Women's weeklies are the focus of a new trade marketing campaign launched by IPC Connect. The Growing for Gold campaign carries the message "Make your women's weeklies shelf space work harder and generate more retail revenue". The promotional push aims to help retailers maximise the potential of women's weeklies. This category brings in £300m in annual retail sales revenue ­ almost double that of TV listings titles. IPC says that it also generates more than 18% of the total magazine category revenue and accounts for 29% of total magazine sales. Despite this strong performance, however, the space allocated to this sector is, on average, less than 10% of the total. To help increase sales, Growing for Gold provides store planograms and selling hints. These include tips such as advising retailers to maximise sector facings on the first two days of sale ­ when 60 per cent of all sales in the sector occur ­ and reminding them to site the magazines next to TV listings and women's monthlies, as the readers buy at least two or three weekly titles every week. IPC Connect managing director Linda Lancaster-Gaye said: "The women's weeklies sector drives a massive 18% of retail revenue a year, yet retailers devote only 10% of shelf space to it. "While other sectors have been struggling, the booming weeklies market has been a reliable source of growth for the industry." She added: "We fully respect and appreciate the importance of the role our trade partners have played in the delivery of the sector's outstanding results over recent years. IPC Connect's Growing for Gold initiative is testament to our ongoing and undisputed commitment to the trade, and recognition of the fact that even greater focus on the weekly sector by wholesalers and retailers will increase revenues and benefit everyone involved." IPC, which publishes the bulk of titles in the woman's weeklies sector, including Woman and Woman's Own, says it is a natural champion for the initiative. The company stressed that it was committed to the news-trade through its cover pricing strategy. It pointed out that news-trade profits in the sector were up 5.4% year on year and that over the past three years the market had increased cover prices by 12.7% (excluding Hello and OK!) while IPC had increased its cover prices by 19%. {{CTN }}