Noelle Buoncristiano

Responsibilities: Tim Kiss oversees HoneyBaked Ham’s catalog, Web site and retail direct marketing operations. A great save: In 1999, HoneyBaked Ham relied for the first time on an outside vendor for product fulfillment. A glitch in the vendor’s process caused almost one-third of HoneyBaked Ham’s orders to go unfulfilled. Kiss took control of the situation, and he and his team convinced HoneyBaked Ham’s upper management to mail apology letters to customers in an attempt to retain as many of them as possible; and to mail prospect catalogs to offset the customers they couldn’t retain. “In the end, our catalog production and circulation budgets that

Many business-to-business (b-to-b) catalogers fail to periodically refresh their creative elements and end up making common mistakes in copywriting, photography, layout and design. To discern if you’re guilty of stale or ineffectual catalog creative, ask yourself the following questions. “Am I employing copy that’s appropriate for b-to-b customers in particular?” “B-to-b products tend to be more practical because they’re meant to help customers solve business problems,” says Sarah Fletcher, president of Charlestown, R.I.-based Catalog Design Studios, a catalog consultancy. You can’t sell on emotion in a b-to-b catalog like you can in a consumer catalog, she continues. Gina Valentino, vice president and general manager

Environmental concern has re-emerged as an important issue for the direct marketing industry in the past few years. And the use of recycled paper is one of the issues that has been at the forefront of the resurgence. U.S. catalog companies mailed about 17 billion catalogs last year, using 3.6 million tons of paper, according to the Alliance for Environmental Innovation (AEI), a national nonprofit organization focused on environmental protection. “Catalogers are more aware of the environmental impact of their paper use and increasingly understand that reducing waste, maximizing recycled content and protecting forests are the right things to do,” says Victoria Mills,

The company’s beginnings: After Greg Cooper left for college, his father, Hal, bought a health food store, Arizona Health Foods, in their hometown of Phoenix. After numerous phone conversations regarding the business’s future, Greg left school to help his father open more stores. Arizona Health Foods catalog, which sell dietary foods and supplements, started out of necessity, explains Cooper. Soon after the third store opened, major road construction — slated to last two years — virtually shut down store business. “I had to find a way to sell goods,” he notes. He tested the direct marketing channel by first running a small ad in

Truly effective multichannel marketing is an ongoing challenge for most catalogers. Ultimately, you want to deliver consistent customer experiences across all your sales channels, right? Although there isn’t one formula for success, there are a growing number of multichannel commerce tools that can help you achieve that goal. One such tool is a virtual catalog, defined by Chicago-based the e-tailing group as an almost exact replica of your print catalog integrated by varying degrees into your Web site, as opposed to a simple menu of products. By using a virtual catalog, customers can experience the aesthetics of a print catalog as well as

How the company began: A little more than a century ago, Brent Heath’s ancestors began a daffodil farm in a small Virginia town. Today, the farm is a rapidly growing company that sells flower bulbs and related merchandise and is run by Brent and his wife, Becky. “I grew up in a business that I enjoyed, but didn’t like the dirty work,” Brent admits. Rather, he says he prefers teaching and sharing information. Catalog: Brent and Becky’s Bulbs has produced a full-color catalog for just two years. Previously, the catalog was merely a price list with some product sketches. Now it contains photographs and

Problem: Massage Warehouse was receiving delivery fines from shipping companies and returned packages due to incorrect customer address data. Solution: The company implemented QAS’ software to validate addresses using U.S. Postal Service (USPS) data. Results: Delivery surcharges dropped by 63 percent, staff productivity significantly increased, and customer satisfaction grew due to faster delivery times. When both delivery surcharges imposed by shipping companies and the number of returned packages began to rise due to incorrect address formats, Massage Warehouse realized it needed to adjust its customer address data management. For example, the difference between “Strt.” and “St.” as an abbreviation for “Street” was costing the

While heading up two businesses in the late 1990s, Mike Faith had difficulty finding quality telephone headsets at reasonable prices. Even more frustrating was the substandard customer service he said he found among the companies in that field. He realized he could fill a void in the industry. “My entrepreneurial opportunity radar went berserk,” he recalls. “I saw too big an opportunity and had to capitalize on it. … That’s very much my style.” Six weeks later (in 1998), with $40,000 in startup capital, Faith established San Francisco-based Headsets.com where he now serves as president. The company, which primarily sells headsets and related

Today’s multichannel merchants continually are searching for viable channel-integration solutions — a seamless blend across the key points of customer interaction, including catalogs, Web sites, retail stores and kiosks. “Providing seamless integration communicates a consistent message to consumers and results in higher transaction values,” note the authors of the LakeWest Group’s Fifth Annual POS Benchmarking Survey 2004. But as most catalogers will tell you, achieving that seamless blend across all sales channels is more difficult than it appears to be. Following are a few tactics that can help you make the most of all of your channel-integration intiatives. 1. Take advantage

How the catalog began: “Founding a catalog was the last thing I ever expected to do,” says Donna Salyers, president of Fabulous-Furs. During several visits to New York in the 1980s, she realized she was one of few people without a full-length fur coat. “Instead of buying a coat that day, I was inspired to create a luxurious alternative.” After a year of laying the groundwork, Salyers’ brainchild — a catalog comprised of faux-fur products — became a rapid success. “When customers began calling from Hollywood, I knew we were on to something.” Grew up: Covington, KY Experience: For 16 years, Salyers