New Express Catalog is a Multichannel Maven

Have you gotten your brand new Express catalog in the mail yet? In your email? Now go to the Express Facebook page. The entire catalog is there too. What's more, you can buy right from the Facebook catalog.

This month, Express is enhancing the customer experience by launching its first-ever catalog in many different channels. The company studied who its customer is and what their preferences are, and found that customers want to shop in many different ways. To accompany customer wants, Express added e-commerce, m-commerce and f-commerce to its resume over the last few years and the catalog seems to be the next logical step.

"Our research shows that some customers prefer the experience that a catalog can provide, and we know that our most profitable customer is a multichannel customer," says Jim Wright, senior vice president of customer marketing for Express. "The catalog is another opportunity to extend our reach and create a compelling brand experience in the process."

The glossy 48-page catalog will be mailed to over 8 million customer and prospects in September. Physical copies will also be available at select brick-and-mortar locations, on top of being featured on the company's Facebook page. What sets the f-catalog apart from the competition is the ability to shop directly, simply by clicking on the image of the item you wish to purchase.

Having the catalog on Facebook also provides many other opportunities, such as word-of-mouth marketing. "If you think about it, it used to be customers might talk about products over the phone, or talk about them over the backyard fence with one or two people. Now they talk about them with hundreds of friends across the country through tools like Facebook. This channel provides an additional and natural opportunity for our customer base to discuss, seek advice and share their purchase experience with their friends and family building natural and viral word of mouth traffic," Wright says.

Express has already gotten positive feedback from the catalog. Therefore, the company plans on launching a holiday catalog in November, and is exploring its opportunities available for 2012.

Wright attributes a portion of the company's success to continually testing concepts and ultimately knowing who your customer is. "Understand what your customer wants from the experience. If you understand how your customer is shopping, it will help determine the best format and experience to build for them. "