Merit

For the many years I’ve listened to Don Libey, the investor, catalog owner, motivational speaker and wearer of many other hats related to the multichannel marketing business, I’ve often enjoyed his crystal ball-heavy looks into the future of direct marketing. I can’t say I always agreed with them — and certainly some didn’t come true — but they certainly got audiences thinking and implementing the ideas they took away from his presentations.

By Alicia Orr Suman Whether in its catalog design or ordering procedures, uniform supplier WearGuard strives to mirror the shopping experiences customers have off the job. WearGuard has been in the business of marketing rugged work clothes since the 1950s, when founder Gene Salem started selling personalized work shirts and pants out of a converted milk truck. For Salem and his customers — gas station owners — it was more than a business-to-business (b-to-b) relationship: It was about people selling to people. The company has grown and changed during the years, but one thing has remained constant: Whether the customer

By Donna Loyle How the cataloger uses creative print and production strategies to stay connected to customers. Mention the name Hello Direct, and undoubtedly almost everyone will say the same thing: "Oh yes, the headset company." Like Harley-Davidson and motorcycles, Hello Direct usually is top of mind when it comes to telephone headsets. How the company nurtures and maintains "ownership" of that product is instructive for other catalogers looking to dominate their own categories. Hello Direct executives use a combination of strategies, not the least of which are exceptional creative and print production capabilities that help the company