Web Design

Multichannel Brand Management: Refine Your Message

Writing this issue of The Corner View from Cambridge, Mass., during the Spring NEMOA conference this week, I found myself reflecting on the types of people who attend this conference, as well as the types of people in this industry today. Although the catalog business has undergone much consolidation over the years, which has stripped some companies of their entrepreneurial spirit, when you come to a NEMOA, it reinforces the industry’s ages-old character. NEMOA people are warm, caring, entrepreneurial and very social. They share a unique passion for the catalog business. In many respects, they’re indicative of the traditional cataloger. But guess what? They’re

Problem: Organize.com sought to merchandise its site search results. Solution: It employed a site search software platform. Results: Online orders increased 60 percent in the first month. When Organize.com first employed an onsite search program in 1999, officials at the company believed the Yahoo! solution they implemented was state-of-the-art. Fast forward to the middle of 2005, and what was once a top-of-the-line technological breakthrough had become obsolete. Search results often were randomly displayed, and Organize.com was unable to track whether customers were using search to purchase. Organize.com wanted a solution that allowed its merchandisers to be able to decide which products were most relevant to customers’ searches,

The Web is an essential channel for catalogers. Customers expect catalog companies to have effective, well-designed e-commerce sites. The Internet is undergoing a period of rapid innovation, often labeled “Web 2.0.” It includes tagging, visual search, wikis and Ajax. Web 2.0 technologies will transform online retail over the next two years. Catalogers will need to upgrade their sites to remain competitive. I suggest you read this month’s column with a computer close by — as I’ll tour some Online Retail 2.0 ideas that will transform e-commerce. The first stop is del.icio.us, the social tagging site. (Go to del.icio.us/catalogsuccess, and you’ll find a

The first key to successful testing online is to take a full commitment to the process, said Stephen Cheng, marketing manager at online bookseller Alibris, in his session at last month’s Mid Market eTail conference in San Francisco. “Accept the fact that you will have duds, ideas that just don’t work when you test them,” Cheng said. Following are his tips for a better online testing process. 1. Establish a cross-functional team suited to the task. A Web site test shouldn’t be run just by the marketing team or the IT person responsible for the site, Cheng said. Both departments should be involved, as well

During a session at last week’s Lenser & Associates client summit in San Rafael, Calif., Lenser partner Michelle Farabaugh offered several Web and e-mail marketing tips to the firm’s client base, which included more than 100 mid-size catalog marketers. Following are some that are worth keeping in front of you. * Increase your advertising effectiveness by improving headlines, copy and destination landing pages. Include a value proposition, promotions, deferred billing and a buy now button. * In e-mail, separately test segmentation, frequency, time of day/day of week, subject line, “From” address, format, offers, deadlines, length, landing pages and hold out panels in order to see true

When it comes to integrating creative between the three primary marketing channels – catalog, Web and retail – much has been said about presenting a consistent image across all channels. But doing so isn’t always so easy. As Carol Worthington-Levy, partner and director at San Rafael, Calif.-based consultancy LENSER, pointed during a session at the recent New England Mail Order Association conference in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., multichannel marketers should enroll their creative people in “taking a role in the actual selling process.” She offered the following points and tips to marketers looking for ways to achieve multichannel consistency: Leverage your branding across all media that sells

Like so many of his cataloging colleagues, Dennis Swanson, president and owner of multichannel merchant Lamps Plus, originally thought his company’s Web site would serve customers only as an information portal. With 44 retail stores, Swanson figured customers would browse for lighting products online, but then buy them in his stores. Yet buy online they did. Still, Swanson suspected that the number of online orders would increase if customers could more easily navigate through his site’s 4,000 SKUs. The clincher came when he put a group of in-store sales reps online to offer live customer help. Sales doubled after a month. He

Seasoned etailers realize a Web site is more than just a “billboard in cyberspace.” They know the best sites create inviting, easy-to-use environments. Indeed, they’re interactive tools where prospects and customers can learn about a company and buy products. To be sure, a Web site is not a technological homage to yourself, your company or a Web designer. That said, however, showy, forever-to-download sites that are cool but little more than impediments to e-commerce are all too common on the Web. Indeed, the Webscape is littered with them. This article will explore how to avoid adding yours to the heap of Web junk. Usability

Neiman Marcus customers have discerning tastes, and visitors to its Web site deserve a shopping experience that offers the same level of sophistication, says Michael Crotty, vice president of marketing, Neiman Marcus Online. Following the relaunch of its Web site last spring, Crotty earmarked the next priority: improve the site’s online search capabilities. Previously, Neiman Marcus had an out-of-the-box solution that did searches only on a text and product-category basis. “It had to be a one-to-one match [to work],” says Crotty. “But we wanted shoppers to be able to search however they choose. We needed a very flexible solution.” The need was especially