Groton, Conn.

Joe Keenan is the executive editor of Total Retail. Joe has more than 10 years experience covering the retail industry, and enjoys profiling innovative companies and people in the space.

Engagement is a word you hear over and over again in the retail industry. Companies are continuously looking to find ways to better engage customers and prospects in an effort to create lifelong relationships with them. B-to-B retailer New Pig, a seller of absorbents and spill containment and control products, has found an interactive way to engage some of its best customers. New Pig's Vice President of Direct Marketing Robert Cameron presented a session yesterday at NEMOA's directXchange Fall Conference in Groton, Conn. on the company's "pig panel."

It's ironic that one of the oldest brands in America, King Arthur Flour, is reliant upon one of the newer digital marketing channels — social media — to help it find and acquire new customers. In a keynote presentation yesterday at the NEMOA directXchange Fall Conference in Groton, Conn., Bill Tine, King Arthur Flour's vice president/general manager, detailed how the 225-year-old flour company is using social media to find customers.

Home furnishings and housewares retailer Williams-Sonoma is enjoying profitable growth in a competitive marketplace. What's its secret? Pat Connolly, chief strategy and business development officer for the San Francisco-based company, provided some insight into that question for the audience at NEMOA's directXchange Fall Conference in Groton, Conn. yesterday. Specifically, Connolly outlined six beliefs that Williams-Sonoma holds as integral to its success.

In a revealing session at the NEMOA directXchange conference in Groton, Conn. yesterday, David Kravetz, co-founder of Fairytale Brownies, and Wade Lee Jones, director of direct mail and CRM at teen footwear and apparel retailer Journeys, discussed what marketing tactics and channels are driving positive results for their businesses — and which are not. Here's a recap:

Staying true to its 115-year-old brand heritage while evolving to remain relevant to today's consumers is the challenge facing cross-channel retailer Filson. The company's Vice President of Direct Sales Harold Egler outlined those challenges as well as how the company embraces its history in a keynote presentation yesterday at NEMOA's directXchange conference in Groton, Conn.

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