Ten newsXpress stores in our Western Australian market, have come together and produced a TVC supporting the newsXpress Father’s Day Book promotion. The newsXpress support team have worked feverishly with our production company, utilising their local area marketing experience to accomplish a professional sales advert which will hopefully achieve the dual goals of driving traffic into stores and promoting the brand in the WA marketplace.

The TVC will run for the next two weeks on channels 7, 9, 10 and Win throught WA. We have been able to negotiate some great timeslots during the promotional period including the high rating Today Show and 9am news on Network 10.

This TVC features a special bonus to viewers, purchase any book in-store during the duration of the campaign and receive entry into the draw to win a fantastic accomodation package at the luxurious Riverglen Chalets, situated in beautiful Margaret River. The prize was kindly donated by Andrew and Tany Wagner of newsXpress Margaret River and is as much a nod to their generosity as it is to their belief and trust in the benefits of the newsXpress group.

The Best Book Deals for the Best Dad…Yours! - only at newsXpress!

The team at newsXpress Sarina started an ‘ELVIS DAY’ tradition a few years ago by creating an in-store celebration on the 16th of August - the date of Elvis’ “disappearance” in 1977. They have a variety of Elvis related products on sale and went to the next big step this year by actually having the King in-store on the day.

They have promoted this event almost exclusively through their Facebook page which now has over 800 friends, and passing on hints to customers in store.  The local paper, the Daily Mercury, will also be running a story about this fun event in their social pages, along with newsXpress preferred supplier, Gibson Unity featuring the event and products for sale in their upcoming newsletter.

Without doubt the highlight was owner, Mark Petersen in full Elvis garb and performing along to the ‘Around the clock’ Elvis hits through the store’s sound system all day. The response from customers has been outstanding and many were spied tapping their feet or singing along to the classics such as ‘Jailhouse Rock’, or ‘A little less conversation’. The team enthused by this outcome plan to make an even bigger event of the day next year, inviting particiaption from other lcoal businesses.

Margaret River are currently hosting the famed 2010 Cow Parade and newsXpress Margeret River have created a simple colouring in competition for kids to take advantage of the interest , tourists and theatre in town.

Colouring In competitions are an easy way to engage wiht customers as kids will often dictate their parents buying behavoiur - a good experience for the children will almost certainly ensure repeat custom frm the parents.

Well done to Andrew and Tanya and the team for identifying and benefiting from a local opportunity.

The team at newsXpress Redcliffe are expectantly awaiting the start of State of Origin battle tonight, and have made a clear distinction of where their loyalties lie. Amy the Cane Toad and Hannah the Cockroach (left) lead the supportfor their respective teams in what is certain to be a typically bruising affair.

Sporting events are a perfect way for small businesses to engage their local community, dressing up the staff, decorating the store, or selling merchandise it is a strategy squarely aimed at the Australian obsession with sport, and none is more fervent than the northerners and their love of Rubgy’s biggest stage!

Four pro-active newsXpress members in the Gippsland area of Victoria have joined forces and recruited newsXpress Marketing Manager, Trent Shields to develop, design and create a Television commercial in their local region to support the current HOT ink! 14 promotion.

newsXpress Pakenham, newsXpress Leongatha, newsXpress Bairnsdale & newsXpress Yarram commenced a TV campaign on the 3rd May with the following advert featuring on programs such as: Sunrise, The Morning Show, Deal or No Deal, AFL Game Day, Sunday Afternoon AFL, Oprah, Ready Steady Cook & Judge Judy.

The advert contains an exclusive end-user offer, with customers going into one of the four participating stores and mentioning the ad eligible to a FREE packet of Gloss Photo paper wiht the purchase of any of the promoted ink cartridges. The stores involved are already reporting excellent sales and customer numbers to support the earlier flyer distribution.

The four winners of the Easter colouring competition were happy to be photographed outside newsXpress Yarram (VIC) when they came in to collect their prizes. The extent of entries can be seen in the background with artwork covering the windows - there is considerably more than in the photo. What a terrific result for newsXpress Yarram, and the fine young artists in their midst.

Awards like those at Yarram were made across the country as newsXpress members heaped praise on winners in local easter colouring competitions.

Entrants for the Easter colouring competition at newsXpress Milsons Point have their artwork on display in the window for friends, family and the locals to see and admire.

There has been no shortage of entries for this popular competition.  The friendly team at newsXpress Milsons Point have made the most of the opportunity to better connect with their local community and to show off the newsXpress difference.

newsXpress encourages members to show off the art in the window as it gives the artists an audience and it shows the community that the business cares.

newsXpress Salamander Bay has promoted the success of their newsXpress Easter colouring in competition by incorporating the fantastic entries into their in-store merchandising display. The use of the colorful bunnies to dress the merchandising display was an inspirational decision by Fiona Matthews and her team that has paid off brilliantly as the photo attests.

A concerted effort to branch out into gifts this Easter is resulting in great rewards for newsXpress stores, and the timing of the ABW Easter Book promotion has driven even more traffic and sales.

newsXpress Village Mackay was an advertiser at the races yesterday in Mackay. Troy Ross and the team has advertised at the over the last five or six years.  This year they had up to fifty people attending the newsXpress marquee.  Graham Randall, founding Director of newsXpress was there (left in the photo) to support the promotion and engage in some good newsXpress networking.

newsXpress encourages local brand-building marketing initiatives like this.

Mackay’s winter horse racing carnival culminated last Saturday with the running of the Mackay Cup proudly sponsored by newsXpress Village.

As the main sponsor for the day newsXpress Village received saturation advertising on radio, television and in the newspapers leading up to race day. The day attracted over 3,000 festive race goers in their traditional racing finery and a beautiful winter day weather wise ensured everyone had a fantastic time. Troy Ross, owner of newsXpress Village was on hand to give a short speech and present the pewter trophy and winners blanket to Black Gelding, Flying Start out of Legendary racer Testa Rossa.

Troy was further excited by the prospect that the main entrance to the Mackay race track will now be permanently renamed the ‘newsXpress Village entrance’. It was by all reports a brilliant day and a perfect application of local area marketing to increase your brand awareness.

A beaming Troy Ross stands alongside a victorious ‘Flying Start’ in the photo above.

newsXpress has acted swiftly to the news of the record breaking OZ Lotto jackpot and created four ‘Super Group’ syndicates in the Queensland market. These have already started driving impressive traffic and entreprenurial members are capitalising on this opportunity by promoting relevant ranges in store to increase basket size.

State Lotto organisations have provided quality point of sale materials and individual stores have complimented these with balloons and other decoration to create enticing displays in store. The lure of becoming the biggest winner in Australia is certain to have the registers working overtime in the lead up to Tuesday night.

newsXpress Kin Kora featured above have coupled the Golden Casket collateral with colorful balloons, streamers and oversized cut out letters spelling out $90 MILLION.

While newsXpress Eumundi (below) have highlighted the vast array of syndicates available in their store. Both stores are already reporting a massive surge in sales.

In retail it is important to tell a story, whether this is a price story, a range story, or a theme story. Creating a promotion with a story in mind increases your potential to attract customers to make sales.

newsXpress Beechworth had this focus in mind when designing their front window display for the HOT ink! 11 promotion. Beechworth is well known as a beautiful Australia historic town and a popular holiday destination, the residents and local businesses put considerable effort into local events and using this as a basis for promotions makes good business sense.

Ian and Tracy’s daughter Rachael incorporated the exceptional point of sale posters supplied by newsXpress along with the oversized autumn leaves celebrating the local Harvest Festival to spectacular effect in creating this front window display - so well in fact she has been appointed to oversee all window displays from now on.

newsXpress is hosting an online workshop on Local Area Marketing next week, on Tuesday March 24. 

How to grow your sales using Local Area Marketing will be facilitated by Trent Shields, our National Marketing Manager.  This is set to be an informative session and is sure to deliver tools newsXpress members can use to grow their businesses.  Crucially, the session will connect members from various states in a discussion abut local marketing - it is networking like this which newsXpress members love.

Bookings are via the members area of the newsXpress website.

Luke Scott and the team at newsXpress Scott’s Lismore are pleased to have the offers and resources of newsXpress to help drive their business.  As their front window shows, they are leveraging the newsXpress ink offer to make a bold statement they they are the INK AND TONER DESTINATION in Lismore.

The newsXpress philosophy is provide access to good product at competitive prices, to support this with professional national marketing and to provide in-store face to face advice on execution.  Luke and the team have embraced all these newsXpress deliverables to drive an excellent ink and toner offer for everyone in Lismore and surrounding areas.  The result is excellent growth for the business through Christmas and January.  What a great business story!

newsXpress Silver Sands have fully embraced Halloween and have looked at innovative methods to draw more foot traffic. The newspaper advertisement below invites a new (and very strong minded - just ask the parents!) generation of shoppersby offering a FREE face painting service.

Nothing says Halloween more than a good costume and Phil Foo and his team are doing what they can to spread the word. They have also invested in a small doscument about the origins of Halloween and it’s Australian application to educate their customers who may have had anti-American perceptions.

We are constantly encouraging our members to embrace the idea of becoming more entrepreneurial to capitalise on innovation to drive new sales. While this example is considerably removed from the newsagency channel it is a perfect illustration of understanding your local community and backing your judgement to ultimately make a profit.

For the uninitiated Melbourne is in the grip of ‘Finals Fever’ and the Mighty Brown & Gold of Hawthorn are playing off in their first Grand Final for 17 long years. The two boys in the photo, neither born the last time the Hawks were kings of Football read the mood of their community (around the corner from Hawthorn’s training base in Waverley) and promptly set up a lemonade stand like you see in old American movies.

With well over 10,000 excited supporters walking past on a beautiful sunny day towards the final training run they made a killing!

The simplicity of the idea and execution is the lesson each of us can replicate in our daily business coupled with their obvious savvy in approaching gridlocked cars with a taste of the lemony treat and their glowing endorsement of a Hawks victory despite the fact neither of them actually supported the team.

Further to the post on September 15 ‘Calendar Season in Full Swing‘, newsXpress Beechworth have forged full steam ahead with their Calendar and Diary displays.

Using the advice, experience and supplier relationships negotiated through newsXpress and in particualr our resident calendar expert Michelle Caia coupled with innovative local area marketing that has seen newsXpress Beechworth take out several prestigious industry awards in recent times. Tracy and her team have developed an early strategy to capture new sales as well as satisfying regular customers, such as the local council who like to organise their calendar & diary requirements very early.

newsXpress Echuca is the latest Victorian regional member to rebrand and open. The Dye Family certainly engaged the community with a month of activity commencing with the sponsorship of  a regional conference and culminating with the Gala Opening last Friday.

An alreadt great store has been further improved with the pro-active owners seeing strong growth in Hallmark cards and related product ranges, magazines and Canson Art. Their fun opening day was obvious to all as highlighted by the enthusiastic team. An ever popular sausage sizzle, promotional give-aways and the nromal newsXpress activities provided a great start.

Congratualtions to Steve, Liz, Andrea, Jo-anne and all the team at newsXpress Echuca!

newsXpress Bairnsdale opened under the newsXpress brand on Saturday and everyone came to town.

Promotions giving away free petrol, Accomodation, Show Bags, Lucky Dips etc were supported by Hallmark Forever Friends Bear, Coco the Clown (How do they make motorbikes out of Balloons?) and a lovely chamber ensemble of local musicians filled in a great day that could not even be marred by the cold, wind and rain!

Many people entered the store for the first time and were eager to come back again. This positive feeling was only strengthened thanks tothe local Lions club and the 300 + delicious sausages they gave away out the front of the store.

newsXpress Bairnsdale proprietors Gina and Taz epitomise the newsXpress mantra. As new members, their particiaption is strong and they are subsequently reaping the rewards for their efforts!

Congratualtions on a great day!

Vaughan Lawrence and the team at newsXpress Seymour have grown card sales by 38% since switching to Hallmark Cards. Yes they made some changes by bringing the cards to the front of the store which has also helped, but the stunning growth is mainly attributed to the new range of cards. The added promotions from the Hallmark Alliance Program which is supplied have also been a key contributor to this stunning growth with the store recently giving away a Giant 36″ Forever Friends bear as a part of the promotion.

They cant wait to see the growth at Fathers Day!

Imagine the growth when newsXpress Seymour gets a shop fit which is planned for the future.