Marketing

Q: "I would love to get some advice on increasing catalog orders from retail store customers. We are a tourist-driven business and we want them to order again once they get home from vacation."

Target announced on Tuesday its most ambitious foray into so-called "branded entertainment" with a 12-minute-long film, "Falling for You," that showcased more than 100 home, beauty and fashion items the company is promoting for the fall season.

Yes, the holidays are fast approaching once again. If you havent yet begun to consider how you'll prepare, don't worry, there's still time. Learn more about the state of e-commerce, the evolution of m-commerce and this season's best practices for conversion optimization in several critical areas in this infographic.

In a revealing session at the NEMOA directXchange conference in Groton, Conn. yesterday, David Kravetz, co-founder of Fairytale Brownies, and Wade Lee Jones, director of direct mail and CRM at teen footwear and apparel retailer Journeys, discussed what marketing tactics and channels are driving positive results for their businesses — and which are not. Here's a recap:

Staying true to its 115-year-old brand heritage while evolving to remain relevant to today's consumers is the challenge facing cross-channel retailer Filson. The company's Vice President of Direct Sales Harold Egler outlined those challenges as well as how the company embraces its history in a keynote presentation yesterday at NEMOA's directXchange conference in Groton, Conn.

Listen in as Brad Wolansky, the newly named president of direct and chief marketing officer at Yankee Candle, discusses his new role, his company's integrated cross-channel approach to marketing and holiday marketing plans at Shop.org's Annual Summit in Denver.

There's every indication that during the 2012 holiday season tablets will be as important a shopping accessory as low-interest credit cards. According to the 2012 Shop.org/Forrester Research State of Retailing Online survey, 49 percent of retailers say their average order value from tablet shoppers is now higher than traditional web sales. And nearly three in 10 retailers say they're seeing about the same average order value from tablets as their website.

Sometimes living in New York City can be rough. Crowded subways, smoggy air and expensive everything can put a damper on the general morale of the city. However, nothing brightens up the day like a hug, and this is especially true if it's coming from a beautiful model. This Friday, online shopping retailer Shoptiques.com will deploy five friendly models on a cross-city tour of hug-giving.

Although students aren't yet thinking about back to school, marketers are.  Performance marketing budgets are being set for the peak back-to-school months of July, August and September. To give retailers an idea of this year's opportunity, we looked back at 2011 back-to-school paid search data for our aggregate group of retailer clients. We also considered some key differences between the 2011 and 2012 back-to-school shopper to devise some fresh 2012 engagement strategies.

Time flies when you're looking at a Victoria's Secret catalog. Being exposed to sexually arousing images like those in a Victoria’s Secret catalog may slow down the way people perceive time and make them more impatient when it comes to getting delayed rewards, according to a study from Professor Gal Zauberman of the Wharton School and Professor Kyu Kim of USC Marshall School of Business.