All of my favorite catalogs (both business and consumer) regularly e-mail to me promotions or newsletters. It appears that todayโs catalogers are taking e-mail communication seriously and devoting significant marketing efforts to regularly contacting customers and prospects. Indeed, a catalogerโs e-mail file is a valuable asset in building site traffic and sales. Following are nine tips to aggressively grow your e-mail list. Prominently feature on your Web siteโs home page an invitation to sign up for e-mailed communications. Most catalogs offer a subscription for e-mail specials or newsletters; but they can be amazingly hard to find. Sometimes I have to scroll down below
Creative
Customers will expect to see perfect color online by the year 2002, according to analysts at Forrester Research. Catalogers who are finally feeling comfortable with computer-to-plate and digital proofs now are facing the daunting task of achieving color perfection on their Web pages. Todayโs online shoppers are demanding more from their online shopping experience, including color accuracy. A study from PricewaterhouseCoopers and Media Metrix shows that 83 percent of online shoppers distrust the colors on their monitors. Yet 80 percent of respondents said accurate color was โvery importantโ when buying clothing, cosmetics, home furnishings and art online. More importantly, 50 percent of
Cool design and real-life models keep the Journeys catalog on the cutting-edge of teen fashion Taking a cue from MTV, the networks are filling their schedules with reality-based TV, especially after the success of โSurvivor.โ Itโs easy. You donโt have to pay actors, write scripts or spend for big-time special effects. Just turn on the cameras. Viewers seem to have great interest in seeing real people in front of the lens. And one company has taken that ball and run with it into the catalog space. Officials at Journeys, a retail chain with more than 400 locations, launched their catalog during the 2000 holiday
To say Sovietski Collection catalog has a unique niche would be an understatement. Indeed, a quick flip through its pages is like taking a whirlwind trip around the former East Bloc. Its product selection includes militaria, such as Soviet MiG pilot helmets and copper diving helmets, Russian submarine clocks, East German tank commander binoculars and field phones. Thereโs also hand-crafted Polish sabers and Czech walking sticks, Lomonosov porcelain tableware, Romanian crystal goblets and Russian-made woolen shawls. The catalog even features a genuine Soviet โStrizhโ spacesuit complete with communications helmet and umbilical life-support interfaces. Sovietski sells merchandise and artifacts sourced primarily from Europe
Some companies are so effectively branded that to say their names is to speak of quality in the minds of many consumers. Mercedes, Armani, and Rolex are a few. Bose is another. For buyers of audio equipment, the name virtually guarantees top sound quality. According to catalog consultant Tony Cox, Boseโs brand may be one reason so many catalogs are prominently featuring the audio-equipment manufacturerโs Wave CD player. Says Cox, โCatalogers ride on the fact that Bose is a branded product with a great reputation.โ Buying audio equipment without hearing it is similar to buying a car without driving it: Youโd better have
In the early 1990s I gave a talk to the Minneapolis Direct Marketing Club. On the way to the airport, my old and dear friend Kathy detoured to let me prowl the vaunted Mall of America, that gloriously glitzy testament to the shop-โtil-you-drop mentality: the largest indoor mall in the world, complete with an amusement park in the center. As we passed the jewelry department of Nordstrom, I spied a ring in the window that seemed right for my wife, Peggy. We went inside and were greeted by a sales clerk named Janice, who sold me the ring. Later that day I presented
Midnight. Six people are huddled around a sink in the womenโs restroom. Except for me, all are men. In this vast printing plantโablaze with sulphur, neon and mercury lightsโone pathetic 60-watt bulb is the only incandescent light we can find. Is my Christmas catalog cover green in ordinary room light (as intended) or silver? My sales rep peers through the gloom at a just-printed sample in my hand. โI could convince myself thatโs green,โ he says. Color-correct lights arenโt always the best for viewing color. They do ensure that everyone in the industry views proofs and printed samples under similar lighting conditions.
Although no one seems to know all the details, the first mail order company for womenโs โplusโ sizes was apparently started about 75 years ago by a woman named Lena Bryant, as an outgrowth of her successful retail operation. Not Lane BryantโLena Bryant. Thatโs right, Lena. The name that has become synonymous with apparel for large women was apparently the result of a signmakerโs error. Rumor has it that Lena liked how โLane Bryantโ looked on the storefront and stuck with that name for her company. There are other interesting legends about the early days of the industry. For example, Lena Bryantโs initial mail
Pop over to the business section of your local bookstore, and youโll find the shelves lined with dozens of books about branding. In addition, articles about branding abound in the business magazines, and a small army of consultants stand ready to lead focus groups, compile surveys, write reports, and make recommendations for branding your catalog. But if youโre like most of the start-up catalogers with which our firm, Olson, Kotowski & Co., has worked over the years, youโre probably chronically short of two things: time and money. Fortunately, forging a unique brand identity isnโt all that difficult or expensiveโif you apply a little
Direct mailers test creative in the mail, always trying to โbeatโ the control package. In our business, each new catalog needs to look sufficiently different from the last, while still adequately portraying brand image. You need to keep things fresh, but you also have to guard against pushing your brand too far. If youโre only in the mail once with a cover, how do you achieve this? At Crutchfield, an home and car electronics catalog, we test our covers by showing them to panels of different customer segments before we test them in the mail. By doing this, Crutchfield gets timely โwinnerโ/โloserโ information on the best cover