Special Report: More Web, More Print or Both?

As far as 2008 print vs. Web budgeting is concerned, the broad view of multichannel merchants’ planning from observers such as LaPierre includes the following:
◆ Some wonder if a fixed percentage of 30 percent here, 30 percent there, etc. will work;
◆ Some say they’ll “do anything as long as it has a positive ROI,” LaPierre says;
◆ Some aren’t looking at it from a budget standpoint; instead, they look to test and eventually roll out if an initiative makes money; and
◆ Some plan to increase both their Web marketing and print catalog budgets.

Then, there were others who at press time in late October were still “struggling with trying to figure out exactly how much money they should put in any one of these resources,” LaPierre says.

Intense Focus on ROI
ROI is very cost-effective in the Web channel, Muoio says. “As that continues to justify itself,” he notes, “we’ll continue to increase spending there.”

New Pig Corp. plans to increase its spending on the Web, with testing and learning being the focus. “It’s more of a learning process for us right now,” Hershey says. “We want to see if we can use e-mail and Web marketing to offset what we invest and spend in print. Just as we test our content, covers, paginations of our print catalog, now we’re testing e-commerce the same way.”

Sundance’s Web marketing budget in 2008 will be weighted heavily toward site redesign, as well as SEO and other Web site improvements, Hagen says. “We need the catalog to push our business in front of new customers; then they’ll come to the Internet to shop. It’s almost like our search engine is really the mailing of a catalog.”

Stumps is investing heavily in rich media to appeal to its primary demographic — teenagers, Bansemer says. “We’re improving our photography and video online, in addition to our social networking,” he points out. “We’ve been setting up specific blogs to make sure we start getting into those Web 2.0-type environments more.”