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The 1st Catalog Success Latest Trends Report on Multichannel Mailing & Marketing Practices (October 2007)

The 1st Catalog Success Latest Trends Report on Multichannel Mailing & Marketing Practices (October 2007)

The 1st Catalog Success Latest Trends Report on Multichannel Mailing & Marketing Practices (October 2007)

Good news for American multichannel marketers: The growth rate of the Internet continues to make China’s economic expansion seem paltry. After all, China is only growing at a measly 11 percent! But there’s bad news, too: 10 years of uninterrupted, 20-plus percent growth has encouraged software companies to produce a seemingly never-ending flood, or plague, of new site features. Who has the time, energy, money or development staff to try all these new site features? So how do you know which one(s) to work on? And how do you make sure you get the most out of the ones you do invest in?

Welcome to our groundbreaking benchmark survey on catalog/multichannel mailing and marketing practices! This is a joint venture with multichannel ad agency Ovation Marketing, and the first in what will be an ongoing, quarterly series of surveys covering different aspects of the catalog/multichannel business. The survey contains a statistical analysis of a questionnaire we sent to the entire Catalog Success e-mail list in late August. The first two questions screened out any noncatalog decision makers. That left us with completed surveys from 175 catalogers — 97 consumer, 78 B-to-B. Click on any or all of the sets of responses under “Related Content,” to the right.

Assume you’ve done a great job at growing your e-mail list. You’re beating industry averages, and the annual net growth of your file — after removing bounces and opt-outs — is 50 percent. You’re happy! Your boss is happy! Ah, but that’s only part of the formula for e-mail success. An indifferent audience is the death knell for catalog marketers. You want an active and involved audience. There are many bad practices that can harm your programs. If you make one misstep, your customers and prospects may give you the benefit of the doubt. If you make several, however, you’ll lose them. And, you have just

Image suppression is a fact of life today. The Email Experience Council not long ago conducted a study of 1,000 business and consumer e-mails during the past year. It found 21 percent of the e-mails reviewed appeared completely blank when images were turned off or stripped inside a variety of e-mail clients. Include readable text in your e-mails that supports any products or promotions featured. Include a link to the HTML version of your e-mails at the top of your message. Tip the odds of success in your favor and create a great experience for your recipients. Don’t run the risk of customers immediately

The last I checked our last reader poll asking catalogers whether their sales were meeting, beating or missing projections, it looked somewhat encouraging. When asked if at this point of the year multichannel marketers were on plan with original forecasts for the year, 59 percent of our readers said they were either on plan or ahead. Even better news showed that none of you were missing its numbers badly.
There are still 41 percent of you, however, who are slightly below plan, so let’s see what we can do to move those numbers up by the end of the year. Here are six tips

Continuing our coverage of the recent webinar presentation, “Top Ten Things You Need to Know About E-mail Creative” given by Jordan Ayan, CEO of e-mail service provider SubscriberMail, this week we focus on tips Ayan provided the audience on links and calls to action; type, images and rich media; viral opportunities and more. 1. Make links a part of your message. Stressing the value of links and giving the consumer a “call to action,” Ayan advised the use of several tactics in e-mail messages. Among examples of links that “call to action” the consumer, Ayan finds these effective: * Create a sense of

A recent Direct Marketing Association (DMA) survey on multichannel marketing in the catalog industry shows that all catalogers use both their catalogs and Web sites to generate sales. Nearly nine out of 10 also use e-mails to reach customers. E-mail provides them with an easy method for order confirmation, shipping notices and customer service follow-up. But are you sure your e-mails are making it into customers’ inboxes? Is your brand protected from criminals who send fake e-mails in your name and use your company’s good reputation to defraud consumers? Strides Made, But Problems Persist While enormous strides have been made in recent years to combat the