Bill Nicolai

As more retailers turn to the Web, direct mail and catalogs to offer customers alternatives to burning gas traveling to malls, many are taking a crash course in direct marketing, seeking ways to make the direct channel work for them. Last month, we laid out the first five of 10 key principles retailers should follow to make the most of catalogs and the Web to augment their retail/multichannel programs. Here are principles six to 10. 6. Use effective segmentation to select names for catalog contact. While very sophisticated segmentation and scoring models have proven successful at larger companies, it’s best to first exploit the

Many retailers are finding catalogs to be an important adjunct to their retail businesses. They realize that once they’ve obtained customers, the catalog mailing is an effective way to bind those customers to their brands and expand awareness of their products. In the first of a two-part series targeted at multichannel merchants who have significant retail businesses, below are five of the 10 key principles to augment your retail/multichannel program with catalogs and the Web. 1. Exploit the phenomenon of multichannel lift. Mailing a catalog delivers sales in its own right while increasing the value of customers who originate in the store or on

We are seeing an increase in the growth and financial performance of many specialty catalogs. None of these companies are old-fashioned general catalogers, and all share the following distinct characteristic: most of the new-to-file customers are coming in via the Internet, while most of the sales are being generated by a catalog (even if the order was placed on the Web site). The economics of finding Web-generated customers searching to meet specific interests are often more favorable than those obtained by direct mail prospecting. Shoppers have become more adept at locating products using various Internet capabilities, such as search engines and product syndicators of catalog