B-to-B

Four critical components can help you create business-to-business (b-to-b) circulation strategies that measure up. While each may not apply to all b-to-b catalogers, they are: a goal, a tracking plan, good metrics and benchmarks, and buy-in. A cataloger’s ultimate goal is to establish a driving force behind a successful contact strategy. Are you striving to grow the buyer file, generate more leads, increase profits or drive up revenues? Each will have a different path. Housefile growth typically means you’ll prospect more, focus more on inquiry conversions and be more aggressive with reactivation strategies. You also may try new acquisition methods such as space ads,

The primary function of your catalog is, of course, to sell merchandise. This goal supersedes any individual opinions about aesthetics. Successful creative strategies don’t necessitate a subjective discussion. What works is what sells. While there isn’t one secret formula for success, here are five tactics that can help guide your creative decisions. 1. Foster a dependent relationship among your creative, marketing and merchandising teams. Give your creative team the tools it needs to develop a catalog that sells merchandise. Such tools include information gleaned from a square inch analysis and marketing promotions, as well as any merchandising changes such as new items,

In the old days of cataloging, a two-step acquisition was defined as a prospect converting to a customer after he or she responded to two different marketing efforts — thus taking two steps. Step one was to respond to a compelling advertisement to get a catalog. Step two was to respond to the catalog by placing an order. With two-step acquisition, the broad advertising net usually was cast in a trade magazine, and prospective customers replied by phone. Tracking costs for such acquisitions was simple, as the choices for the first step seemed finite, and the conversion meant loyal, long-term customers. In

Maintaining a sound balance between assortment, price points and gross margin is a difficult task for any cataloger to master. Add to the job the “clanging” of other variables — such as the mix between new and repeat products, imports vs. domestically sourced items, branded vs. private-label merchandise, and durables vs. disposables — and you see how harmony quickly can turn to cacophony. It’s not unusual, therefore, for business-to-business (b-to-b) catalogers to merchandise a catalog with every product and part number found in the warehouse. A decision to increase catalog page count often is then a function of SKU count. And the

Analyze Your Current — Not Past — Customer Base You don’t use outdated response data to build your circulation plan. Rather, you use the most current response data available, right? So why do many catalogers depend on studies that are several years old to define their customers? A comprehensive analysis of your current customers’ job titles and SIC codes for the companies they represent can provide valuable insight. The more you know about your best customers, the more effective you’ll be at reaching others like them. For example, say you’ve been targeting 25 percent of your circulation to computer analysts; this is based

For business-to-business (b-to-b) catalogers, the basic prospecting process using lists consists of several steps. In this article, I’ll focus on three of them: - understanding what you can spend on a customer; - identifying the potential prospect universe; and - using your merge/purge reports. These general steps include the key elements of getting through list prospecting in a way that gives you the most information and greatest opportunity for success. Expense Per Customer Understanding lifetime value, or even 12-month payback, is the first step in the customer-acquisition process, no matter what method you use to get new clients. Determine what return on investment

As a business-to-business (b-to-b) cataloger, you know that your large catalog is an essential selling tool, as well as a brand differentiator. Its benchmarks of success may include strong revenues, remarkable customer response and overall profitability. A good strategy for any catalog’s mailing frequency should be based on the book’s anticipated order-response curve. But when you create a large b-to-b catalog that’s expected to have a shelf life of four, six or even 12 months, how can you ensure that it keeps selling well during its entire campaign? The following 10 steps can help. 1. Understand the order-response curve. This is defined

Selling to the U.S. government, which includes federal, state and local governments, can be a sweet deal for a cataloger. There are more than 70,000 government jurisdictions in the United States, and they buy $2.5 trillion for goods and services each year! The funds usually are spent through specific contracts, or they constitute discretionary purchases. The latter is spent on small purchases (called micropurchases) through purchasing, field and regional offices. It’s spent by government credit card users (Federal government and some state governments), and others who must acquire goods quickly. The use of SmartPay, the federal small-purchase credit card (formerly known as

After nearly 20 years in business-to-business marketing, Pam Maxwell is convinced of one thing: Most companies don’t understand the value of their data. At Interline Brands, a $630 million distributor of maintenance and repair products, she feels fortunate to work in a company that believes in the role data can play in catalog marketing. Among Interline’s catalog brands are Barnett, Wilmar, Sexauer, Maintenance USA and Hardware Express. Maxwell came to her current post in January 2001, after 18 years in sales and marketing for Airgas, a distributor of industrial gas. She started there right out of high school and moved into supervisory positions after

I am a sucker for perfection—those things in life that cannot be improved upon. Examples include toothpicks, McDonald’s french fries, the Boeing 747, Avery labels, a Bombay Sapphire martini, Fred Astaire movies, Rubbermaid® products and business-to-business (b-to-b) catalogs that don’t waste my time. The catalogs from Consolidated Plastics are good examples of the latter. The Twinsburg, OH-based company produces four b-to-b catalogs: Plastics; Rubbermaid Commercial Products (right); Bags, Packaging and Shipping Supplies; and Commercial Mats and Matting. My favorite is the Rubbermaid book, which features bright colors, terse but perfect copy, absolute ease of navigation and no-hassle ordering. The cover