Gabrielle Mosquera

So, how DO the kids like being sold to these days? It's a question that seems to confound marketers trying to stake a claim in the ever-shifting Generation Y customer demographic. At The Direct Marketing Association's Annual Catalog Conference, executives from Urban Outfitters, the Journeys catalog and Lorel Marketing Group offered some tips learned from targeting this customer group: * Gen Y males generally don't shop from catalogs—optimize your retail and Internet presences to appeal to them them instead. * The catalog and retail store customers often don't overlap. * Lists that work: dELiA*s, Alloy, Girlfriends LA, International Male, Abercrombie & Fitch. *

Though it's tedious at times, you should never stop self-evaluating your catalog's creative elements, advised consultant Glenda Shasho Jones in her "Brand Checklist" presentation during The Direct Marketing Association's Annual Catalog Conference. Here are a few of the questions she offered to help catalog marketers look at their editions with fresh creative eyes: COVER * Do you have a recognizable, easy-to-read and prominent logo? * Do you treat your covers as a campaign? * Do your covers always stand out in a pile of catalogs? * Do your covers have strong elements of REDD (Relevance, Emotion, Drama, Differentiation)? * Do you treat the communication

Though it's tedious at times, you should never stop self-evaluating your catalog's creative elements, advised consultant Glenda Shasho Jones in her "Brand Checklist" presentation during The Direct Marketing Association's Annual Catalog Conference. Here are a few of the questions she offered to help catalog marketers look at their editions with fresh creative eyes: COVER Do you have a recognizable, easy-to-read and prominent logo? Do you treat your covers as a campaign? Do your covers always stand out in a pile of catalogs? Do your covers have strong elements of REDD (Relevance, Emotion, Drama, Differentiation)? Do you treat the communication of your offers consistently with

By Gabrielle Mosquera Logical question: How do I know if my customers can properly navigate my Web site as it stands? Logical answer: Ask them! No doubt you've heard a similar pitch in conference sessions. But in his recent sessions at The DMA's net.marketing and Annual Catalog Conference shows, Phil Terry, CEO of e-consultancy Creative Good, took this advice one step further by including parts of his company's Customer Experience Methodology (CEM). According to Terry, CEM is less task-focused than many existing user experience research methods, and relies heavily on observations culled from what he terms "listening labs." The following notes summarize each

One cataloger refers to online upselling as “one of the easiest things you can do to improve your revenue.” That’s not to say that initiating online upselling is a snap. Rather, like many other e-commerce endeavors, online upselling is a balancing act between aggressiveness and subtlety in both offer type and presentation. Because the level of communication between consumer and cataloger is less straightforward than it is with contact center upsells, the risk of alienating consumers while upselling online is greater. But with careful consideration and proper attention to detail, online upselling can become a viable source of revenue and a vital part

By Gabrielle Mosquera It seems that at a time when U.S. consumers increasingly flock online, they're also happier when doing so. The most recently released Consumer Internet Barometer from The Conference Board found that U.S. consumer satisfaction with Internet activities increased 41 percent in 2002 to 42 percent in 2003. Additionally, more than 27 percent of consumers trust the safety of their primary Internet activities, a 2-percent increase from 2002. However, not all activities benefit equally. Consumers report being most satisfied with personal research (which saw an approximately 15-percent increase) and work-related activities (an 11-percent increase). The personal research category holds several