts help.

Cheers
 
Posted by: KSA Accepted Answer
6/9/2005 9:59 PM (CST)
Petrie (or is it Jim?)

Following Chris is always painful. But, if you can increase the visibility of your organization as Chris suggests, then you're left with the approachability problem.

The perfect answer might be to acquire some fold-up tables for the vendors to use. If they look like they belong somewhere, and people could approach them, that might help. You could attach a vinyl sign to the front edge of the table hanging down with your logo, and maybe an attention-grabbing tag line.

Don't know how your laws work, tho. They might need to be licensed if they set up what might be considered to be a stand?

Barring that, I'd try brainstorming on ways to make the vendors look more professional (or at least provide a strong indication that they are associated with your organization).

How about T Shirts with your logo very prominent on it? Or, vests with the logo/tag line on the front and back. Or hats, or shop aprons. If the vendors aren't particularly well-groomed, hats might be a great idea. It wouldn't be done to make them uncomfortable; it's the same marketing approach used by any retail or service firm where the employees wear identifying clothing.

Does your magazine have advertisers or sponsors? Could one of them make a special offer only found in your magazine? Then, they could promote it and you could use some of Chris' ideas to promote it.

And, are you sure your publication is priced competitively at $4.00? It might be difficult to sell the product at a premium, especially if the public isn't aware of your group at this point.

Hope this helps.

Kathleen
 
Posted by: rahultheboynextdoor* Accepted Answer
6/10/2005 6:44 AM (CST)
Well kathleen and chris have expressed some really innovative ideas and just to add on to it i can draw a precedent and tell you that a profitability of a magazine exists with the number of advertisements posted on it. though for that one needs to measure the number of readers. which makes a chicken and egg situation. okay publicity stunt no 1. As described by kathleen your sals team members with vests and on it your company'y logo, could stand on the traffic lights. here you can tie there eyes and display a placard stating "Let there be light". this stunt will not only draw attention but will also position your magazine as a journal which opens the eyes of the reader and serve some real suff to read. since most of the magazines around serve more spicy stuff rather than true stuff to read, it makes a logical positioning. Just for your information the same stunt was adopted by a leading newspaper in India this april, and the result was overwhelming when it turned out to be the newspaper with the highest readership.
i hope this idea if executed well, will draw attention and will increase readership and also more ads / revenue for you
best of luck
Vivek
 
Posted by: whitefeud Accepted Answer
6/10/2005 8:10 AM (CST)
create a colour scheme uniform - may be only t-shirt with a nice slogan. the uniformity will increase the brand equity and add value to the magazine and the person in the street selling it. Prospect clients will not be afraid and feel more comfortable when purchasing the mag.
 
Posted by: Puru Gupta Accepted Answer
6/11/2005 11:10 PM (CST)
Jim,
Apart from the ideas mentioned above, you could look at the following points/sources of media:

(a) You can tie up with Book Sellers, and get shelf space, not for sales primarily, but to highlight the special cause. The magazine could be tied around with a ribbon, and a placard attached - "All for a Good Cause!" and be displayed all over. This would be instrumental in generating an emotive appeal for your magazine, and of course, a high recall.

(b) Since the content per se is not your USP, and the genre does not offer much scope for that either, I would suggest you can get it endorsed by a leading social figure, wherein not the content, but the cause is emphasized. This would enhance visibility, and "categorize" your magazine in the "social circuit".

(c) Alternatively, you could also look at working on the content. After all, most of the publicity campaigns and endorsements would entail a single purchase, and curiousity for your magazine. But for sustaining that interest, and subsequently, reflecting that in the sales, it is imperative that there is a take-away for the reader, when he invests $4 on your purchases.
You can target a niche market, in terms of the coverage that you offer, or you could report a particular segment, in terms of the content offered.
Since it is a non-profit organization, the Current Affairs compilation should not be the regular staid one - it should offer a different perspective to the reader. This would ensure that the same reader who bought his first issue due to emotive appeal or contribution towards charity, comes back buying more and more, for content quality.
Let me reiterate, getting people to buy your magazine out of the dozens offered to them IS important, but SUSTAINING that readership base is equally important!

(d) Finally, the cost factor. Though Kathleen has touched this point, I want add a perspective here. Competitive pricing is one aspect, IF you are targeting the same segment in the market. But, as I mentioned in the above point, you can target a niche market, position your magazine that offers some unique quality content - and Command premium.
Alternatively, if you could not work on this, you can position your magazine in the "non profit framework", with a certain portion of the sales going to the magazine cost, and the rest in social-development. If you can elucidate this break-up on the back cover, or communicate it effectively through the sources mentioned above (t-shirts, caps, tables,etc) to ensure visibility, you might generate more enthusiastic support.
If the customers are convinced that their money is channelized and invested in the correct direction, they would not be skeptic towards the resource utilization. So, it is imperative that you enunciate the fund utilization to your customers.


Hope this helps!
Regards,
Puru
 
Posted by: Mushfique Manzoor Accepted Answer
6/18/2005 8:51 AM (CST)
hi petrie

great advice above. adding to those...

1. you can organize various events, like Handicrafts Exhibition. The products on sale/display can be made by Homeless People. Rather than buying tickets to the fair, you can ask visitors to buy a copy of the magazine to enter the fair.

2. you can also create a uniform for your team members and place them at the entry of the stairs to the Subway(assuming your vendors are not allowed in platform) to attract the passer-bys and sell.

3. i ask you to tap into the Taxi driver segment. they are a good source of information for riders and they do some good selling. if you can, then tie up with them to sell some of your magazines.

4. regarding sellng more, you need to really think about your price and also content of the magazine. like others said, you need to positon your magazine from a "social cause" point of view.

hope this helps.

cheers!!
 
Posted by: carrie77 Moderator Response
6/25/2005 7:04 AM (CST)
Hello all. I am closing this question since it's more than 2 weeks old. We do this to reward the contributions of participants in a timely manner + to give increased visibility to the newer questions.

Thanks for participating!
Carrie (Production Editor)
 


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