Over the years, catalogers have been dependent on rented lists to acquire new buyers and to grow their housefiles. The technique works, but its potential is limited to previous buyers from other catalogs. There is another cost-effective customer acquisition method to consider: space advertising. With space ads, even fractional page ads, you can tap into new market segments. Youโll increase your prospecting universe by going beyond the typical rented lists of proven mail order buyers. Making space advertising work is difficult. Ad space is expensive, โcatalog cornersโ donโt always deliver, and black and white ads are often overlooked. While this method of prospecting has
Omnichannel
Hereโs a breakthrough idea for enhancing your Web site to make it perform more effectively: Apply the catalog rules you already know! After all, catalogs are a visual medium and so is the Web. When youโre selling products, the product picture and other graphic elements are kings. Though good catalogers already know the key rules of catalog design and merchandising, for some reason these rules are not being applied consistently to even the best Web sites. Letโs focus on a few of the key catalog rules you should be applying to your e-commerce site. Maximize Your Hot Spots. We know that a print
Sergio Zyman and Scott Miller echo something Iโve been saying for a while: โItโs no different in the world of clicks than in the world of bricks-and-mortar. Itโs business. Itโs about selling stuff and making money. Brands today and tomorrow will be built the way they were yesterday: They will be built on the basics.โ Amen. So why should catalogers read โBuilding Brandwidth: Closing the Sale Online?โ At first glance it appears Zyman, consultant and former chief marketing officer at Coca Cola, and fellow co-author and business partner Miller wrote this book primarily for the dot-coms. But โBuilding Brandwidth: Closing the Sale Onlineโ
It is no surprise that catalogers rely primarily on the use of outside rented names to grow their housefilesโthe most proven and fastest way to generate new buyers. But there are other cost-effective prospecting methods that can be used to supplement traditional ways of generating new buyers. Itโs easy to stick with using outside rented names and cooperative databases for new buyers. Why should a cataloger consider alternative methods that take time to set-up and cost money to implement? Increase the Prospecting Universe Through the use of alternative prospecting methods, a cataloger can identify and attract a wider variety of prospects
As successful catalog merchants, youโre using merchandising techniques every day to deal with issues such as โcanโt touch it, canโt try it on.โ Letโs face it, returns are a hassle. When it comes to selling products online, familiarity with these issues is just one advantage you have over both Internet-only โpure-playsโ and store-based, bricks-and-clicks e-tailers. Pure-plays have the formidable task of simultaneously launching and marketing a new brand, sourcing and perhaps stocking product, creating visual assets, implementing technology, handling fulfillment and developing a customer service component (no wonder so many have failed!). Bricks-and-clicks players have their branding and merchant skills in place, but
For the past two decades, I have written and spoken worldwide on the future of the catalog industry. My position has always been to challenge conventional thinking, and I have been right on some things and wrong on others, but hopefully always provocative. My early thoughts on the future of the Internet (1994) and its influence on catalog and direct marketing have been, for the most part, accurate. I predicted the growing importance of e-mail marketing, permission-based databases, proprietary databases and the surety of dynamic pricing as an outgrowth of self-directed, online commerce. In 1997, I was correct in my assessment of
Imagine this: You print 16 million catalogs a year that are seen by 500 million upscale prospects (average pass-along ratio is 20-to-1), often cooped up for hours with nothing else to read. Annually, 700,000 orders are placed, typically for 2.1 items at a $110 average order size. Oh, yes, a few more eat-your-heart-out ingredients of your catalog business: You warehouse no inventory, you ship nothing, take no returns and you donโt spend one penny for postage or list rental. Two words describe this model: yum-yum. If I were writing a novel about a high-powered entrepreneur, strategic thinker and brilliant builder of a multi-million dollar
Thereโs nothing like having a billionaire for a neighbor. Especially one that throws a little business your way, like Microsoft did when it named Multiple Zones International (MZI) its chief supplier of computer hardware, software and services. The contract is one of many changes taking place at MZI. Since moving online in 1995, MZI has seen fast growth in revenue and transactions, creating a $115-million company. What began in 1989 as a three-title catalog company with PC Zone, Mac Zone and The Learning Zone, has grown into a multi-channel retail operation that includes a new business-to-business division. The new Zones Business Solutions division is
As senior vice president of marketing and strategic planning for West Marine, Michelle Farabaugh is one fast moving target. Her day begins with a 40-minute a.m. commute, during which she returns a entire voice mailbox of calls. In charge of creating and executing sales and marketing strategies for the Watson, CA-based companyโs online, catalog, retail and wholesale sales channels, she typically works a 12-hour day, not including her morning drive. Farabaughโs mission is to create new programs that drive profits and increase customer loyalty. As a young senior vice president, she subscribes to the motto that to succeed, you need โwrinkles or results.โ Having
Producing and mailing a catalog can be a most expensive undertaking. With alternate media you can achieve some of the same goals as with a print catalog: Testing, driving customers (new or existing) to your e--commerce site and building awareness/loyalty. Speaking at the Annual Catalog Conference in June, Kevin Kotowski, of Olson Kotowski & Co. in Los Angeles, named some top reasons catalogers use alternate media, or โnon-catalog pieces:โ 1) cheaper prospecting than with full-sized catalog drops, since most alternate media are cheaper to produce and mail; 2) building and strengthening your customer relationships with name and product awareness; 3)