Gina Valentino

Products For Industry (PFI) is a wholesaler, and the PFI catalog is offered to authorized distributors who can customize the front cover with their company names. This gives the distributors access to 750 manufacturers, in-stock products and a professionally designed catalog to build their individual businesses. It’s a nice way for distributors to have a professional-looking catalog without all the startup costs needed to create and produce a 292-page book like this one. Covers Immediately communicating who you are and what you sell is a primary role of the front cover. PFI quickly does this with a front cover masthead and visual representations of

For many years, square-inch analysis was delegated to the newest member in a catalog marketing department and was almost considered a rite of initiation. Assigning this relatively tedious task to the newbie provided the added benefit of making sure every member of the department understood and appreciated square-inch analysis. Square-inch — aka “squinch” — analysis is a method for determining the relationship between the space allocated to the sale of a product or set of products and the sales and/or profits stemming from their appearance in that space. Quite simply, you compare the sales and profits to the cost of the space the

Catalogers develop three-year plans for at least three reasons: to map out growth and customer acquisition plans; to develop financial goals; and because their bosses, investors or company-owning banks want to see such data. The theme of a session during the recent ACCM conference, held May19-22 in Kissimmee, Fla., on three-year planning centered primarily around speaker Charis Gaines, director, marketing planning and analysis for car parts cataloger Eckler Industries, who led the session along with consultant Gina Valentino of Hemisphere Marketing. Gaines shared her three-year planning process at Eckler, which focuses on putting customer data to work when putting such plans together. Specifically, it

Below, our annual index of all stories that appeared in Catalog Success throughout 2006, including this issue. (For easy reference, use the print screen.) Cataloger Profiles Cover Stories United Receptacle: “B-to-B Goes ‘Plug and Play’” by Alicia Orr Suman, January Reiman Publications: “The Synergistic Approach” by Alicia Orr Suman, February Boston Proper: “Billion-Dollar Opportunity” by Donna Loyle, May Spiegel Brands: “How Spiegel Recovered” by Paul Miller, June Smarthome Direct: “Growth the Smart Way” by Matt Griffin, July J&L Industrial Supply: “Shaped Up, Shipped Out” by Paul Miller, August Northern Safety Co.: “Safely Ahead of the Game” by Matt Griffin, September AmeriMark Direct: “Steady

Looking for fresh ways to get existing customers to buy again sooner or dormant customers to come back? Consider the following tips from Gina Valentino, president of Hemisphere Marketing, a Kansas City, Mo.-based catalog consultancy. Immediately follow up with new customers. Thank customers and keep your company at the top of their minds by sending a short e-mail thanking them for their orders, Valentino says. Or try what The Territory Ahead catalog does: The apparel mailer sends postcards containing coupons to new customers. Valentino cautions that coupons shouldn’t be channel-specific, i.e., they should be usable on all channels (Web, phone or at retail). Focus

Because business-to-business (b-to-b) catalogers often deal with multiple contacts at a customer’s company, traditional recency, frequency and monetary (RFM) segmentation can present a challenge. How do you segment your housefile when some contacts regularly request catalogs, but never purchase, while other contacts make purchases without a catalog request? Alternative segmentation strategies outside RFM are possible solutions. Gina Valentino, catalog consultant and owner of Hemisphere Marketing, a Kansas City, Mo.-based catalog consultancy, offers the following tips to jump-start your segmentation strategy if RFM hasn’t proven reliable. ¥ Analyze your inquiry pool and first-time buyers. First discern where most of your inquiries and catalog requests originate, Valentino says.