Question

Topic: Strategy

How To Increase Sales Of A Street Magazine.

Posted by Anonymous on 6/9/2005 at 4:45 AM ET 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?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 6/9/2005 at 7:57 AM Accepted
    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 on 6/10/2005 at 9:10 AM Accepted
    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 Mushfique Manzoor on 6/18/2005 at 9:51 AM Accepted
    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!!
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