Database Marketing

With company-record net income of $58.4 million and sales gains of 15.2 percent (including comparable store sales rising 8.9 percent) for its fiscal year that ended Jan. 31, JoS. A. Bank was a rare 2008 success story.

The 71-year-old story of Kent, Wash.-based Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI), which sells camping and hiking equipment through catalogs, stores and the Web to customers who have the option to join its co-op, has taken a deliberate turn into the modern age.

Catalog Success recently took two of its longest-standing columnists to task. Strategy scribe Stephen R. Lett and Catalog Doctor Susan J. McIntyre have spent the better part of their careers producing or helping clients produce print catalogs. But do catalogs have a future in this integrated selling environment?

Cumbersome. Awkward. Do you say this and worse about your order management system, your CRM package or whatever you call your central repository of data? If so, you’re not alone.

I’m optimistic that 2009 will be a better year for multichannel merchants, even though the experts say our recovery will be gradual. There are bright spots within given merchandise categories, such as religious goods, pet supplies and hobbies — all of which are doing well — just to name a few.

Having attended many of the sessions and keynotes at the 2008 National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM) conference in Kissimmee, Fla., last week, I came away with three key points that proved to be the overriding themes of the three-day event.

How many times does this happen in your company? You go to a meeting about sales performance, and marketing says it thinks sales are up 3.5 percent. But the merchants disagree and say sales are up 6.3 percent. The specific numbers in this example aren’t important; the point is the two figures aren’t close. And that’s the reality in most companies today.

Catalog circulation planning has changed forever, and knowing how to use your marketing database across all channels is the key to success. In today’s multichannel marketing world, contact strategy is the way to the promised land, while planning channels in isolation is the wrong approach. So how can you adapt to changing multichannel tactics efficiently and affordably? Your Challenges Significant changes have occurred that make planning circ now more difficult than ever, and many once-proven methods are no longer effective: 1. Tracing source codes. Catalog nontraceable factors have increased 20 percent to 60 percent or more, creating the need for regular matchbacks. 2. Internet

Matchbacks are a way of life for catalogers today. This process of having your order file “matched back” against your recent mail tapes to give credit to the proper source or key code on a list-by-list, segment-by-segment basis has become fairly routine. They’re the only way to tell where customers are coming from and which source key codes should be given credit for the sale. Without matchbacks, it’s not uncommon to trace only 30 percent to 40 percent of your orders to a specific key code. But the matchback process is hardly a perfect science. There are issues with date ranges, the logic

A quick note: Our June issue was already at the printer while the 25th Annual Conference for Catalog and Multichannel Merchants (ACCM) was taking place on May 19-22 in Kissimmee, Fla. So belatedly, here’s my postconference recap. This was my 22nd consecutive tour of duty at what was once known as the National Catalog Conference, and the Annual Catalog Conference after that. But rest assured, I’m not going to give you one of these old-fogey reflections on how “it ain’t like it used to be.” Instead, let’s track back just a few years to Boston, June 2001. That was probably the most apprehensive