March 2006 Issue

A Chat with John Economaki, Founder and President, Br

© Profile of Success, Catalog Success magazine, March 2006 Interview by Matt Griffin Catalog Success: When was the catalog established? John Economaki: Bridge City Tool Works began with a single space ad in the November/December 1983 issue of Fine Woodworking. CS: What is your primary merchandise? JE: A proprietary line of non-powered, precision woodworking hand tools. CS: What is your annual circulation? JE: We no longer produce a "catalog" per se. One of the realities we faced post 9/11 was the contraction of our market. Today we mail several smaller 16-to-32 page offers with total circulation less than 1 million pieces. CS: How did

A Chat with John Economaki, Founder and President, Bridge City Tool Works

Channel Surfing

By Carolyn Heinze How to maintain consistency in creative endeavors throughout your sales channels. As the number of channels through which catalogers promote their products increases, so, too, does the need for consistency among an organization's marketing materials. If you want both existing customers and prospects to recognize your brand, the elements that are used in your catalog must appear on your Web site, in your e-mail campaigns and, if applicable, at the retail level. It sounds like common sense, but if your creative processes aren't streamlined, consistency can be difficult to achieve. "Some companies, like Harry and David, are really good

Channel Surfing

Contributions to Profit How to Boost Your AOV

By Jim Gilbert In a business model where many of us strategically lose money when acquiring new customers, cross-selling and upselling are critical to managing that loss. And these marketing techniques, if done right, can help speed your return on investment of acquiring that buyer in the first place. Cross-selling entails selling a product that's complementary to what a customer already is buying from you — something he or she also would have a clear affinity towards. Offering a customer a complementary item at the time of purchase is an art and science that can greatly enhance your average order value (AOV), increase your

Contributions to Profit How to Boost Your AOV

Contributions to Profit: How to Boost Your AOV

In a business model where many of us strategically lose money when acquiring new customers, cross-selling and upselling are critical to managing that loss. And these marketing techniques, if done right, can help speed your return on investment of acquiring that buyer in the first place. Cross-selling entails selling a product that’s complementary to what a customer already is buying from you — something he or she also would have a clear affinity towards. Offering a customer a complementary item at the time of purchase is an art and science that can greatly enhance your average order value (AOV), increase your margins and help pay

E-commerce Insights How to Secure Your Web Site Against Hac

By Alan Rimm-Kaufman From this article, you'll learn how to start protecting your Web site and customer data from potential security breaches. A security breach could hit your company without warning. A hacker could bring your firm to its knees with terrifying swiftness. If your Web site is insecure today, hackers could break into it tonight, and tomorrow you could face widespread customer wrath, disastrous publicity and significant legal liability. If your firm hasn't yet taken steps to reduce your Web security risk, now is the time to do so. Following are suggestions to get you started. Yes, You Are a Target

E-commerce Insights How to Secure Your Web Site Against Hac

E-commerce Insights: How to Secure Your Web Site Against Hackers

From this article, you’ll learn how to start protecting your Web site and customer data from potential security breaches. A security breach could hit your company without warning. A hacker could bring your firm to its knees with terrifying swiftness. If your Web site is insecure today, hackers could break into it tonight, and tomorrow you could face widespread customer wrath, disastrous publicity and significant legal liability. If your firm hasn’t yet taken steps to reduce your Web security risk, now is the time to do so. Following are suggestions to get you started. Yes, You Are a Target Too many

Eight Lessons You Can Learn From a Matchback

As a direct marketer, you have the advantage of measuring your successes (and unfortunately sometimes your mistakes) in ways that general advertising cannot. You meticulously test, code, track and analyze the results of your prospecting efforts. Such tactics have generated accurate metrics that helped guide you in meaningful directions. At least until recently. Today, knowing from where your orders and customers hail has become increasingly difficult. It’s the rare direct marketer who can survive in a single marketing channel, and most have at least two channels: catalog and Internet. Add retail locations, special mailings and opt-in e-mail campaigns, and the task of tracking sales and

Matchback Do’s and Don’ts

The right steps for successful matchbacks differ only in their complexity of rules, priorities and match criteria. Not surprisingly, the rules applied get increasingly more complex the more contact pieces you have in the mail at one time. Therefore, well thought-out criteria are critical in maximizing the usefulness of the matchback process. Do gather relevant data from your matchback vendor. Include in your file appropriate sales data such as name, address and customer number. Also include all order information such as date of purchase; order total with or without shipping (depending on how you typically do your reporting); and product information if you plan

Matchbacks: Tools and Technologies to Try

Accurately determining what level of matchback your company needs can depend on several factors: available resources, the specifics of your contact strategy and time constraints imposed by future planning cycles, to name a few. Following are three steps that can help you select a strategy and vendors. Step 1: Identify marketing channels you’d like to include in your matchback. You get sales from several channels. Which channel’s orders should you include in your matchback, and which should you omit? You probably get orders from direct mail (e.g., catalogs, postcards, flyers, special mailings), Internet, e-mail marketing campaigns, paid search engines and affiliate marketing programs. Choose the

Operations Benchmarks & Best Practices

Edited by Donna Loyle Two industry veterans share their insights on how to best leverage operational benchmarks and best practices. A catalog executive suffers from no shortage of metrics to watch for: from average order value to e-mail inquiry turnaround times to indirect labor costs to number of calls answered in 20 seconds or less. The real questions, though, are how to use the numbers, and if the metrics even are appropriate to track for your operations. Comparing operations solely on numbers can be misleading. Is it better to establish a set of best practices and then hold your staff accountable to them?

Operations Benchmarks & Best Practices

Operations: Two industry veterans share their insights on using Benchmarks & Best Practices

A catalog executive suffers from no shortage of metrics to watch for: from average order value to e-mail inquiry turnaround times to indirect labor costs to number of calls answered in 20 seconds or less. The real questions, though, are how to use the numbers, and if the metrics even are appropriate to track for your operations. Comparing operations solely on numbers can be misleading. Is it better to establish a set of best practices and then hold your staff accountable to them? Donna Loyle, editor in chief of Catalog Success, asked two catalog operations experts for their thoughts on such questions:

Product Data Feed Standards Sought

While comparison shopping sites such as Froogle, Shop.com and Shopzilla can provide an opportunity for multichannel marketers to reach new customer universes, they also present a unique set of challenges. Because there are myriad formats of product data feeds (the information you provide to the sites), this creates problems if you want to sell products on more than one site, says Alan Rimm-Kaufman, CEO of interactive marketing firm The Rimm-Kaufman Group. In a move to combat these dilemmas, merchants, search agencies and search engines met at Shop.org’s FirstLook 2006 in Atlanta in January to discuss the need for a common standard for describing

Profile of Success: Built to Last

Background: While working as a furniture maker and designer, John Economaki developed an allergy to wood dust and was forced to find a different outlet for his woodworking skills. When his proposal to design high-quality tools for a woodworking catalog was turned down because the tools would be too expensive, he took out a space ad in a woodworking magazine in 1983 to advertise two of the tools. The sales and catalog requests the ad generated convinced him to start his own catalog. Biggest career challenge: In 2001, Economaki took a short-term loan to move his manufacturing operation to a larger

Protect HR Data

"When devising your corporate policy, remember to also protect your employees' information that's housed in your human resources (HR) department. "Security breaches aren't all caused by computer hacking. Stealing of paper records is a threat, too. Devise a written privacy protection policy for HR data, then train employees to adhere to the policy. If you do have a security breach, government authorities will look more kindly on you if you can at least show that you had a written policy and a training program in place." —Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president, government affairs, The Direct Marketing Association

Protect HR Data

Special Report Matchbacks

By Terrell Sellix A matchback is the process of matching order records back to mailing-tape records to determine the actual source of those orders. Matchbacks have been used for years on a limited basis to try to pinpoint the source of unknown orders: typically 5 percent to 20 percent of orders. With the advent of the Web and the increase in multichannel marketing, understanding where your orders and customers are coming from has become harder to learn — and yet more critical to know — than ever. The shift has brought matchbacks into the limelight of customer order-tracking and results analysis. This Special

Special Report Matchbacks

Special Report: Matchbacks

Introduction A matchback is the process of matching order records back to mailing-tape records to determine the actual sources of those orders. Matchbacks have been used for years on a limited basis to try to pinpoint the source of unknown orders: typically 5 percent to 20 percent of orders. With the advent of the Web and the increase in multichannel marketing, understanding where your orders and customers are coming from has become harder to learn — and yet more critical to know — than ever. This shift has brought matchbacks into the limelight of customer order-tracking and results analysis. This Special Report will outline for

Strategy Sharpen Your Circulation Skills

By Stephen R. Lett How to improve planning and forecasting. As circulation professionals, we know that when sales are good, it's the merchandise. Yet, when sales are off plan, we tend to feel responsible. Is it the lists mailed to, the mail date or the way the merge was run? Just what's causing the sales shortfall, and what can be done to avoid this in the future with proper advanced planning? In this column, I identify some pitfalls circulation professionals may encounter in the planning and forecasting stages, and provide tips on how to reduce the risk of failure. 1. Manage Outside Prospect List

Strategy Sharpen Your Circulation Skills

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