Creative

12 Creative Tips to Pump Up Catalog Sales and Cut Costs
January 2, 2008

1. Place more emphasis on your exclusive merchandise. 2. Exploit the “collectible” mentality that may be inherent in your product. 3. Emphasize guarantees, security policies and anything that makes your customers feel safer shopping with you. 4. Promote special offers, freebies and premiums that make your customers feel special. 5. Mail an exclusive, smaller-sized catalog to special customers introducing them to a new or special niche product. 6. Include Web sales drivers to encourage browsers to look at your entire assortment. 7. Incorporate a slim-jim format for sale or clearance items rather than changing the size of your main catalog. This can serve

Compared to … What???
January 1, 2008

“Our brand gets your shirts whiter!” “Our mouthwash keeps your breath fresh longer!” “Our battery lasts longer!” It’s no secret consumers are bombarded with generic comparative messaging. But while this is the norm in much of the advertising world, there’s no proof that it’s the right way to go. In fact, most consumers regard generalities as no more than opinion. Direct marketing tests have proven that the more specific a comparison is, the more valid the consumer considers it. This reveals a powerful tool for copywriters and marketers. And while it requires a little bit of homework, the payoff can be great. While many of us have

Cut Costs and Keep Creative
January 1, 2008

The clock already may have struck midnight on postal reform, but that doesn’t mean your catalog has to turn back into a pumpkin. There’s no need to strip it down in ways that sabotage branding, creativity and, most importantly, sales. Even within the design and financial confines of today’s postal rates and structure, the dream of an effective, financially viable catalog doesn’t have to be a fairy tale. Through postal reform the U.S. Postal Service is developing a more accountable rate-making structure, as most catalogers should be aware by now, replacing irregular rate hikes with more predictable and regular adjustments. It’ll take serious housecleaning

Editor’s Take: Tracking the Most Telling Multichannel Trends
January 1, 2008

In the IndustryEye section of this issue on pgs. 12-13, you’ll find our second quarterly Catalog Success Latest Trends Report, a benchmarking survey we conducted in late November in partnership with the multichannel ad agency Ovation Marketing. This one focuses on key catalog/multichannel issues, and we’ve included most of the charts there, so I encourage you to take a look. You’ll be able to find some charts only on our Web site due to magazine space limitations. We also didn’t have the space to include the numerous comments that you — our readers and survey respondents — wrote in response to two of the questions.

Have Lands’ End and Sears Finally Gotten it Right? Almost.
December 14, 2007

I must admit I’ve frequently scrutinized those Lands’ End “ghettos” in Sears stores ever since Sears acquired the pride of Dodgeville, Wis., five and a half years ago. For a few years, Sears tried to sprinkle Lands’ End products amidst its mostly forgettable array of private label and largely undesirable polyester clothing. But I’m happy to report Sears is getting closer to getting the Lands’ End integration thing right. And when I received a 12-page mini-booklet — not quite a catalog, per se — I was truly blown away. The 63⁄4-inch x 51⁄8 inch outer cover wraps around eight 63⁄4 inch x 4 3⁄4

Why Not a Catalogers’ Black Friday? (Or, How I Developed a Major Inferiority Complex on Your Behalf)
November 30, 2007

Did anybody else get an inferiority complex over the Thanksgiving weekend? I’m referring to the hoopla that surrounded Black Friday on Nov. 23. Like just about anything else in America, Black Friday gets bigger every year, and this year really went over the top. It got me thinking about the future: Does this “holiday” have to be a retail-only one? I certainly read enough about it. I saw plenty of TV news clips of those crazy, sleep-deprived shoppers lining up outside the stores in the wee hours of that Friday morning. I sifted through enough Circuit City, Kohl’s, Macy’s and Wal-Mart circulars about their

Some Not-So-Obvious Ways to Get Through the Tough Holiday Season Ahead
November 16, 2007

Reading retail sales, housing sales and consumer confidence reports the past couple of weeks while watching the stock market sink, I’ve become quite worried about the outlook for the holiday season for catalog/multichannel marketers. Retailers collectively reported their worst October in 12 years, and a Conference Board report last week said consumer confidence dropped in early November to its lowest level since Hurricane Katrina triggered soaring oil prices two years ago. Meanwhile, recent reports from the National Association of Realtors showed sales of existing homes had plunged to their lowest level in nearly a decade. None of this bodes well for catalogers. So

Speak Personally …
November 1, 2007

There’s a ton of power to be had from “speaking personally” to a prospect or customer. Writing copy that touches consumers personally connects to those who otherwise might not pay much attention to your catalog or Web site. Writing to them just as you’d speak to them — one on one and as a trusted friend or colleague — breaks down the barrier that often exists between you and all but your most zealous customer. The fatal flaw of writing impassively or impersonally shows up more dramatically in direct mail than in catalog. With your catalog, you at least have photos to support the

Woodworkers Catalog Can Easily Go From Good to Great
November 1, 2007

Osborne Wood Products positions its catalog as a full-service resource for woodworkers and artists, be it layman consumers looking for products to spiff up their homes or interior designers looking on behalf of their clients. With a few improvements and alterations, this catalog can attract an even broader audience and increase response. Front Cover There are several elements of the catalog’s front cover that give it a workbook appearance, from the holes punched near the spine (suggesting this is a reference tool to draw on time and again) to the photo of woodworking hands. The cover photo, positioned slightly askew with tape willy-nilly along

The 50 Best Tips
November 1, 2007

Say what you will about this wonderful trade we call the catalog/multichannel business, but whichever way you spin it, you can’t go very far if you’re unprofitable. That’s why above all else — the marketing, the merchandising, the creative, the e-commerce, etc. — we’re most interested in helping our readers make more money. So we bring you our annual binge of tactics and tips extracted from all of this year’s issues of Catalog Success, our weekly e-newsletter Idea Factory and our biweekly idea exchange e-newsletter, The Corner View. Our editorial staff went through every article we’ve produced this year to give you a nice,