Omnichannel

Periodically I get phone calls from fledgling entrepreneurs who have great products and want to get into direct mail. “What else have you got?” is always my first question. “Wha ... what do you mean?” “What other products?” “This is my only product.” I say, “In the words of consultant Susan McIntyre: ‘The key to long-term profitability is to build a large house list of repeat buyers.’ That’s true for any direct marketing business—catalog or otherwise.” “But don’t you want to hear about my product?” “What does it sell for?” “Uh, $20, maybe.” “Test it in space,” I tell the person. “Take a small

There are breakthroughs lurking in all of our businesses. They are in the mind of someone in your organization and are just dying to get out there to be tested. One of the things I love about being in the direct marketing industry is the relative ease and low cost of testing. As responsible catalogers, we should test something in every mailing. “Test, test, test” is my mantra for catalogers. By testing you might find ways to cut expenses, achieve incremental revenue or dramatically alter the course and performance of your business. But to find ‘em, you gotta test ‘em. In this

My old professor, Frank Knight, used to say, that what people wanted was not the satisfaction of their wants, but better wants. —Herbert Stein, Presidential advisor and economist, The Wall Street Journal When I was a small boy growing up on Long Island, the big annual December outing was an overnight trip to Manhattan to visit my grandmother for the movie and Christmas pageant at the Radio City Music Hall and the annual visit to F.A.O. Schwarz, the great toy emporium on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street to see the newest in 0-gauge Lionel electric trains. When I became a man, I put away

Lillian Vernon began selling personalized belts and handbags with a black and white ad 50 years ago. Now, the company offers more than 6,000 items through nine catalog titles and a growing Web business What do Katie Couric, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hillary Clinton all have in common? It’s not their political affiliations. Think porcelain Easter baskets and personalized bean bag chairs. Now you get the picture: These celebrities are among the 23 million people who have shopped the pages of Lillian Vernon’s catalogs. The namesake business Lillian Vernon launched in 1951 on the kitchen table of her small, Mount Vernon, NY, apartment has

Congratulations, catalogers! We’ve won the battle against the “pure play” e-tailers. We all said they couldn’t last, and now they are dropping quicker than power lines in a Wisconsin ice storm. At the same time, catalogers have brought to the Internet channel all of the great assets we knew we had. Merchandising, graphics and copy capability, systems and fulfillment. The results are in, and the catalog business is migrating successfully to the Internet more quickly than any other type of business. With all the great new Internet business for catalogers shown in the chart below, shouldn’t we be experiencing the best of times?

Over the years, catalogers have been dependent on rented lists to acquire new buyers and to grow their housefiles. The technique works, but its potential is limited to previous buyers from other catalogs. There is another cost-effective customer acquisition method to consider: space advertising. With space ads, even fractional page ads, you can tap into new market segments. You’ll increase your prospecting universe by going beyond the typical rented lists of proven mail order buyers. Making space advertising work is difficult. Ad space is expensive, “catalog corners” don’t always deliver, and black and white ads are often overlooked. While this method of prospecting has

Here’s a breakthrough idea for enhancing your Web site to make it perform more effectively: Apply the catalog rules you already know! After all, catalogs are a visual medium and so is the Web. When you’re selling products, the product picture and other graphic elements are kings. Though good catalogers already know the key rules of catalog design and merchandising, for some reason these rules are not being applied consistently to even the best Web sites. Let’s focus on a few of the key catalog rules you should be applying to your e-commerce site. Maximize Your Hot Spots. We know that a print

Sergio Zyman and Scott Miller echo something I’ve been saying for a while: “It’s no different in the world of clicks than in the world of bricks-and-mortar. It’s business. It’s about selling stuff and making money. Brands today and tomorrow will be built the way they were yesterday: They will be built on the basics.” Amen. So why should catalogers read “Building Brandwidth: Closing the Sale Online?” At first glance it appears Zyman, consultant and former chief marketing officer at Coca Cola, and fellow co-author and business partner Miller wrote this book primarily for the dot-coms. But “Building Brandwidth: Closing the Sale Online”

It is no surprise that catalogers rely primarily on the use of outside rented names to grow their housefiles—the most proven and fastest way to generate new buyers. But there are other cost-effective prospecting methods that can be used to supplement traditional ways of generating new buyers. It’s easy to stick with using outside rented names and cooperative databases for new buyers. Why should a cataloger consider alternative methods that take time to set-up and cost money to implement? Increase the Prospecting Universe Through the use of alternative prospecting methods, a cataloger can identify and attract a wider variety of prospects

As successful catalog merchants, you’re using merchandising techniques every day to deal with issues such as “can’t touch it, can’t try it on.” Let’s face it, returns are a hassle. When it comes to selling products online, familiarity with these issues is just one advantage you have over both Internet-only “pure-plays” and store-based, bricks-and-clicks e-tailers. Pure-plays have the formidable task of simultaneously launching and marketing a new brand, sourcing and perhaps stocking product, creating visual assets, implementing technology, handling fulfillment and developing a customer service component (no wonder so many have failed!). Bricks-and-clicks players have their branding and merchant skills in place, but