Plan Next Year’s Catalog Program

“Our goal for next year is to have a goal.”

The national food cataloger had flown me to its planning meeting for next year’s program. As the company’s CEO called the meeting to order, I was concerned about making a good impression. Could I measure up to this high-level cataloger’s expectations?

I opened the meeting crisply: “Let’s start by discussing the basic goals and strategies you’ve used in the past.”

The CEO gave a slow, deep sigh and said, “We have no goals; we have no strategies.”

A little strategic thinking about your goals can put you ahead of your competitors. And now’s a good time to do it, when you’re starting to plan next year’s program.

As for the catalog executives in my example above, after pondering their choices of growth, profit or pure survival as a goal, they opted for survival. Continuing the status quo was their primary goal.

And indeed, “more of the same” is a legitimate business goal. Are your sales holding up? Are your competitors weak to nonexistent? Is no other cataloger copying you so closely as to blur your identity? If you answered “yes” to all three, then “the same as last year” is probably achievable this year.

The cataloger in my example thought his company merely lacked goals, because the actual goal wasn’t the kind that makes headlines (e.g., big growth or profits). After realizing the true goal was just being comfortable in a safe market, the cataloger put a bit more brand identity onto the pages, did a touch more testing and has been going on placidly ever since.

Even if your goal seems boring, it’s important to know what it is, so you can plan intelligently to achieve it.

“If you want to live, generate my report before midnight.”

“Would you please call my IT manager and tell him to get my financials to me earlier than last year?” said the head of a national catalog.

“Of course, since you own the firm outright, you could ask him yourself,” I replied cautiously.

“I’ve tried that, but it didn’t work. Threaten him or something. Say if I don’t have my financials earlier this year, you’ll send someone else to do them instead. I can’t plan the new year without last year’s results.”

“When does your fiscal year end?” I asked.

“December 31.”

“And when did you get the year-end financials last year?”

“The following August,” he replied.

Some of the most ridiculous things that happen in cataloging involve data processing — except nobody laughs because data processing can be so confusing that even crazy situations are accepted as normal. Following are some examples of what I mean:

• Two major national catalogers this year mailed housefile pulls that were many months out of date. Why? Because their IT departments literally couldn’t pull a new version of their housefiles.

• For many years, one multi-title national cataloger received no results reports except total annual sales, total buyer count, and buyer/nonbuyer status for housefile names. Nothing else.

• In the last few years, three national catalogers switched from one catalog software program to another — and lost virtually all of their historical data in the process.

• One national home goods cataloger’s software package continues to generate reports in such e-mail-clogging, spreadsheet-drowning, mind-boggling detail that it just prints, files and totally ignores them. It uses seat-of-the-pants estimates in its planning.

You can, and should, do better. Specifically, you can’t plan next year’s program without a reasonable key-code report from last year. Many successful catalogers curl up at year-end with a pencil and an accountant’s pad to generate this report by hand. Others use the reporting capabilities of their catalog software.

It’s important to note, however, that the canned reports generated by many catalog computer systems have two defects: They lack key-code descriptions, because nobody entered the descriptions. And they don’t have quantity-mailed data ... again, because nobody entered it.

The following steps can help you resolve such issues. First, find whomever assigned the key codes, learn their meanings and write them in by hand. Then do the same with quantities mailed by key code (your mailing house will have the data). The columns on your final sales by key-code spreadsheet should be:

• key code,
• key-code description,
• quantity mailed,
• quantity of orders,
• total sales,
• response rate and
• sales per catalog mailed (the last two columns are calculated).

Now look in real detail at the numbers in each row. What segments pulled stronger than others? How could you mail to stronger segments and less to weaker segments next year? If you add a column for expected mail quantity for next year and multiply by sales/catalog mailed from last year, presto — you’ve got a rough sales estimate for next year.

For most catalogers, this will fit on one side of a sheet of graph paper, will take a few hours to complete and will move you quite a ways down the road to having a stronger catalog program next year.

“How about if we give it away?”

“Three years ago we introduced this incredible shovel — amazingly great item,” said the national home products cataloger.

“How many did you sell?” I asked.

“Zero. So two years ago we re-photographed it — super photo.”

“How many did you sell?”

“Absolutely none. So we put it on sale — great price.”

“How many did you sell?”

“Zip.”

I was afraid to ask. “So this year’s plan is ... ?”

“We’re offering it as a promotion. For free, it’s got to move.”

Virtually all catalogers get some sort of sales-by-product report — even those tortured souls (and there are many) who are using retailer/POS or wholesale/manufacturer software to run their catalog operations. With this report, the problem isn’t that you can’t find the report; it’s that many catalogers don’t bother to think very deeply about it. (Incidentally, the shovel didn’t move as a promo, either.)

It isn’t enough simply to identify your 10 best and 10 worst sellers. A really thorough analysis will turn up a lot of information you can use to strengthen your program next year. Following are some examples:

• A regional specialty cataloger had been merchandising its catalog on the basis of ease-of-buying-and-stocking (hard goods are easy to buy, easy to pick, no sizes, no colors, few returns). But it discovered from the catalog’s product sales report that what actually was selling best were sized-apparel items — with all of the associated color, size and returns problems.

• A niche-specialties cataloger discovered that, contrary to industry wisdom for her specific audience, all brand extensions and new product introductions really did just lead to cannibalization of her main product line.

• One beverage cataloger discovered that, for super-premium products, the higher the price point, the more units he sold.

After your basic sales report is finished, get a felt marker and write the sales and units sold directly onto each product description in the catalog. Look for patterns, using the oldest of analytical tools — your eyes and your brain.

Saturate yourself in the data, make up theories on one page, and test them by examining the results on other pages.

Soon you’ll find you’ve gained some key insights into your products on your pages with your audience ... conclusions that no computer-generated report can reach alone. Save the marked-up catalog to use again next year to make your planning even stronger.

Susan J. McIntyre is president of McIntyre Direct, a full-service catalog agency and consulting firm based in Portland, OR. She can be reached at (503) 286-1400.