Hereโs an analogy: Home page is to Web site as storefront is to retail and cover is to catalog. In short, itโs the first impression prospects have of your company, and a critical one at that. In fact, a home page has to work even harder than a retail storefront or print cover because it must facilitate transactions further on in the site, says Bridget Fahrland, executive creative director at e-business consultancy Fry Multimedia. โIt canโt just be about catching the eye. Something there has to get [customers] to go deeper,โ she explains. Though much of home page design depends on each catalogerโs
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Want to know the secret to stellar search engine rankings for your catalog? Itโs not technical tweaks or coding tricks. Page-one search engine rankings on spidering search engines such as Google and Inktomi mostly hinge on one thing: your Web site copy. Search engine optimization (SEO) writing entails expertly weaving keyphrases (e.g., cashmere sweaters, menโs digital watches) throughout your online marketing text. Proper keyphrase research and positioning will reward you with top-tier rankings and online branding. But if you starve the search engine and ignore your keyphrases, your site rankings may slump. Brand Your Business, Beat Your Competition If youโve ever believed that your
The fish are the last to discover the sea, so says the Chinese proverb. This analogy may stretch to Godiva, whose staffers had been working so closely with its site they werenโt sure what was needed to make it even better. According to Beth Brown, Godivaโs senior manager of interactive, prior to an October 2001 makeover the companyโs interactive group tweaked its site based only on competitive benchmarking and intuition. โBefore, I literally had mock-ups [of page designs] and would ask [my staff] what they thought,โ she says. This time, Brown sought advice directly from customers with usability testing. Brown and
A customerโs online and print product experiences can be summed up as the difference between two words, according to Bridget Fahrland, executive creative director at e-business consultancy Fry Multimedia. โThe Web provides proactive shopping, while a print catalog provides reactive shopping,โ she explains. โOn a Web site, youโre allowed to play more with what you see.โ But make sure to play by the rules; a balance of romantic (read: promotional) copy and helpful product information is key to keeping a userโs interest, and consequently, business. Petra Schindler Carter, director of consulting services at Fry, points out that consumers donโt have to make cognizant decisions
Long after the Internet bubble burst, e-commerce is alive and well for direct marketers and is the fastest-growing direct commerce sales channel. Catalog companies have three options for managing the dynamic online marketing environment. An Independent Adjunct At one extreme, a catalogโs e-commerce operation can stand alone as a totally independent adjunct to the traditional enterprise. Although it may share some of the same merchandise, it also may feature items that are not in the catalog. When it does offer catalog items, they may be only a subset of the full catalog line. In this extreme scenario, no effort is needed to
Catalogers know the Web can be a valuable place to sell product. However, itโs likely that many are missing the chance to generate even more sales via the Web. To boost your chance at success, pay as much attention to closing the sale online as you would in your print catalogsโperhaps even more so due to the nature of the Web. Therefore, to convert more of your Web shoppers into buyers, consider three key points in your Web-shopping process: online customer service; shipping and handling; and order-taking and processing. Online Customer Service Here are two commonly held misconceptions about online customer service:
When direct marketing companies first invested in the World Wide Web, creative strategies and marketing budgets for online and off-line operations were segregated. Some executives believed the new medium required different marketing strategies and personnel, while others wanted to keep staffers and budgets detached, facilitating a lucrative Web spin-off. Today both of these rationales have been debunked. The rules of direct marketing hold fast regardless of channel. But the fallout from these early missteps continues: Catalogers sometimes measure the success of their campaigns in silos, neglecting the influence of campaigns across sales channels. โWhen people try to track traffic to the
Spam is in the eye of the beholder. This adage offered by Anne Holland, publisher of MarketingSherpa.com, encapsulates the current discussions about e-mail appending. Most of the debates center around privacy as it relates to recipientsโ permission. Some experts propose that the existence of a business relationship in one channel (e.g., direct mail) doesnโt justify marketersโ contact through another (e.g., online) when the customer hasnโt given his or her specific permission. โUntil [customers] grant permission to send that e-mail, you shouldnโt assume you have it,โ says Margie Arbon, director of operations for Mail Abuse Prevention System, a non-profit organization that works with Internet service
Technological advancements within contact centers are revolutionizing the way catalogers answer and manage inbound calls. And if implemented properly, automated, inbound call programs can streamline caller-cataloger interactions and improve overall customer relations. Added bonus: By using these technologies, catalogers are saving time and moneyโgood news in these economically challenging times. The Virtual CSR Imagine a virtual customer service representative (CSR) through which callers can place, change or check their order status. For example, officials at NetByTel (www.netbytel.com) say their NetByTel Connected systemโs virtual agents recognize human colloquialisms, ask callers to repeat information the technology couldnโt initially register, and it even
Technological advancements within contact centers are revolutionizing the way catalogers answer and manage inbound calls. And if implemented properly, automated, inbound call programs can streamline caller-cataloger interactions and improve overall customer relations. Added bonus: By using these technologies, catalogers are saving time and moneyโgood news in these economically challenging times. The Virtual CSR Imagine a [โฆ]