E-mail

Catalog marketers are a pragmatic group. They stick with tried-and-true methods. New techniques must demonstrate practicality before implementation. Customer reviews and blogs are Web 2.0 techniques, and they’ve demonstrated the ability to build community and stimulate sales. Web 2.0 is focused on interactivity, collaboration and social networking. Marketing becomes more dynamic as customers and prospects are empowered with tools that encourage engagement. Here’s how to harness that crowd-sourced power to provide consumer-generated content that will be influential in the purchasing process. Customer Reviews Some catalogers experiment with letting customers post product reviews on their sites. Typically they’ll use a form with a

A new survey from the Email Experience Council, the e-mail marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association, provides a measure of caution to multichannel marketers: Think twice before launching that e-mail campaign full of images. If not, risk having your images suppressed and your message rendered useless. The Retail Email Rendering Benchmark Study, which polled 576 online retailers and marketers, found that 23 percent of retailers send e-mails that are completely unintelligible when images are blocked. Of the 77 percent whose e-mails were intelligible, there were significant variations in clarity based on their use of HTML text and alt tags. Here are some

Subject lines carry a lot of weight. They drive open rates and results. After e-mail recipients look at your “from” line and recognize your company or service, the next thing they do is look at the subject line to see what might interest them. Let’s examine some of the latest techniques for getting customers past the e-mail client and into your site. Free to Use ‘Free’ In the past, marketers were warned not to use the word “free” in a subject line. The concern was that it triggered spam filters and reduced chances of delivery. Since “free” is the most powerful four-letter

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a three-part series on becoming more adept and adapting to the multichannel world. Part one appeared in our February issue, and part three will appear in our September issue. The world of direct marketing is changing quickly. Whole new analytical tools, benchmarks and ratios have become commonplace in measuring success. You must think cross-channel if you’re to be customer-centered. And above all else, if you’re a stand-alone cataloger or retail store operator, the corporate atmosphere is forcing you to rethink your internal culture. The opposite of a multichannel approach is a channel-centric one, where one channel dominates

The 34th annual Direct Media Client Conference and Co-op held last week in White Plains, N.Y., offered attendees some timely perspective on how catalogers are approaching, and trying to survive, an uncertain economy. Ed Mallin, president of infoUSA’s Services Group, seemed to sum up the theme of the conference best when he said the shift to the digital world is “the most dramatic shift … and it’s not going away.” Mailers need to acknowledge and understand how the Web is changing their businesses, and adapt to the new realities of the Web world. Below are the most noteworthy takeaway pointers from the

As per my headline, for this issue of Catalog Success: The Corner View, I hand my pen — um, keyboard — over to Catalog Success E-Commerce Insights columnist Alan Rimm-Kaufman. Alan heads the Rimm-Kaufman Group, an online agency providing large-scale paid search bid management and Web site testing services, and was formerly a marketing executive with the Crutchfield catalog of consumer electronics. I leave the stage to Alan, who starts with a potential scenario followed by nine predictions for the future of the catalog/multichannel business as it affects you. Scene: A bar at a conference hotel during a marketing trade show. Bill:

In its recent whitepaper, Mailing With Permission, e-mail software and service provider Lyris Technologies breaks down the various aspects of permission-based marketing, from subscription processes to the expectations you should establish for your customers to privacy regulations. Here are six of the whitepaper’s do’s and don’ts for creating a successful permission-based marketing campaign. 1. Require double opt-in. As the most ethical subscription standard, double opt-in requires prospective members to confirm their memberships before receiving your next mailing, protecting them from receiving mail they didn’t sign up for. And it’s beneficial to marketers as well. Consumers who confirm their subscriptions are most likely to

As e-mail continues to grow as a viable channel for multichannel marketers, its impact on the overall customer experience must continuously be addressed. Just like any other touchpoint the customer has with a company, e-mail creates an experience, says Scott Olrich, chief marketing officer at Responsys. In a recent whitepaper from this on-demand marketing solutions provider entitled “Email Marketing’s New Rules of Engagement: The customer experience moves front and center,” Responsys offers several tips on how to optimize e-mail marketing campaigns, creating a positive experience for customers. Here are some of the whitepaper’s most notable pointers. 1. Have e-mails automated to customer life events.

With the sophistication of Web 2.0 generation e-commerce systems, I’m seeing more and more creative uses of e-mail. I’m thinking about individual, tailored e-mails generated by your e-commerce or order-management system rather than the bulk e-mails sent out as part of marketing campaigns. They’re sometimes called “operational e-mails.”
You never have a better time to cement your relationship with a customer, and generate an additional sale, than when you have a relevant e-mail (or phone call) that results from a customer action. Here are some examples … and some ideas.
* Order confirmation e-mails. Recognize first-time buyers and returning customers, and try a “15-minute

When I attend industry conferences, I do quite a lot of cherry-picking. After all, there’s quite a lot of information spread around, but not a lot of it’s relevant to catalogers and multichannel marketers. So for this week’s edition of The Corner View, I took it upon myself to attend many sessions from the eTail Conference, held Feb. 11-14 in Palm Desert, Calif., and whittle down these experiences into the top 10 ideas, tips, points and company activities I took in during the event. I only attended sessions with panels that included catalog/multichannel marketers. The most noteworthy subjects they discussed included exploring