Omnichannel

The 2nd Catalog Success Latest Trends Report on Key Issues (January 2008)

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

While technology makes many things easier, it also can complicate your job. And as the Internet — and all that goes with it — has evolved over the past dozen years or so, catalogers’ jobs have become a lot more complex. Beyond merely becoming e-commerce and multichannel marketing experts, catalogers must pay closer attention to analytics and constantly reconsider how they allocate their marketing budgets. Ask any multichannel merchant and you’ll hear the same thing: The rubber stamp has no role in making marketing plans these days. The ongoing changes in e-commerce force catalogers to constantly reinvent the wheel. Add the killer postage increase

This month, I'll focus on one major trend and one major non-trend, both of which could impact significantly many multichannel merchants. One of these — the tumbling housing market — could enable catalogers to feed positively off its effects. The other one, however — the state of the corporate apparel market — needs a close look. Recent reports from the National Association of Realtors show sales of existing homes have plunged to their lowest level in nearly a decade. And Bloomberg News reported that new home sales fell to their lowest level in more than a decade. In such times, homeowners invest in their existing

At the recent Amtower Summit on Selling Products to the Government held in Baltimore, a panel of multichannel marketing experts provided the audience myriad tips and opinions on how to best find and sell to government employees. The panel consisted of David Powell, vice president of sales and marketing administration at FBC, a company that produces trade show events and conferences at federal government locations throughout the U.S.; Linda Pickering, senior vice president of B-to-B list company MeritDirect; Jim Garlow, director of advertising and marketing operations at computer equipment multichannel marketer CDW; and Peter Long, CEO of MCH, a compiler of business-to-institution (B-to-I) databases

With $1.8 billion public sector sales comprising more than a quarter of its total revenue in 2006, multichannel computer products marketer CDW nevertheless was slow to capitalize on one of its biggest resources. Founded in 1984, CDW didn’t aggressively market to federal employees until 1998, missing out on a market that now represents more than 25 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product and more than 4 percent of the world economy. At the Amtower Summit on Selling Products to the Government held in Baltimore earlier this month, CDW’s Director of Advertising and Marketing Operations Jim Garlow outlined how his company broke into

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

The 2007 holiday selling season likely will be remembered as the year social marketing hit the mainstream. A Oneupweb study of the 12 hottest products for the upcoming holiday season shows a remarkably creative variety of social media strategies and tactics being employed by savvy online marketers as they successfully generate advanced buzz and ensuing engagement. For the multichannel marketer who has yet to adopt a specific social-marketing strategy, it may appear a daunting, if not impossible, task to jump into during this holiday selling season. But here are four social tactics you might want to consider. 1. Participate in existing social networks.

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,

At a presentation I gave at the recent Online Media, Marketing & Advertising Conference in New York, I offered several tips and insight on Web site testing strategies and landing page optimization. First, here are the top three common mistakes search marketers make when dealing with a mature search campaign: 1. You rest on your laurels and don’t think to improve. Marketers periodically need to reassess and re-evaluate the specific keywords they’re bidding on, as well as the creative (ad versions) that are shown to make sure they’re still performing up to snuff. Keep in mind that other competing advertisers may update and refresh