When submitting your list make sure you add in phone numbers to get your overdue customers removed from the telemarketing list. I only sent address and name and apparantly that is not enough info.
I've also been told we can expect further clarification to come regarding just how The Advertiser uses our data, what customers are eligible for subscription offers and what customers we need to inform them to remove from their lists.
July 31, 2008
July 30, 2008
Overdue agent collect customers and subscription offers
Everyone (in South Australia) should have seen the notice by now on Connect regarding agent collect customers directly being targeted by telemarketers. That in itself is a problem but additionally in the past it was enough for an agent to tell the Advertiser, once we received the on notice, that no this person has an overdue acount and should not receive the special. The main basis being that someone already late in their payments are even less likely to pay us once they start their account with another source.
The Advertiser has now determined that Agents need to advise them in advance of customers that are ineligible. Should agents fail to do so they will be obligated to deliver the subscription order. The deadline for the first lot of notifications is Friday August 1st.
Obviously only submitting one list is not the end of it on the agents side. This weeks good customer could be a bad one a few months down the track.
In order to save some telemarketing resources The Advertiser are again lumbering the agent with further administrative costs to secure basic control of our business.
Agents will now have to plan a schedule to keep The Advertiser up to date on overdue customers, simply so we can rule them out for subscription deals which undercut our prices and shrink our margins.
For NBS users whilst in the Home Delivery browser, going to task>customer reminders you can then produce a report based on your own parameters, either a set outstanding dollar value or days since last payment. This report should be good enough to give The Advertiser data this week before the deadline. On-going reporting is probably best done at account printing time, when in the summary report everyone with a brought forward balance should be deemed 'overdue'.
The Advertiser has now determined that Agents need to advise them in advance of customers that are ineligible. Should agents fail to do so they will be obligated to deliver the subscription order. The deadline for the first lot of notifications is Friday August 1st.
Obviously only submitting one list is not the end of it on the agents side. This weeks good customer could be a bad one a few months down the track.
In order to save some telemarketing resources The Advertiser are again lumbering the agent with further administrative costs to secure basic control of our business.
Agents will now have to plan a schedule to keep The Advertiser up to date on overdue customers, simply so we can rule them out for subscription deals which undercut our prices and shrink our margins.
For NBS users whilst in the Home Delivery browser, going to task>customer reminders you can then produce a report based on your own parameters, either a set outstanding dollar value or days since last payment. This report should be good enough to give The Advertiser data this week before the deadline. On-going reporting is probably best done at account printing time, when in the summary report everyone with a brought forward balance should be deemed 'overdue'.
July 29, 2008
Online listings for Newsagencies
To date business listing web sites in my opinion have had little usefulness for distribution newsagents. I have made profiles in several of the free Australian ones available but haven't encountered any customer contact resulting from them.
Three are a number of reasons, primarily I think the dominance of Google limits the traffic of these sites. I also think to most people the product is primary in their mind over the business, so that when they want to purchase a certain title or organise home delivery they are more likely to search online via the title. Finally these sites cater more to fixed location businesses rather than area based services.
The information fields many of these sites have also make it hard to accurately portray your business. Some of them I have found hard to even find a listing for 'Newsagent' let alone a distribution agency. Entering the data for your free listing can be a frustrating affair. You can also expect to be contacted from some of them wanting to sell you a premium listing.
If you do have some time to kill though here is a list of the sites that I am aware of and have myself used to make a free listing.
Hotfrog
Aussie Web
zpages
street-directory.com.au
truelocal
bigroo
Three are a number of reasons, primarily I think the dominance of Google limits the traffic of these sites. I also think to most people the product is primary in their mind over the business, so that when they want to purchase a certain title or organise home delivery they are more likely to search online via the title. Finally these sites cater more to fixed location businesses rather than area based services.
The information fields many of these sites have also make it hard to accurately portray your business. Some of them I have found hard to even find a listing for 'Newsagent' let alone a distribution agency. Entering the data for your free listing can be a frustrating affair. You can also expect to be contacted from some of them wanting to sell you a premium listing.
If you do have some time to kill though here is a list of the sites that I am aware of and have myself used to make a free listing.
Hotfrog
Aussie Web
zpages
street-directory.com.au
truelocal
bigroo
July 25, 2008
Price change reminder-Sat Herald Sun
Just a reminder to everyone that from 26/7/2008 the price of the Saturday Herald Sun is going up 10c to be $1.90 inclusive of freight. Details are on connect.
Advertiser supply
It seems The Advertiser is getting tighter on changing supply figures and applying a different rule to how they will alter your supply figures week to week.
My understanding is that formerly the 'acceptable' returns rate for The Advertiser was 6% of your sub-agent sales. Now in recent discussions it has been told to me that in general a flat 3% rate will be used on the rounds total supply. On the surface this seems to favour home delivery heavy rounds and make things hard for Sub-Agent heavy ones.
The other point is that they review week to week based only on last weeks sales figures. I don't think I need to explain how short-sighted these sort of reactionary changes can be. One bad day and we are going to be forced to scrape and beg for a decent supply the next week, or rely more heavily on the top-up service.
It should be pretty obvious that Agents have all the incentive in the world to minimalise the amount of returns we handle, and are the ones with the best knowledge of our territories and all its peculiar needs. Its another case of The Advertiser not wanting to trust Agents, or accept that certain area's have external factors that can lead to some significant variance in sales.
We supply some markets that can sell an extra 200+ Sunday Mails when the weather is good, but when it rains we get high returns. left unchecked I know that one wet week is going to ruin the next weeks fair weather, and not only in lost sales but in our sub-agents confidence in us that we are capable agents.
Everyone that has a BP in their territory will also know that there seems to be no shortage of supply for them, and in general I have noticed are consistantly among the highest returners among all our sub-agents. The Advertiser is able to keep supply bumped up to suit their 'prefered' partners it seems.
We get told high returns are a cost issue, and so their answer is simple. Burden the Agent with more administrative costs having to double check and fix supply alterations applied with a formula rather than our own expert knowledge.
As far as I am aware most area managers will look at supply figures on Thursdays. Agents wanting to be proactive will need to set time aside this day to check for any changes and be prepared to contact their area manager to make any alterations.
My understanding is that formerly the 'acceptable' returns rate for The Advertiser was 6% of your sub-agent sales. Now in recent discussions it has been told to me that in general a flat 3% rate will be used on the rounds total supply. On the surface this seems to favour home delivery heavy rounds and make things hard for Sub-Agent heavy ones.
The other point is that they review week to week based only on last weeks sales figures. I don't think I need to explain how short-sighted these sort of reactionary changes can be. One bad day and we are going to be forced to scrape and beg for a decent supply the next week, or rely more heavily on the top-up service.
It should be pretty obvious that Agents have all the incentive in the world to minimalise the amount of returns we handle, and are the ones with the best knowledge of our territories and all its peculiar needs. Its another case of The Advertiser not wanting to trust Agents, or accept that certain area's have external factors that can lead to some significant variance in sales.
We supply some markets that can sell an extra 200+ Sunday Mails when the weather is good, but when it rains we get high returns. left unchecked I know that one wet week is going to ruin the next weeks fair weather, and not only in lost sales but in our sub-agents confidence in us that we are capable agents.
Everyone that has a BP in their territory will also know that there seems to be no shortage of supply for them, and in general I have noticed are consistantly among the highest returners among all our sub-agents. The Advertiser is able to keep supply bumped up to suit their 'prefered' partners it seems.
We get told high returns are a cost issue, and so their answer is simple. Burden the Agent with more administrative costs having to double check and fix supply alterations applied with a formula rather than our own expert knowledge.
As far as I am aware most area managers will look at supply figures on Thursdays. Agents wanting to be proactive will need to set time aside this day to check for any changes and be prepared to contact their area manager to make any alterations.
July 24, 2008
Welcome
Welcome to the Distribution Newsagency blog. The intention of this blog is to give out news, information and opinion specifically related to Newsagents that focus on Home Delivery and supply to Sub-Agents.
We have our own concerns seperate from retail newsagents, many of which are now off loading their home delivery obligations. We are much more reliant on the small commissions and fee's we can charge than outlets with other revenue streams, and more susceptible to the OH&S compliance and inflationary pressures on delivery costs.
The two initial contributers to this blog are Don Lewis and Ian Wright. Don Lewis is the Director of Newspaper Delivery Solutions which is cuurently operating seven distribution newsagencies, and a board member of the SA branch of the ANF. Ian Wright is a manager at Newspaper Delivery Solutions and has over 12 years experience in the industry.
Together we can all help to maintain legitimacy and sustainability in an industry going through major revision and marginalisation.
We have our own concerns seperate from retail newsagents, many of which are now off loading their home delivery obligations. We are much more reliant on the small commissions and fee's we can charge than outlets with other revenue streams, and more susceptible to the OH&S compliance and inflationary pressures on delivery costs.
The two initial contributers to this blog are Don Lewis and Ian Wright. Don Lewis is the Director of Newspaper Delivery Solutions which is cuurently operating seven distribution newsagencies, and a board member of the SA branch of the ANF. Ian Wright is a manager at Newspaper Delivery Solutions and has over 12 years experience in the industry.
Together we can all help to maintain legitimacy and sustainability in an industry going through major revision and marginalisation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
