October 2007 Issue

50-year-plus Catalog Veteran Enjoys It Small and Simple

BACKGROUND: Bill Boatman’s rural upbringing lured him into hunting and an outdoor lifestyle. Prior to printing his first catalog in 1955, Boatman owned a small grocery store in the Ohio farming town of Highland. While running the store, Boatman bought space ads in hunting magazines plugging hunting dog accessories he also was peddling. That led him to start a catalog. Before putting the Bill Boatman & Co. catalog together, Boatman compiled his own informal mailing list, collecting and processing the names and addresses of his customers at the grocery store. When he’d collected 3,000 of them, which he deemed sufficient at the time, Boatman

A Chat with October’s Profile, Bill Boatman, Founder and Owner of Bill Boatman and Company

Catalog Success: How was the catalog established? Bill Boatman: Prior to printing my first catalog in 1955, I owned a small grocery store. While running the grocery store I was buying space ads in specialty hunting magazines advertising accessories for dog hunters. I decided to buy an inexpensive mail-order course to start learning the catalog business. I started by collecting and processing the names and addresses of the customers at the grocery store. When I’d collected about 3,000 names and addresses, I mailed my first catalog. I realized the need for a direct catalog for hunters. I felt that with direct response

A Chat with October’s Profile, Bill Boatman, Founder and Owner of Bill Boatman and Company

Are SOHOs Bringing You Down?

AB-to-B catalog marketing staff had a problem. Its housefile count was experiencing double-digit growth, but its response numbers were shrinking. How can these two metric trends coexist? Internet-savvy consumers, who often operate small, home-based businesses, buy product via this cataloger’s Web site. These small office/home office (SOHO) businesses didn’t need to repurchase the way this cataloger’s traditional business customers typically did. So, housefile response fell, while marketing expenses went up. If you suspect this is happening to you, here’s how to fix the problem, improve your response and reduce marketing costs. Begin by analyzing your housefile for SOHOs and consumers. Then follow these steps: 1. Run address

Avoid the Delete Key

Assume you’ve done a great job at growing your e-mail list. You’re beating industry averages, and the annual net growth of your file — after removing bounces and opt-outs — is 50 percent. You’re happy! Your boss is happy! Ah, but that’s only part of the formula for e-mail success. An indifferent audience is the death knell for catalog marketers. You want an active and involved audience. There are many bad practices that can harm your programs. If you make one misstep, your customers and prospects may give you the benefit of the doubt. If you make several, however, you’ll lose them. And, you have just

Catalogers’ Legal Challenges ’07 (and Beyond)

Beginning with our January 2008 issue, veteran direct marketing tax attorney George Isaacson will join our distinguished panel of columnists with a periodic column devoted primarily to tax issues affecting catalogers and multichannel marketers. To lay the groundwork for his column, in this issue he offers an overview of key legal issues affecting catalogers and other direct marketers. His columns next year will delve more deeply into the specific issues. Sales & Use Tax (Nexus) State revenue departments have stepped up their efforts to require catalog companies and Internet merchants to collect state sales and use taxes. To impose such collection obligations, state tax auditors must

CS1007_Lists&Media

CONSUMER Wedding Mall: Newly Engaged Brides-to-be The 49,082 recently engaged females on this file have registered at Wedding Mall’s Web site or at a bridal show. These mostly 18- to 35-year-old women are interested in making their upcoming wedding a smash success. Unique selects for this file include wedding date, ethnicity and opt-in e-mail address. The base list price is $125/M. Teramedia, (407) 420-1108, www.teramedia.com. Limited Too The 6.3 million 24-month buyers on this file are affluent tween girls and their parents who’ve purchased clothes and accessories from Limited Too. The girls on this file are between ages 7 and 14, and they

Direct Channels Have National Bankers Supply Counting Its Money

Operating in a market specifically designed for handling large sums of money, National Bankers Supply Corp. was faced with one ironic problem: It wasn’t generating enough of its own money. Having acquired the 23-year-old bank supplies catalog company in 1996, President Roy Shields, along with his business partner Steve Perhacs, had their work cut out for them. Consider these hurdles: * The housefile at the time was well below 1,000 buyers, most were inactive or one-time buyers; * The catalog hadn’t been reprinted in over six years; * The philosophy and culture within the company was stale and lacked vision; and * Not surprising, growth was limited or

DRTV, Inserts, Space: Which Products Make Sense?

The first concern to address when prospecting via direct response TV, space ads or inserts, is strategy. Consider two potential approaches: 1. A lead-generating, two-step approach casting a wide net for prospective buyers; or 2. A narrow focus to acquiring buyers by selling “off the page.” The easier and more universal strategy is the lead-generating approach — getting catalog requests or visits to your Web site. However, only a small proportion of the inquiries that see your catalog or Web site will get to step two and place an order. Selling directly from DRTV, space or an insert piece is your

Employ a Detailed Approach to Merchandise Analysis

From a “bottom up” view, catalog/multichannel marketers must consider every aspect of an item’s performance or life cycle to ensure every touchpoint to profitability is being considered properly. An item’s profitability is impacted by much more than simply demand and margin. I offer a top-down approach, which is extremely critical to the planning process. I also go to the opposite spectrum, however, and consider detail levels that often are overlooked when considering an item’s true profitability. If you hold your products to higher standards by factoring all their costs up front, you can gain greater profit to the bottom line. Let’s break down these

Fold it Up?

If you’re like most catalogers, you’ve either discussed giving up the use of a bind-in order form with envelope or you have already eliminated it. There’s a definite trend to eliminate the bind-in order form/envelope typically found in the center of catalogs. Is that really the right thing to do? This month, I’ll offer the pros and cons of using a bind-in order form/envelope, provide you with actual test results and give you the criteria to use to make the right decision for all the right reasons. Facts Don’t Lie I first explored this topic in a Catalog Success column back in

Going for the Green

Some family-owned businesses have trouble adapting to change. At times, that’s been the case with cataloger-retailer Edwin Watts Golf. But as it nears its 40th anniversary, Edwin Watts has rolled with the frequent punches in the discount- and brand-driven golf equipment industry. Founder Edwin Watts opened his first retail store in 1968 and launched a catalog eight years later. The company debuted its Web site (www.edwinwattsgolf.com) in 1998, one of the first online golf equipment shopping sites in the industry. Through the years, the company has managed and prospered from change. Yet, no change may prove to be as worthwhile as an investment it’s

Golf (and Multichannel Marketing) The Watts Way

John Watts, vice president of the catalog and online divisions of multichannel golf equipment merchant Edwin Watts Golf, offers tips on the evolving catalog/multichannel business and his take on where the business is heading. Catalog Success: What are some growth tactics you recommend for other catalogers? John Watts: Be as proficient as possible with your list and database management. You can’t spend money without a return on that investment. Know that the people you’re mailing to are interested in your products. Take advantage of the new analytical tools that are out there. You have to be able to analyze data to know your customers.

Groundbreaking Survey Part of Big Package

In sitting down to write this month’s Editor’s Take, I first took a good look at all I’d just edited for the issue and man, not to take anything away from our other issues, but this one’s packed. Great tips to be had here throughout, great writers, veteran industry experts; it’s all here for you. Read this issue cover-to-cover, implement the million-dollar ideas that apply to you, and bingo, you’ll be ready to retire before you know it (kidding... well, sort of). What I’m most pumped about, however, is the groundbreaking survey we conducted in late August in partnership with the La Crosse, Wis.-based multichannel

Intuition IS a Metric

Financial and operations metrics are what most businesses use in day-to-day management. This is, in part, because they’re the easiest to obtain. But they only measure part of your business’s performance. They key to long-term success is the effective delivery of goods and services to customers in a manner that engenders repeated purchases and recommendations. And your call center plays a key role in that process. Some operations metrics, such as abandonment rates and average time to answer, relate to building customer relationships. Other factors affecting this, however, are not as easy to measure. Surveys are good tools, but don’t underestimate the

Key Statistics B-to-B Catalogers Ought to Know

The attraction of the business-to-government (B-to-G) market for B-to-B catalogers is rising. Though some catalogers have experienced little success, others have had tremendous growth in this market even without those hard-to-come-by government contracts. The two keys are education and perseverance. All levels of government (federal, state, local, school districts) buy every type of legitimate business product or service imaginable. Over the years, many catalogers that have grown successful government-business units have done so even without a government contract. Some of these mailers are very significant players in their respective niches. Consider the following stats and factors: 1. GSA SmartPay program. Formerly the IMPAC program, the GSA

Local, Expansion Issues

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

Longer Road Needed to Go Hollywood

Hollywood Gadgets has a wonderful assortment of products. Unique and interesting, it’s a catalog you know will do well if you can get it opened and perused. Therein lies the challenge. This catalog is filled with potential, but undertapped opportunities. Front Cover Perhaps with all the best intentions, this cata-loger may feel it has worked hard on the front cover, but is it also working smart? A lot of people might applaud putting the product in a lifestyle setting, but is that enough? Is it compelling? Dramatic? Emotional? Relevant? Differentiated? If you put your hand over the logo, would you know whose catalog it was? The cover

Maximize Your Web Tools

Good news for American multichannel marketers: The growth rate of the Internet continues to make China’s economic expansion seem paltry. After all, China is only growing at a measly 11 percent! But there’s bad news, too: 10 years of uninterrupted, 20-plus percent growth has encouraged software companies to produce a seemingly never-ending flood, or plague, of new site features. Who has the time, energy, money or development staff to try all these new site features? So how do you know which one(s) to work on? And how do you make sure you get the most out of the ones you do invest in?

On Cybersquatting, Product Safety and Trademark Protection

Cybersquatting Cybersquatting occurs when a person registers an Internet domain name that incorporates a famous trademark and then “squats” on it until an opportunity arises to profit from ownership. Until the late ’90s, it was unclear whether existing U.S. trademark law prohibited this practice. But in 1999, ICANN, the organization that functions as the de facto governing body of Internet infrastructure, rolled out a contractual method for resolving disputes over ownership of domain names. One of the current requirements for registering a domain name is that the registrant agrees to submit to an alternative dispute resolution process to determine whether it’s entitled to

Strike Up B-to-B Activity in the Consumer World

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

Technology’s Back-end Effect

The rapid development of sophisticated technologies has been tantalizing. So much so that it’s been suggested companies can improve efficiency by replacing expensive, variable-cost human labor with incredibly efficient hardware and software, both fixed costs. Such promise has led to change in the call-center business, beginning with call-routing menus and leading to sophisticated, interactive voice recognition systems. Despite countless horror stories of customers lost in “promptland,” most of this technology has been developed with the best intentions. Yet numerous studies have shown this promise often has remained out of reach. A recent Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index survey found that 55 percent of customers

The 1st Catalog Success (Now All About ROI) Latest Trends Report on Multichannel Mailing & Marketing Practices (October 2007)

Welcome to our groundbreaking benchmark survey on catalog/multichannel mailing and marketing practices! This is a joint venture with multichannel ad agency Ovation Marketing, and the first in what will be an ongoing, quarterly series of surveys covering different aspects of the catalog/multichannel business. The survey contains a statistical analysis of a questionnaire we sent to the entire Catalog Success e-mail list in late August. The first two questions screened out any noncatalog decision makers. That left us with completed surveys from 175 catalogers — 97 consumer, 78 B-to-B. Click on any or all of the sets of responses under “Related Content,” to the right.

The 1st Catalog Success Latest Trends Report

We're very excited to bring you a groundbreaking survey, The Catalog Success Latest Trends Report. A joint venture with multichannel ad agency Ovation Market-ing, this is the first of what will be an ongoing, quarterly series of surveys covering different aspects of the catalog/multichannel business. This first report focuses on mailing and marketing issues. Our other surveys will focus on management and e-mail, among others. The survey contains a statistical analysis of a questionnaire we sent to the entire Catalog Success e-mail list in late August. The first two questions screened out any noncatalog decision makers. That left us with completed surveys from 175

The Copy and Product Relationship

It’s not evident at quick glance which copy goes with which product. To improve this, I recommend the following: 1. Use black type for keys (a,b,c, etc.) to tie products into copy blocks. Black is much easier to read than reverse type in color. I’d also suggest black or an easier-to-read color, such as dark blue, for lead-in lines on the copy block for the same reason. 2. Be more consistent about the placement of copy and product. Customers expect copy to be under the photos — much as they see in newspaper captions. But Hollywood Gadgets puts copy blocks above, below and to

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