Retail Online Integration

You will be automatically redirected to retailonlineintegration in 20 seconds.
Skip this advertisement.

Advertisement
Advertisement
 
 
Blogger

Return on Intelligence

By Jim Gilbert

About Jim

Jim Gilbert has been creating direct marketing programs that drive superior ROI for almost 30 years. Fluent in consumer or B-to-B, creative, operations, and analytics, he marries the strategic and tactical sides of direct and social media marketing in a seamless fashion that gets results. He's CEO of a multidiscipline direct marketing agency, Gilbert Direct Marketing, Inc., which focuses on direct mail, catalogs, DRTV, telemarketing, print, alternative direct marketing media and social media marketing.

Jim has been involved in start-ups, expansions and turnarounds, and is an expert in helping multichannel marketers get to the "next level." He's a former adjunct professor, teaching direct marketing at Miami International University, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Florida Direct Marketing Association. Jim loves to talk direct marketing, and has done many lectures on direct and social media marketing.

 

Return on Inventory

Joe Palzkill
4 Multichannel Inventory Planning Best Practices
Apr 17, 2012

It seems every retailer I've spoken with recently is scrambling to gain control of their inventory planning, regardless of channel. It's...



Retail Rambles

Meredith Cunningham
SkyMall Helps You Prepare for the End of the World
Apr 2, 2012

Perhaps I've been watching too much of "The Walking Dead" or maybe too many episodes of "Doomsday Preppers," but my paranoia about the...



Retail Rants & Raves

Joe Keenan
Really ‘Fair and Square’? How J.C. Penney Alienated a Valuable Customer
Mar 12, 2012

Shoppers want to think they're getting a good deal. By taking advantage of sales and using coupons, they get that...



Shipping Insights

Rob Martinez
Parcel Rate Increases for 2012
Dec 19, 2011

UPS has announced 6.9 percent air increases, partially offset by a 2 percent fuel surcharge reduction. It's also announced a...



ThinkAbout: Inspirational Verve for Your Product Line!

Andrea Syverson
Can You Up the Ante on Your Products’ Amusement Factor?
Oct 17, 2011

Can you up the ante on any of your products’ amusement factors? Is there some ho-hum aspect of your product...



Creating Positive Customer Experiences

JoAnna Brandi
How to Love Your Customers So They’ll ‘Just Love’ Your Business
Feb 14, 2012

Customer loyalty is customer love for doing business with you. In fact, neuroscientists studying consumer behavior have discovered that when...



Can Creative Lightning Strike Twice?

Page Not Found : Retail Online Integration
Advertisement
 
 

Page Not Found

The page that you requested could not be found.
Please contact webmaster@napco.com, indicating what page you were trying to access.

Return to Retail Online Integration






 
 
 
 
WRN: [2011-11-04 11:20:10] Invalid argument supplied for foreach() : /var/www/WCM40/business/api/smarty/smartyModifiers.php, line #785 The following is a true story. The names have been changed to protect, well, me.

Some time ago, I was hired to run, actually turn around, a consumer mail order company that sold apparel and accessories. The company sold high-quality products to a niche market, and prospecting wasn’t so easy. Sales and profits were declining despite the fact that the company’s industry was seeing a growth spurt.

We decided, as part of the overall turnaround strategy that the catalog’s image needed a makeover.

Frankly, the catalog looked horrible, so we hired a great catalog agency to fix things.

The agency re-did everything from our logo to the color palette. It even started photographing our products in a way that made them look more like what you got when you received your shipment.

But in the process of redesigning everything, we forgot one of the cardinal rules of direct marketing: test before you rollout! In this case, however, we got lucky.

We mailed the new catalog and response went up, customer acquisition costs went down, and, just as importantly, returns went down (leaving us greater gross profit).

And I built a great relationship with this agency. Very soon the entire process was running smooth as silk.

But the president of the company wasn’t satisfied. Somehow he/she had lost control of the catalog between the agency and myself. It was clear to any observer that the president wanted control back, so he/she decided to bring the creative development back in-house.

Let me pause at this point to ask you what you’d do in this circumstance. Would you decide you can do better by bringing the creative in-house (and by going back to the photography shop you used prior to the rebranding)? Or would you let it ride and build on your current image?

You can guess what happened right? Against my will, the company hired a creative team. The team was smart and talented, but it had absolutely no experience or understanding on how to sell via the mail. Oh, it thought it knew how to create a catalog that sells — by applying the techniques of general marketing, branding, image building, etc. — but that turned out to be hubris.

You can probably figure out the rest of the story: Sales declined again as customers lost sight of the catalog’s identity after two major design changes in about a year.

The bottom line for this blog posting is very simple. In the catalog business, lightning rarely strikes twice. If you’re lucky enough to successfully fix an ailing catalog design, don’t throw it out and start fresh.

If you have a brand image that works, by all means tweak it. Catalog design changes should be done on an incremental basis. We lucked out with one wholesale redesign, but two, that was pushing it. If you must make large changes to your image, test, test and retest!

Lastly, the best creative team for the job is one that understands mail order.

As the saying goes: “it ain’t creative unless it sells something!”

Speak to you next week.

Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing and a professor of direct marketing at Miami International University of Art and Design. He can be reached at jimdirect@aol.com.

Companies Mentioned:

Sections:

Page Not Found : Retail Online Integration
Advertisement
 
 

Page Not Found

The page that you requested could not be found.
Please contact webmaster@napco.com, indicating what page you were trying to access.

Return to Retail Online Integration






 
 
 

COMMENTS

Click here to leave a comment...
Comment *
Most Recent Comments: