Creative

Continuity Marketing: Pleasures and Pitfalls
May 1, 2000

Several years ago I went to Peter, my doctor, for a routine checkup and saw some colorful boxes on the end of the counter. Patricia, the office manager and Peter’s wife, said they were dietary supplements for people over the age of 50. “Should I get them?” I asked. “I take them and I feel wonderful,” she said. “Do you and Peter get a piece of the action?” She said she did, which I had no problem with. So I ordered LifePak Prime for my wife Peggy and myself—60 little cellophane packages, each with four horse pills to be taken twice a day with

E-mail Marketing: What Works Now
April 1, 2000

The great American author John Updike once said, “Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or doing it better.” The sentiment surely applies to e-mail marketing, and the operative words are “creative” and “better.” Catalogers stand to benefit greatly from trying more creative e-mail marketing techniques. Even if you already consider yourself an expert in this space, upping the ante to a more sophisticated, more technical solution could be a smart move. Not only could you improve response rates, but you could also automate portions of the testing process when working in this online medium. HTML vs. Text

How catalogers merchandise a once-in-a-lifetime product
January 1, 2000

Dom Perignon, on tasting the first glass of champagne ever poured, is said to have proclaimed, “I’m drinking stars.” Ever since that moment, bubbly has been on hand for most celebrations, and heaven knows it needs to be served in the proper vessel: a champagne flute. While glassware is often marked with brand names or other messages, this New Year a special opportunity presented itself. What better, and rarer, occasion than a millennium-flip to toast with champagne? Put the two together and you get Year 2000 flutes. This spotlight shows a representative sampling of the positioning strategies for flutes featuring the year

Separating Yourself From the Competition
January 1, 2000

Created on an island known for its leisurely, laid back attitude, the Black Dog Holiday Catalog is obviously an organic product of its surroundings and customers. It sells the wares of the 30-year-old Black Dog tavern and bakery of Martha’s Vineyard. The 56-page holiday catalog doubles as a monthly calendar for year-round use. Inside is Black Dog paraphernalia displayed through illustrations and customers’ personal snap shots. The book is laid out in seemingly incongruous themes, such as dogs, kids, outdoor activities and events, but is unified by the island lifestyle. Much effort goes into differentiating the 12-year-old catalog from others, but the

Personalized Web Merchandising
October 1, 1999

Instead of just repurposing copy and images, rethink your Web catalog for more effective merchandising Personalization and variable data printing are making their marks on the print catalog world, but the place where customized merchandising techniques are likely to shine is the Web. While a print catalog is static, a Web catalog is dynamic and can be generated in order to meet the needs of the customer at hand. Explains Vahe Katros, director of retail applications at Blue Martini, a San Mateo, CA-based company that creates Web merchandising software: There’s two issues to versioning catalogs: how many different merchandise assortments you can

The Power of Three
October 1, 1999

Three, as the Schoolhouse Rock song goes, is a magic number. But there’s no such thing as magic when it comes to cutting postage costs. You can save money in only one of three ways: cut your catalog’s weight; qualify for automation and presort discounts; and get your mailing as close to its final destination as possible. Slimming Down You can reduce the weight of your catalog by attacking two dimensions: paper and size, says Dave Riebe, vice president of distribution at Quad/Graphics, a printing company in Pewaukee, WI. For the most dramatic impact, streamline the trim size of your catalog. Depending on your

Merchandise Spotlight: Aqua Golf
August 1, 1999

IN SUMMERTIME, two activities that come to mind when the weather grows warm are taking a dip in the pool and heading out to the golf course. A surprising product found in seven (count ‘em!) catalogs this season that pairs these diverse pastimes is Aqua Golf. Aqua Golf consists of an artificial turf and foam island, a chipping mat, 12 velcro-covered, floatable plastic golf balls and a pin. Using their own clubs, golfers aim their shots to land Velcro wiffle balls onto the floating green. This game simulates the thrill of the challenging over-the-water shot on the golf course. These Catalogs

Traveling Through Digital Waters
August 1, 1999

JOHN MCMANUS is celebrating a birthday. Ten years ago this October, he and his wife Gloria released their first catalog: a 32-page, black-and-white collection of products to make travel easier. They called their creation Magellan’s. Today, McManus sounds like a proud father when he notes, “We’ve been on the Inc. magazine list of the 500 fastest-growing companies three years in a row (1995-1997). That’s a figure that we don’t mind sharing.” The cataloger’s annual revenue is up to $25 million and print runs vary between two and three million catalogs, with mailings scheduled four to five times a year. “We’ll be doing 100 pages,

Cataloging Hot Spots
August 1, 1999

In a world where anything more than a month old is in danger of being considered obsolete, rules of thumb are a happy exception—they take time to develop, and the best of them gain validity with age. In our last article we explored one of the oldest rules of thumb: the 1-percent response rate. In this column we’ll explore a rule that’s almost equally old: catalog hot spots. We often hear about catalog “hot spots”—those magical spots in our catalogs that can dramatically boost sales for almost any product we place there. But do such hot spots actually exist? Where are they, and why

Creating a Winning Catalog
May 1, 1999

Cataloging is not a beauty contest. Catalogers are in business to make money, so it’s not always the prettiest catalog that gets the best response or sells the most merchandise. While an aesthetically pleasing catalog works for apparel and home furnishing offerings, for some types of merchandise, a less pretty, more product-dense approach works better. The Damark catalog, featuring electronics and computers, is one such example. Damark focuses on product and price. It uses inexpensive paper instead of thick coated paper. It includes simple product shots instead of fancy spreads. It utilizes short, benefit-driven copy instead of long-winded, story copy. And it works: