Target

The biggest snowstorm of the season to date is scheduled to arrive along major population centers on the East Coast on Sat. Dec. 19, the final Saturday before Christmas, also known as Super Saturday, which is traditionally one of the biggest shopping days of the year.
                   

Since so many marketers are focused on short-term results, here are the ways to best optimize market segmentation, competitive strategies/branding, acquisition products, multichannel marketing, shopping behavior and customer segmentation for immediate return on investment.

Victoria's Secret Online, Offline Coupons Draw Shoppers; Target Catalog Goes Back to School

One morning a few months ago, I experienced a true moment. I realized that, after spending the majority of my 25-plus-year career covering the catalog business, that business can no longer be treated as such. Today, it's really about selling and serving any way the consumer wants you to.

B-to-B catalogers always have had several advantages over retailers. They can maintain and offer wider and deeper product offerings as they're not limited to retail space. They can provide expert telephone sales and support, warranty and repair services, installation advice, and other “knowledge-based” services much better than a retailer can. Furthermore, new Web site shopping functionalities make it easy for customers to find, shop, learn, compare prices, order return and access a host of other related services much better than they could if they were standing in a store.

The primary beneficiaries of consumers' retreat from spending will be heavy-discount, big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target. This was a key finding in the 2009 Consumer Shopping Intentions Study from the private equity and consulting firm Cavallino LLC.

With the holiday shopping season now all wrapped up, here's a look back at several reports over the past month to provide an overview of how it all went down — both from what was predicted to what actually transpired.

In a recent webinar from the Target Marketing Group (sister unit of Catalog Success), copywriting veteran Bob Bly offered his top secrets on how to use copy to increase sales for both B-to-C and B-to-B marketers alike. Here’s a recap of Bly’s presentation. “Next to the list,” Bly said, “the offer is the most important part of a promotion.” Offers consist of the following elements: * product — what product you’re offering, and what model or version of it; * price — what customers have to pay; * terms — the conditions under which they have to pay; * premiums — what bonus gifts

In the second installment of this three-part series on how catalogers’ pricing strategies are evolving in response to the Web’s effect on branded products, this week I’ll provide options on how to increase sales without cutting prices across all merchandise. (For part 1, click here.) Catalogers often mistakenly assume that cutting prices will increase sales enough to deliver additional profit. Sales can go up, but profits can go down. Even worse, sometimes cutting prices yields no increase in sales; then profits really decline. To successfully achieve a 10 percent-plus sales increase based on cutting prices, you must first test the price sensitivity of

Identifying technical buyers is only part of the equation; marketing to them is the tricky part. In a webinar presentation last week from Kellysearch.com and Enquiro Research, presenters Gord Hotchkiss, president and CEO of Enquiro, and Phil Manning, marketing development manager at Kellysearch.com, provided their thoughts on how to most effectively market and sell to the B-to-B community. Below are some of the top tips picked up during the session. 1. Segment the technical buyer. Manning referenced the technical buyer as an individual who’s planning to make a purchase of $1,000 or more in the next year of one of the following: software, hardware,