Omnichannel

Despite rapid online gains, future still bright for print catalogs. Considering it’s now been at least a decade since debates first surfaced in this business about whether the print catalog would ultimately become obsolete in favor of online catalogs, you’d think you could make a stronger case for such a phenomenon in 2006. And today, with a rapidly growing number of catalogers reporting 50 percent-plus levels of orders placed online, the writing would seem to be on the wall. But while it’s nice to dream of the cost savings associated with alleviating paper catalogs altogether, reports of its death are greatly exaggerated, to quote Mark Twain.

Ask Amy Africa--the Web usability surveyor and president of Eight By Eight, which consults for such B-to-B catalogers as VWR, S&S Worldwide and Hello Direct--and she’ll tell you there are really only a handful of things that matter when it comes to online marketing. During her keynote address at the recent MeritDirect Business Mailer’s Co-op Conference in White Plains, N.Y., she outlined the following pieces of online marketing that matter. Landing/entry page: Armed with her own survey findings, Africa said that 80 percent to 90 percent of people leave landing pages (upon coming from search engine sites) within five pages of the landing pages. “Landing

Seventy percent of marketing decision makers report that their organizations currently practice integrated marketing, a marketing plan that coordinates online and offline marketing efforts, according to the “B-to-B eMarketing Survey” released last month by marketing services provider Epsilon. The survey of 175 U.S.-based marketing executives also revealed the following: * 70 percent of companies report that the same person controls both traditional and interactive marketing budgets. * 46 percent allocate marketing budgets by channel using rough estimates based on past experience. * 23 percent allocate marketing budgets by channel using modeling and planning techniques. * 19 percent give each channel a fixed allocation. *

Traditionally, data security has been a back-office risk management concern. Today, whether you’re marketing to consumers or businesses, security is a top-of-mind concern that can differentiate your product or service from the competition. Breach notification laws such as California S.B. 1386 have ensured a steady stream of headlines over the last year, and consumers and businesses have begun to take note. According to the “2005 EDS Financial Services Privacy and Customer Relationship Management Survey,” 59 percent of consumers said financial institutions could further gain their trust by providing ongoing information on measures taken to improve security. What if you aren’t a financial institution? The Conference Board

While fighting to get noticed on the Web is at least a full-time pursuit, there are a number of Web site promotion tools available that’ll give your company a tremendous edge in that battle -- and greatly automate the process. Following is a sampling of the latest advances in key Web site promotion strategies, and the tools that’ll help get you there. ¥ Leverage search engine submission software. Getting your company to a top position on search engines like Google and Yahoo can translate into substantially greater revenues, and search engine positioning software is one of the tools that can help. These tools automatically

Readers: With this issue we welcome new columnist Jim Gilbert, a catalog and DM consultant and a professor of direct marketing. In this column, which we’ll publish 10 times this year, Mr. Gilbert will offer practical strategies that can help you boost sales and profitability. —Editors Any time a customer communicates with your company — that is, interacts with you via one of your customer touchpoints — you have an opportunity to increase sales and goodwill. Unfortunately in some cases, it’s also an opportunity to lose sales and goodwill. I can’t stress this enough: You must analyze and consistently monitor all of your customer

These days, every C-level executive expects efficient use of corporate resources. Gary Hennerberg, direct marketing consultant and author of the new book “Direct Marketing Quantified: The Knowledge is in the Numbers” (published by Target Marketing magazine, a sister publication of Catalog Success), offers these three tips to help you expertly allocate your marketing spend: 1. “If you mail to both your customer file and rented lists, separate the costs by list, so list rental is not charged to customer costs,” writes Hennerberg. 2. Evaluate the performance of small test quantities based on projected rollout costs. Writes Hennerberg, “If you’re testing a quantity of 50,000 and expect

From this article, you’ll learn how to determine the efficiency of your online advertising efforts and how to calculate the maximum cost per click for those campaigns. The basic economics of online marketing are simple: Determine the advertising efficiency needed to make your profitability goals, then buy all the inventory you can get your hands on. But how do you determine the advertising efficiency needed to achieve your profitability goals? This article offers some practical formulas and advice. Defining Online Advertising Efficiency Ad efficiency comes down to a cost vs. benefit ratio: “What did I spend on advertising?” vs. “What did I get in

Holiday sales are expected to grow by just 5 percent this year, down from the 6.7 percent growth recorded in 2004, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). And a recent survey of about 8,000 consumers conducted by BIGResearch found that 34.7 percent of respondents plan to spend less on gifts this holiday than they did in 2004. The study also found that 60.2 percent of respondents said they’re driving less. Indeed, high energy costs are one of the main factors behind the expected slowdown in holiday spending this year, according to NRF officials. In this age of high petroleum prices, consumers may be

Your direct selling expense ratio is as important to track as your cost-of-goods ratio and other key metrics on your income statement. Indeed, controlling your direct selling expense ratio plays a major role in helping to improve your catalog company’s profitability. This month, I’ll focus on ways you can reduce your direct selling expense ratio. But first, let’s look at what normally comprises direct selling expenses: - catalog creative costs; - printing and paper; - ink-jet addressing and mailing expenses; - bind-in order forms and envelopes; - postage; - outside list expenses; and - merge/purge costs. Direct selling expenses