Omnichannel

If you want to become a true multichannel marketing master, you should be on top of these three, in addition to the seven we outline in the main article. 8. Customer service and fulfillment are to the multichannel business model. At one point in direct marketing history, it was thought that fulfillment was important, but wouldn’t set one apart from competitors. During the pure-play Internet heyday of the ’90s, it was actually amusing to watch Web sellers struggle with fulfillment. Today, top business and consumer catalogers such as Quill, Lands’ End, Drs. Foster & Smith and Internet-only companies like Zappos.com, have raised

Editor’s Note: This is the first article of a three-part series on becoming more proficient and adapting to the multichannel world. Parts two and three will appear in our June and September issues. Can you imagine a catalog/multichannel company not striving to become more efficient and effective in each selling channel in which it operates? Certainly not. This article focuses on the key issues and trends impacting multichannel selling today. It examines how you can improve your bottom line in each channel, cuts to the chase and identifies seven issues that smart direct sellers need to focus on this year. (You can also

Catalog established: 1990 Headquarters: Elk Grove Village, Ill. Merchandise: Gifts, garden and home furnishings and decor Customer demographics: Consumers age 35-55, middle to upper income # of SKUs: 3,500 on the Web site, nearly 350 in the catalog # of employees: More than 100 full- and part-time Circulation: 14 million # of drops per year: Design Toscano: 13; Basil Street Gallery: 4 12-month housefile: 180,000

Increasingly, catalogers are moving into the multichannel model, and the numbers tell you why. A 2006 Direct Marketing Association survey showed that buyers who use two channels to purchase from a marketer spend 32 percent more on goods and buy 12 percent more frequently than those who purchase from a single channel. Furthermore, customers who purchase from three channels are 73 percent more likely to buy similar products from that merchant, strengthening brand loyalty across all channels while increasing the volume and frequency of sales. The key to expanding into a multichannel marketplace is how you handle the channels. The tendency is to

Having a hard time finalizing your 2008 contact strategy? You’re not alone. The mission hasn’t changed: You want to develop the most efficient way to convert prospects into first-time buyers and first-time buyers into repeat customers. But piece together the rapid pace of technological change, the volatile economy, the ongoing migration and evolution from phone to Web ordering, then add the likely distraction of the presidential election throughout the year, and it can make any marketer feel like throwing in the towel in bewilderment. Realistically, there are only three ways to proactively convert known prospects to buyers and one-time buyers to repeat buyers:

Approaching $8 billion in total sales and $559 million in profit for its most recent fiscal year, CDW’s roots are in cataloging in case you forgot. The Vernon Hills, Ill.-based provider of technology products and services for business, government and education was, and still is, a B-to-B cataloger, but a far cry from a mom-and-pop startup. For the past decade, CDW (which stands for the company’s original moniker, Computer Discount Warehouse) recognized growth opportunities within the tech industry and sought a multichannel approach to reaching its customers. Using vehicles such as television, radio, Internet, in-house magazine publications, webinars, seminars, sponsorship events and catalogs,

There’s that old Bob Dylan song about times a-changin’ that I won’t bother to quote further. But it seems to hold true moreso year after year, and 2008 is no exception. So while some of us continue to exchange “happy new year” greetings with one another, I’ll send along one last new year’s greeting with what I believe to be the top five actions you should act on, examine or just ponder to bring your catalog/multichannel business in sync with the times. 1. Get your matchback system working smoothly at once. Assign someone in either your marketing or operations departments to do nothing

Over the past few months, we at Catalog Success have been hard at work to further develop a hefty well of research data for our readers. In October we launched the Catalog Success Latest Trends Report, a quarterly series of original benchmarking research we’ve been conducting with the multichannel ad agency Ovation Marketing. In the coming months, we’ll also be running a series of mail volume charts provided by several catalog co-op databases. Like the Latest Trends surveys, these will run in the IndustryEye section of our print magazine. And for the past year or so, we’ve been running a regular reader poll.

Many people in government, including lawyers, don’t understand how business is done. As a result, they occasionally apply rules that are onerous to manufacturers. Now is such a time, and that should bode well for B-to-B catalogers selling via open market (no contracts). To stay on the General Services Administration’s (GSA) schedule — which is a very popular and highly used government contracting vehicle representing more than 12,000 vendors and more than 10 million SKUs — manufacturers are required to give the GSA all pricing data so the government can determine what a “fair and reasonable” price for government buyers is. The

As a veteran of the catalog industry, Mrs. Fields Gifts President Greg Berglund has witnessed the ever-changing environment catalogers operate in. He offers opinions on several topics, including where he sees the catalog/multichannel business heading in the near future, as well as tips for those trying to thrive, survive and more. Catalog Success: What methods of customer acquisition (industry-wide) will be most relevant in the coming years? Greg Berglund: I’m concerned about the trend in the industry where more and more customers are being acquired using online methods compared to traditional direct marketing methods. The lifetime value of online-acquired people tends to be