Abacus

In ancient times — say 10 years ago — catalogers prided themselves on having a precisely measurable medium. They were the scientists of the marketing world. Most catalogers took the majority of their orders by phone and spent a great deal of effort capturing source codes and order IDs from every call. As computer technology and database expertise became cheaper and more widely available, we were not only able to measure precisely which customers responded to our mailings, but also what they bought and from which editions of our catalogs. We measured the performance of every square inch of every edition and smugly thought

Take a stroll down Hollywood Boulevard today and you’ll find it’s not as sleazy or creepy as it once was. Urban renewal has been in full force with the rise of the Kodak Theatre (home of the Academy Awards) and the Hollywood & Highland Center shopping complex adjacent to the reinvigorated and timeless tourist attraction, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Like the boulevard it resides on, Frederick’s of Hollywood has been undergoing a makeover of sorts. But for the 61-year-old cataloger/retailer of racy women’s lingerie, the past decade has been a rough ride. It began in 2000, with a two-and-a-half-year reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy

PacBlue Digital Imaging, a Van-couver, British Columbia-based digital printing firm, drew more than 20,000 attendees to its recent Vancouver Sun EPIC Sustainable Living Expo. The three-day green exposition enabled consumers and merchants to come together in support of environmentally friendly products and companies. The event touted the use of waterless printing and its benefits to the environment. The process involves using heat, rather than water, to transfer ink to the substrate. A conventional press the size of the waterless press used by PacBlue Digital uses as much as 12,000 liters of water per year. In contrast, PacBlue’s waterless press eliminates 98 percent of

With $737 million in net sales last year, The Yankee Candle Co. has a sizable amount of orders to sift through from sales made through its assorted channels — catalog, Web site, paid search, retail, direct mail, e-mail and newspaper inserts. Needless to say, having a reliable matchback program in place is crucial for the South Deerfield, Mass.-based multichannel marketer. So during a session at last week’s NEMOA Conference in Cambridge, Mass., Dana Springfield, general manager of consumer direct at Yankee Candle, led a panel session along with Stacey Hawes, vice president of B-to-B services at the co-op database provider Abacus, and Jim Finnerty,

During a presentation of his firm’s new B-to-B co-op database, LexBase, at last week’s Direct Marketing Association (DMA) 2007 Conference in Chicago, Edith Roman Associates President Stevan Roberts presented a case study involving a 20-year-old (unnamed) cataloger that mailed 10 million catalogs per year and was looking to mail companies with more than 250 employees. “We took records from its file and matched them against our e-mail database,” Roberts explained. As a result, he claimed the cataloger increased orders by 26 percent within the first year. The cataloger sought out LexBase, which has been operational but not fully rolled out to all B-to-B

Patient: Doctor, although I have a consumer catalog, I’ve found some business customers on my list. I’m unsure of whether or not to try to find more business customers. Is B-to-B a good growth tonic for me, or a snake-oil serum? Catalog Doctor: B-to-B can be a good segment for some consumer catalogers to try to grow, especially if you sell business-appropriate gifts or productivity products. Plus, average order values can be double that of consumers, which can help cure slow growth and profitability. To grow that B-to-B segment, however, you need different treatments than you’re used to. Here’s a nine-step prescription. 1. Hang a welcome

In addition to the nine tips on maximizing your B-to-B customers, here are a couple of others. 10. Start locally. A good way to get started building your B-to-B list is to place personal calls to local businesses. Show them your line, offer them your catalog and a few samples. For example, if you’re a food-gift cataloger, bring a couple of your best-selling products and a good-looking gift sampler to leave behind. Remember the importance of presentation! Listen more than you talk. You’ll learn about their needs, such as timing, volume, price points and the (ease of the) ordering process. Some companies start their

A headline of the July 5, 2006, edition of USA Today reported that we are now a nation of 300 million people. By 2025 the U.S. population is projected to reach 350 million; 400 million by 2040. With the population growing, why is it more difficult to prospect cost-effectively, and why aren’t universe counts increasing? This month, I’ll discuss ways to expand your prospecting universe, even when the print catalog market size doesn’t seem to be growing. According to Abacus, catalog households are declining as overall households are increasing. With more buyers ordering via the Internet (not necessarily the driving media), the count

As promised, I did some research regarding Abacus and exactly who owns its data after I was challenged when a reader submitted a question (and my lack of a serious answer in a subsequent column). The question was,
Abacus was bought by Epsilon who in turn is owned by Alliance Data Solutions. Alliance Data Solutions was recently bought by a private equity firm, The Blackstone Group. The Chinese government then bought a $3 billion position in The Blackstone Group.
My question was: Who has my data?
What I found out is this: At least for now, your data is safe and not in the

While I’m working on my report on who owns the Abacus data (see last week’s column) I got this response from Jerry Bernhart, the author of the hiring survey that started the thread regarding hiring practices in the catalog business. So without further ado I turn my column over to Jerry, who’s the president of Bernhart Associates Executive Search.
For the past seven years, Bernhart Associates Executive Search has conducted a survey measuring employment trends in the direct marketing industry. In our most recent survey this past April, we added this new question: How would you characterize the overall ease or difficulty you are