Newsstand Consulting
PSCS is a full-service single copy sales company, serving as an off-site newsstand sales department for client publishers, handling all aspects of magazine sales, from contract negotiations to marketing and distribution work; from wholesaler magazine distribution to retail sales by store. PSCS can handle testing, reporting, and promotions; marketing, budgeting and spreadsheet reporting, wholesaler and national distributor liaison. PSCS works in mass market and specialty channels, domestically and internationally. PSCS' systems of tracking and analysis are sophisticated and effective.
PSCS' strength is in its outsourcing relationships with publishers. Based on these outsourcing relationships, PSCS can provide services less expensively and more effectively than would be possible for publishers to duplicate in-house.
Services
PSCS Consulting is capable of being or supplementing your single copy sales department with successful experience and knowledge in the areas of: (Click on topics below to view additional information)
- Distribution
- Work with your galleys at a national level to reduce or eliminate withholding and prematures
- Rank your wholesalers to analyze potential and move copies from non-selling to high-potential wholesalers
- Analyze field information to determine whether your publication has distribution into its authorized retailer base
- Use field reps to work your distribution on a local level, ensuring proper distribution into each agency's key retailer
- Work with your national distributor to create field assignments that will meet your publication's specific needs
- Be your source for "one stop shopping" with wholesale and direct markets
- Marketing
- Analyze your base of authorized chains to determine what key authorizations are needed
- Analyze your current authorization base by class of trade to determine which types of retail outlets are most effective in the sale of your title
- Work to increase your authorized base through direct mail to chain buyers
- Work with your national distributor to create marketing assignments tailored to the specific needs of your publications
- Use field reps to supplement the efforts of the national distributor
- Call on the key chain buyers to gain the most important of the outstanding authorizations
- Promotions
- Strategize an annual promotions program designed to help you meet your publication's goals
- Create a recommended promotions budget based upon the program
- Secure placement in retail chain checkout pockets and other point-of-sale displays
- Coordinate promotions brochures and mailings
- Create press releases or other publicity mailings
- Create a wholesaler or retailer newsletter for your publication
- Coordinate placement of floor displays or other merchandisers into retail chains
- Organize your airport terminal placement program
- Coordinate and implement all other planned promotions for your title
- Directs
- Analyze your directs distribution by class of trade to identify opportunities in markets not yet entered or not fully penetrated
- Set up a distribution or negotiate a contract with one of the directs distributors for your direct account fulfillment
- Organize telemarketing to independent retailers to expand your bookstore or specialty retailer base
- Organize promotions through the directs channels to help you establish your category or gain/maintain preeminence in it
- Contact or visit the key retailers directly to obtain commitments to meet your distribution goals
- Analyses
- Create a weekly returns flow with projected final sales for your title
- Create a sales budget for your title and update it from sales throughout the year
- Create a promotions expense budget and maintain it over the course of the year for your title
- Track the results of each promotion to determine its effectiveness for your title
- Recommend and implement price, cover, distribution, marketing, and promotions tests, and analyze the results of the tests
- Analyze field information to determine where your title sells and where it does not; rank wholesalers and retail chains; analyze market share information and trends; make recommendations based on the result of the analyses
- International
- Establish for your title a relationship with an international distributor, or work with your current international distributor
- Work with the publisher to identify international markets that are most appropriate for your title
- Analyze the market for open spots
- Work with overseas wholesalers to develop promotions appropriate for your title
- Create incentive programs for international wholesalers to increase draw and sale of your title
- Represent your title directly to international wholesalers and international distributors' reps
- Enhance your magazines' retail sales and profitability
- Reach a wider potential readership
- Widen your penetration in key retail chains
- Improve brokerage and terms of your most important contracts
- Expand your overseas distribution
- Get the most benefit from the wholesaler and retailer consolidation
An effective distribution is the basis of your magazine's sales. Without this fundamental, not even the highest-quality product can reach its potential market. PSCS' industry professionals can work to both increase and refine your distribution into key retailers in the markets across the country.
We Can:
An important element in the creation of an effective distribution for your magazine is a solid base of top-quality chain retailer authorizations. PSCS can help you determine the retail outlets right for your title, by class of trade and by specific retailer, and to obtain the authorizations needed for your growth.
We Can:
Supporting your title through promotions can be an effective way to enhance your products's visibility and increase sales. PSCS can work with you to create a promotional strategy that will work within your budget to most effectively enhance your marketing and distribution strategies.
We Can:
Publishers of specialty titles or titles with special retail needs can often benefit from the establishment of or expansion in the directs market. The directs channel of sale is the source of distribution into non-traditional retailers and, for many publishers, distribution into the bookstore market. PSCS can work with the publisher to establish ways in which distribution, sales, and revenues can be increased through the directs market.
We Can:
Every publisher needs information to make strategy decisions and plan for the future. At PSCS, we recognize this need, and work with the publisher to meet your information needs.
We Can:
The international market is one in which opportunities often exist to increase revenues and rate base through additional sold copies. PSCS has expertise in this market matched by few in the American publishing world.