Brand Your Success By Enlivening Customers’ Experience

In a session during last week’s NEMOA conference in Portland, Maine, Lois Boyle, president/chief creative officer at catalog consulting firm J. Schmid & Assocs., said that the customer experience is the key factor in developing a successful catalog company. Stressing that in today’s world you’re more in competition with consumers’ time than with their pocketbooks, Boyle provided a few ways to help your catalog break through the clutter of everyday life. Included below are four of those tips:

1. Develop a schemata (customer’s frame of reference). Calling it the “curse of knowledge,” Boyle said that many catalogers know too much. “We get so close to the product that we ignore the customer.” She cautioned the audience to avoid defining its customer too broadly.

Ask yourself, “Who are you?” The answer to this question should be your brand, Boyle said. She cited two effective brand promises: Volvo’s guarantee of the safest ride to parents concerned with their children’s well-being and Harley-Davidson’s promise of fantasy — complete freedom on the road and a camaraderie of membership. Great brands never sit still; brand evolution is a necessity, she noted.

She also referenced New Life Systems, a massage, body care and aromatherapy supplies cataloger, as an example. Prior to its brand evolution, the company was selling what looked like ordinary bottles of stuff. Realizing that what made its products special were their pure ingredients, the company went about remaking its catalog to promote this. By making the spreads warmer and using customer testimonials and photography that accentuated the pure ingredients, the catalog increased response and average order value.

2. Develop a merchandise concept. “Ask yourself, ‘What do you do?’” Boyle challenged the audience to never sell items, but to sell merchandise concepts through themes. She gave the example of Pottery Barn’s catalog vs. Home Decorators Collection’s catalog. In Home Decorators Collection, pages are filled with lots of product options, but don’t necessarily have a merchandise concept. In Pottery Barn, the pages “own a look; it’s all about lifestyle,” Boyle said.

To help develop a merchandise concept, define the uniqueness of the product and the affinity of your target audience, she said. Then design the catalog with this in mind. Boyle cited a page from a Neiman Marcus catalog, which had too many concepts on one page (jewelry, apparel, wine stoppers). She cited this as an example of just selling items rather than a merchandise concept.

On the other hand, Spiegel devoted an entire page to one jacket and how consumers of different ages can wear it — an example of creating a merchandise concept. Customers can see Spiegel as a personal style resource, she said.

3. Create a higher-order benefit for your customers. Boyle referred to the higher-order benefit several companies provide their customers: Starbucks for the chance to escape and indulge; Pottery Barn for creative self-expression; and New Life Systems for its pure ingredients being safe for all.

Boyle indicated three levels of questioning to determine the higher-order benefit catalogers can offer to customers.

Level one can be determined from tracking basic data, such as response rates, average order value, spending habits, etc.

Level two is to find out customers’ motivation for shopping direct and what their decision-making process is.

Level three is to get personal knowledge of the customer, such as what magazines they like to read, their hobbies and their language style.

Boyle cited Patagonia, which sells an experience and aspiration in its catalog by showing its products in the mountains. She also noted Title Nine Sports, which sells women participating in sports; Brookstone, which helps to solve a problem with its Top 10 gifts for Father’s Day; New Pig’s Leak and Spill catalog, which showed current environmental problems, then provided solutions to help solve the problem.

She also referenced Crutchfield, which interviews its employees to find out their favorite hobbies, then uses their responses as a section of the catalog as an example of people’s lifestyles; Newport News, which in the catalog showed magazines that wrote about its products; L.L. Bean, which sells an aspiration to its customers with the headline “Summer in Maine” in its book; and the Duluth Trading Co. catalog, which has an intimate knowledge of the way its customers speak by listening to what they have to say, such as these literal customer testimonials that appeared in the catalog: “Best darn T-shirt I’ve ever worn” and “This is one helluva coat.”

4. Engage your customers. “Customer knowledge is power,” Boyle said during her presentation. “The more you know your customers, the more you can sell them.” She gave the audience several tactics for engaging the customer with meaningful, relevant conversation.

* Use words customers use; listen in on CSR telephone conversations, search terms, text audits;

* Provide relevant content, such as recipes, tips, how-tos;

* Create a dialog; bring your customer into your office, use customer-provided content; and

* Form a cross-functional customer experience team.

Boyle cited the Orvis catalog as a good example of using customers as co-creators. The company surveyed its customers on what type of fabric and design they like best in their swimsuits, then incorporated their answers in the catalog.

She also referred to the Impromptu Gourmet catalog. Impromptu Gourmet consistently heard that its customers would enjoy the freedom of being able to design their own meals, instead of having to choose from a predetermined menu. The company listened to its customers and provided this option in its catalog. As a result, 18 percent of the catalog’s sales came from the one-page, design-your-own-meal page.