A guide to quality kiosk sales

By Edward Carey, President Arrow Marketing Group, Raleigh, N.C.

Success in the operation of newspaper kiosks relies on a crucial combination of leadership, location and motivated sales. The choices made in creating a program that generates high sales are critical to its ultimate goal – increasing the circulation and retention of your publication.

This is the most important aspect of a kiosk program. When a prospective buyer walks by they see and hear the kiosk rep. First impressions count – dress for success. Casual and well groomed works. Attitude is key. A good attitude will always produce smiles from everyone they have contact with, and smiles produce presentations. A smile makes great things happen every day. You are best not to have anyone work your kiosk who may reflect negatively on your newspaper. The reps that don’t care – those who just want to put in a few hours and see how they do – are waiting for the business to come to them. This does not work to generate high sales. Monitor your store staff to insure everything is running well. Have managers visit locations each day to make sure everything looks good and is in order.

Training reps with a basic outline works well. It shows the reps what you want – for potential subscribers to hear about your paper. Put an outline together using the sections of the paper your prospective buyers will find exciting – noting each day of the week and it’s special features. Train and retain reps using this outline. Cover it in meetings and sales clinics. Also keep it simple and supply the reps with the sales tools they need to make it a joy to work the kiosk not an effort, for example if giving out a free paper to get more presentations works then go for it. Easy to follow order forms, good looking signs on the front of the kiosk, etc. With good work you’ll get great results over time.

Certain venues are always profitable. Community events, grocery stores, mass merchandisers, convenience stores and malls are all winners.

Events, such as state or county fairs, home shows and art festivals bring out a lot of people from the community. Even better, they bring out many of the new residents to the community because they are looking for things to do in their new area. A great location is a must to bring out the most of this situation. You want your reps to see everyone and for everyone to see them. Good staff is very important in this case. They will be answering questions for new and current subscriptions in a fast paced environment without many breaks. Hours depend on the kind of event, but be prepared to have your kiosk set up before the event begins, and leave as it’s closing.

Grocery stores are ideal locations as well. The great thing is we all have to eat, so we can’t miss when we set up inside one. What I have learned is that the food store manager sees all – meaning they can take a look around the store and tell you what type of sales day it will be. They also see all the vendors in the store and how they treat their customers. When they see a kiosk is busy most of the day, the manager will know that their customers are interested in our paper and offers. This makes them glad to bring us back again and again. Hours that work are Monday through Friday 11am – 7pm, Saturday 10am – 6pm, and Sunday 10am – 5pm.

Mass merchandisers can be very profitable locations for your kiosk. Best Buy, Kmart, Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart and Lowe’s are just a few big names that have proven to be great locations. A high volume store = high volume sales. It’s the law of averages. Some will only allow you to set up outside the store, but this is okay – you still get to see a lot of people. The mass merchandisers are always busy with good walking traffic, AM to PM, seven days a week. Good staffing is essential. A fast paced store requires a lot of talking, and a lot of show and tell. Staffing your kiosk at a mass merchandiser works best with the same hours applied to grocery stores.

Convenience stores are good for grabbing new subscriptions. It’s early morning – it’s necessary to stop for gas and grab a coffee, a paper, and a donut. Offer a free paper with a brief preview, but it must be brief. We always tell the prospective buyer that it will take no more than 30 seconds. With good training, a rep can touch on the value points of your paper. A reduced price subscription offer with a prepaid gas card as a premium works very well. The best timing for convenience stores is 7am to 9am Monday through Thursday, and Friday 3 to 7pm.

Malls can be short-term locations for special events or holidays, but with a good staff – for malls only – they can also produce a very high volume of weekly sales on a full time basis. Prime location is key – negotiate with the mall management. Mall gift certificates as a premium are wonderful incentives because it gives customers choices in where they can spend the dollars they saved at the kiosk. Staffing works best with two shifts per day, 10am –9pm.

Be professional and organized when you contact the management of your prospective venues. Always call on the local store manager first – not the assistant manager. They may have all the power to say yes or no.

Draw people in by a free drawing and a free paper. They both work, but the free paper works best. If you are talking to people who are not interested, a free paper is a qualifier. If they take one, they are most likely not a current subscriber. Offer discounts for both new subscriptions and renewals, because this keeps everyone happy. You’ll find that happy customers will advertise your kiosk for you.

Great planning, organization and sales techniques can make your kiosk program take off. The key, though, is great management.

Kiosk fundamentals

Kiosk sales have gained significant ground in recent years. They are a potential for both high volume and high retention orders. The challenge is in securing a kiosk location, and in recruiting effective sales representatives to staff the kiosk. Both steps are equally crucial. Let’s first talk about finding suitable kiosk locations.

Grocery stores and mass merchandise retailers can be excellent locations for a kiosk. Shopping malls are another potential location. Large events can also be good. In approaching merchandisers and retailers, you have to be prepared to answer “What’s in it for me?”

After all, the retailer will ask, “Why should I give you valuable real estate on my store floor?”

There are several potential answers to that question. An ideal situation is if you can use your sales reps to jointly sell newspaper subscriptions along with a product or service that the retailer is interested in selling. For example, you might bundle a subscription sale along with the retailer's loyalty card, which rewards frequent shoppers with extra values and discounts. In this situation, you are providing a solution to the retailer: you are providing a sales force for their loyalty program. This also can make the opportunity more attractive to your kiosk vendors, because they have two means of generating commissions: from the newspaper sales and from the sales of the loyalty cards.

The same concept can be used to bundle the newspaper with products or ongoing services that the retailer wants to sell.

So step one is to identify the needs of the retailer before making your pitch. Call and ask them what items or services they would like to promote if they had a sales representative on the floor also selling newspaper subscriptions. Begin with a question aimed at their needs, rather than beginning with your sales pitch.

Then tailor a sales pitch that bundles the newspaper creatively with the needs of the retailer.

Testimonials from other retailers can be very effective in overcoming objections. Retailers will wonder what type of representatives you will have in their store. Because they will not be controlling these people or hiring them, they will need you to inspire trust. The easiest way to inspire trust is with examples from other local retailers with whom you have worked. It’s especially effective if you can show effective case studies from competing retailers, because nobody wants their competitor to have an advantage that they lack.

So now you’ve done your homework to find out what needs the retailer has, and you’ve collected testimonials from other retailers in the market to help overcome objections and inspire trust. Now you are ready to make your presentation to the retailer.

Another important aspect of kiosk management is hiring the right people and providing them with the right incentives. If you want to sell EZ Pay orders for six-month terms, make that your minimum threshold and that’s what you will end up selling. It’s a balancing act between volume and quality orders, which you can manage as you go forward, but begin by setting the bar high. If you need more volume, you could then establish a lower threshold for sales, including shorter terms and “bill me” options.

Another key factor is recruiting the right type of kiosk sales representatives. One lapse in a customer’s store on behalf of a kiosk rep could undermine your entire kiosk sales program, which will become vital to your operation in the years to come. So make sure that the people who manage and recruit the sales reps recruit the highest caliber of individuals, and provide these individuals with extensive training on customer relations. The last thing you want is for a disgruntled kiosk rep to say something inappropriate in a store and get you kicked out of that store, forever destroying your potential to partner with that retailer. There are only a few outlets for kiosk sales, in a given market, so you need good relations with every single one of them.

If your kiosk program grows, you will eventually face a decision of whether to staff the kiosks with employees or contractors. Actually the "decision" is based on the IRS criteria that defines contractors vs. employees. If you use contractors, all of the protocols you use in communicating with other contractors, like carriers, would apply to assure the distinction between employees and independent contractors.

Booth presentation requires some large-format, attention-getting graphics. Of course you want the newspaper to be branded. But just as important, is to have large-scale signage promoting a specific offer. People in your market are already familiar with your brand, so it is the offer that will attract their interest and compel action. An effective booth will do much of the sales work for you with visuals and displays so if a sales rep is talking with one customer, another can scan the display and get the idea of what you have to offer. Be sure to have fliers that people can take with them, because many harried shoppers will not want to stop and make a purchase at that moment. You can use a tracking code or a unique offer on these fliers so that subsequent orders can be traced back and credited to the kiosk.

Be sure to use the kiosk to generate renewals and EZ Pay conversions, too. Your display should look as relevant to an existing subscriber as it does to a non-subscriber.