Still Fit to Print?

If you can encourage customers to go online as well as shop at a retail outlet, she points out, you’ll have stronger customer loyalty, and “they’ll be less likely to go to your competitor.”

Ellis believes that catalogs will remain the cornerstone of multichannel marketing, serving to drive customers to the Internet to place orders. But new technology enables companies to better target their books. “As analytics and technology improve, catalogs will become more personalized and targeted,” she says. “We’re finally at the point where we can do one-to-one marketing.”