Traditionally, data security has been a back-office risk management concern. Today, whether youโre marketing to consumers or businesses, security is a top-of-mind concern that can differentiate your product or service from the competition. Breach notification laws such as California S.B. 1386 have ensured a steady stream of headlines over the last year, and consumers and businesses have begun to take note. According to the โ2005 EDS Financial Services Privacy and Customer Relationship Management Survey,โ 59 percent of consumers said financial institutions could further gain their trust by providing ongoing information on measures taken to improve security. What if you arenโt a financial institution? The Conference Board
Omnichannel
While fighting to get noticed on the Web is at least a full-time pursuit, there are a number of Web site promotion tools available thatโll give your company a tremendous edge in that battle -- and greatly automate the process. Following is a sampling of the latest advances in key Web site promotion strategies, and the tools thatโll help get you there. ยฅ Leverage search engine submission software. Getting your company to a top position on search engines like Google and Yahoo can translate into substantially greater revenues, and search engine positioning software is one of the tools that can help. These tools automatically
Readers: With this issue we welcome new columnist Jim Gilbert, a catalog and DM consultant and a professor of direct marketing. In this column, which weโll publish 10 times this year, Mr. Gilbert will offer practical strategies that can help you boost sales and profitability. โEditors Any time a customer communicates with your company โ that is, interacts with you via one of your customer touchpoints โ you have an opportunity to increase sales and goodwill. Unfortunately in some cases, itโs also an opportunity to lose sales and goodwill. I canโt stress this enough: You must analyze and consistently monitor all of your customer
These days, every C-level executive expects efficient use of corporate resources. Gary Hennerberg, direct marketing consultant and author of the new book โDirect Marketing Quantified: The Knowledge is in the Numbersโ (published by Target Marketing magazine, a sister publication of Catalog Success), offers these three tips to help you expertly allocate your marketing spend: 1. โIf you mail to both your customer file and rented lists, separate the costs by list, so list rental is not charged to customer costs,โ writes Hennerberg. 2. Evaluate the performance of small test quantities based on projected rollout costs. Writes Hennerberg, โIf youโre testing a quantity of 50,000 and expect
From this article, youโll learn how to determine the efficiency of your online advertising efforts and how to calculate the maximum cost per click for those campaigns. The basic economics of online marketing are simple: Determine the advertising efficiency needed to make your profitability goals, then buy all the inventory you can get your hands on. But how do you determine the advertising efficiency needed to achieve your profitability goals? This article offers some practical formulas and advice. Defining Online Advertising Efficiency Ad efficiency comes down to a cost vs. benefit ratio: โWhat did I spend on advertising?โ vs. โWhat did I get in
Holiday sales are expected to grow by just 5 percent this year, down from the 6.7 percent growth recorded in 2004, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). And a recent survey of about 8,000 consumers conducted by BIGResearch found that 34.7 percent of respondents plan to spend less on gifts this holiday than they did in 2004. The study also found that 60.2 percent of respondents said theyโre driving less. Indeed, high energy costs are one of the main factors behind the expected slowdown in holiday spending this year, according to NRF officials. In this age of high petroleum prices, consumers may be
Your direct selling expense ratio is as important to track as your cost-of-goods ratio and other key metrics on your income statement. Indeed, controlling your direct selling expense ratio plays a major role in helping to improve your catalog companyโs profitability. This month, Iโll focus on ways you can reduce your direct selling expense ratio. But first, letโs look at what normally comprises direct selling expenses: - catalog creative costs; - printing and paper; - ink-jet addressing and mailing expenses; - bind-in order forms and envelopes; - postage; - outside list expenses; and - merge/purge costs. Direct selling expenses
While you might think bow ties are a fashion statement best made by tuxedoed grooms, maรฎtre dโs and waiters, the founders of Beau Ties Ltd. of Vermont would disagree with you. So would Beau Tiesโ customers, whose love of the butterfly-shaped neckwear has allowed this catalog to grow from a one-page flier mailed to 3,500 names in 1993 to a 56-page book with annual sales in excess of $2 million. In the 13 years Beau Ties has been in business, founders Bill Kenerson and Deb Venman have learned a thing or two about marketing to a niche audience. For this catalog, the right mix
As a multichannel marketer, you touch your customers in many ways. In a given year, theyโll see your catalog, e-mails, postcards, package inserts, Web site and even store displays. Across these varied media, what should stay the same? What should be different? Lois Boyle, president of Mission, Kan.-based catalog consultancy J. Schmid& Associates, offers the following three tips on maintaining brand identity across multiple customer touchpoints. 1. Vary your message, not your voice. Customers will get used to the way you speak to them, notes Boyle. If the same person isnโt responsible for writing copy for every customer touchpoint, keep samples of your copy voice on
Do you want to create a reporting system that quantifies your catalog companyโs successful interaction between customers and employees? Start with the five Rโs: Retention analysis. Review both employees and customers. Companies with long-term employees can offer better service to customers than those with high staff turnover rates. Losing employees due to low wages and/or high stress is counter-productive when you look at the costs associated with recruiting and training quality employees. If you have a challenge retaining quality people, reallocate funds to improve existing employeesโ wages. Becoming an employer of choice will improve your retention rates significantly and will reduce costs. To retain