Branding

In Full Bloom
July 1, 2009

Having come a long way from its modest beginning as a chain of floral shops in metropolitan New York, 1-800-Flowers.com usually has set trends, not followed them.

Lost in Translation
July 1, 2009

Can you maintain your brandโ€™s โ€œlook and feelโ€ on an outbound phone call? Does your fulfillment packaging reinforce your companyโ€™s โ€œone thingโ€? Is your brand clearly understood in your print catalog, but misinterpreted in your e-mail campaigns?

Finding the Perfect Balance
June 1, 2009

This year's economic retreat actually stands to help Gaiam, a product and information services company with a heavy emphasis on sustainability, position itself for greater growth in the near future.

An Industry's Eureka! Moment
June 1, 2009

One morning a few months ago, I experienced a true moment. I realized that, after spending the majority of my 25-plus-year career covering the catalog business, that business can no longer be treated as such. Today, it's really about selling and serving any way the consumer wants you to.

The Multichannel Shopper
January 1, 2009

Have you ever walked into a store and felt like youโ€™d stepped into that companyโ€™s catalog? Or visited a familiar companyโ€™s Web site and intuitively known where to find what you need because the siteโ€™s organized just like its store across town? Regardless of channel, your experience is the same: You experience that brand.

Create a Multichannel Brand That Sticks
October 21, 2008

In this age of economic uncertainty, itโ€™s imperative that your brand stands for something and resonates in the hearts of customers and prospects. Most marketers are under the misconception that a great brand is only about the logo, tagline, color palette and looking the same across all channels. While those are important tactical procedures, theyโ€™re not enough to create brand advocacy or insistence. You need a โ€œstickyโ€ brand. In a session I co-presented at the DMA08 annual conference in Las Vegas last week, with Keith Eldred, project manager at New Pig Corp., a B-to-B cataloger of industrial safety products, we examined how to build

How Best Buy Keeps Its Customers Happy
August 12, 2008

In a presentation at last weekโ€™s eTail East 2008 conference in Washington, D.C., Barry Judge, chief marketing officer for the consumer electronics giant Best Buy, presented five concepts his company strives to accomplish to ensure its customers have an enjoyable shopping experience, no matter the channel. 1. Make sure the customer knows all that we know. Examples of this include Best Buy publishing the return rates for all of the products it sells, publishing service rates for personal computers, among others, Judge said. 2. Deliver an experience that adds value. Be sure to deliver on all of your promises, Judge advised. 3. Blow the

Build the Right Company Culture
June 1, 2008

Editorโ€™s Note: This is the second of a three-part series on becoming more adept and adapting to the multichannel world. Part one appeared in our February issue, and part three will appear in our September issue. The world of direct marketing is changing quickly. Whole new analytical tools, benchmarks and ratios have become commonplace in measuring success. You must think cross-channel if youโ€™re to be customer-centered. And above all else, if youโ€™re a stand-alone cataloger or retail store operator, the corporate atmosphere is forcing you to rethink your internal culture. The opposite of a multichannel approach is a channel-centric one, where one channel dominates

Translate Your Brand With Caution
April 22, 2008

Brand recognition is a critical element of success for any company today, both home and abroad. That target audience includes more than just those who speak English. Foreign language-speaking customers also evaluate your brand based on the material youโ€™ve provided in their languages. To ensure you maximize your investment in translation and avoid embarrassing translation errors, here are three ways to help you effectively reach all of your prospects. 1. When searching for a translator, find one that ensures the use of professional translators, along with a quality-control process to guarantee that your translation is accurate. 2. Your translator should understand