I don't get American Idol's popularity, but I am not a big TV fan.  While I would rather get a cavity filled than sit through a whole episode of this program, I find it facinating how much attention this show and others like it continue to receive.  I have to admit to watching clips on-line, and to even forwarding the now famous clip of Susan Boyle (from Britain's got Talent fame).  We really have become not only multi channel consumers, but multi media consumers as well.  Not only do we have the ability to instantly gain access to nearly information or content we want, but also have become very good at ignoring that which we are not interested in seeing.
 
What really strikes me is how we, as consumers of all media have become very much like the judges sitting at those American Idol auditions.  We are bombarded with messages constantly-from television screens attached to gas pumps to our pda's with access to the internet at all times.   I realized one day that in one of my four email accounts that it was easier to click "check all" and then uncheck the ones I wanted to keep, to clean out my in-box than it was to delete them one at a time.  This is the equivalent of sorting your mail over the trash can which many of us started doing years ago.  Many of us are now using mobile devices or tiny computers to browse the web.  With that in mind, wise multi channel marketers will continue to tailor marketing messages  to today's multiple and varying way potential customers consume (or ignore) those messages. 

Ever notice you can still make out what some commercials are advertising while you are skimming through them with your "Tivo" device?  That's not an accident!  Ever notice that the web sites you typically frequent from your mobile device are the ones that have optimized their content for mobile devices?  As multi channel marketers we need to constantly think of ways to communicate with our customers or prospects on their terms, and with content that fits into their lifestyles....or risk being voted off by the judges.

 Tom Blake is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management. He works with a variety of B2C and B2B Direct Marketing companies; both with retained clients and performing marketing best practice reviews.

In a recent discussion, I was reminded of how few creatives ever get a look at the database they're writing/designing to appeal to. To my mind, they may as well be sitting at the computer with a blindfold and ear plugs.

It now amazes me that creatives will be given an assignment to do writing and/or design without this information. WHY....

a) does a creative not ask to see information about the database, including both demographics and psychographics, and

b) do the ones giving the assignment not demand a connection between the design and copy, and the database information.

Creative and database information are still kept in silos, even in some world-class agencies!

Supidity, naivite or laziness? who knows? But i can tell you, when you power up creative with database information, you get unbeatable results.

Regarding this topic, if anyone here wants to dig deeper, be sure to start reading anything by Arthur Middleton Hughes.

His book Strategic Database Marketing: The Masterplan for Starting and Managing a Profitable, Customer-Based Marketing Program is unsurpassed. Arthur also has written a book about Successful Email Marketing Strategies that I have not yet read but expect it to be awesome.

Arthur may well have been one of the founders of modern database marketing - but he's no codger! He keeps very current and is as inquisitive as someone brand new in the field. I had the pleasure of working with him for about three years, and my understanding of the connection between the database and creative blossomed during that time.

Ask your creative team what they know about your market - your customer. Their psychographic profile. Their demographic profile. (If you don't know the answer to that, be sure to find out before you ask them!!)  If they give you the wrong answer or act like "who cares? i'm just a designer" then it's time to change that in a hurry.

I call this Intelligent Creative® and i can guarantee that you'll get measurably better results, the more engaged your creative team is in the power of your database.

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every direct marketing project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

The American Catalog Mailers Association released the USPS's final ruling for the new Slim Jim requirements.

Effective September 8, 2009: Depending on where the spine or final fold is, the trim size, and the cover stock weight, the majority of slim jim catalogs will need to have 3 NON PERFORATED tabs, measuring 1.5" placed in very specific locations on the mail piece. These standards must be met in order to qualify for machinable or automation letter prices.

You will need to consult with your printer for specific rules regarding the style, size, and weight of your own catalog. As direct mail marketing professionals, the standards are concerning in that they are now requiring 3, relatively large, non-perforated tabs to be attached to each mail piece. While this standard will ease the automation on the USPS's machines, it also provides a fairly large shopping barrier for consumers. Trying to rip apart 2 perforated tabs was tricky enough!

Anna-Lisa Ulbrich is a Senior Multi Channel Marketing consultant at LENSER. When she is not thinking about Database Marketing, she can be found cheering for the Oakland A's now that baseball season has finally started.

I am addicted to the internet, and love keeping pace with the latest and greatest trends.  I can't help but see it through the eyes of a multi channel marketer and try to see how these trends may impact how we talk to our customers.
Facebook for example, has made great strides with their marketing, and I've received updates (from my friends) about various products and services.  Coming from my friends, the messages break through filters and carry a great deal more weight.  Viral marketing, as it has become known is a fitting name as it grows and expands in ways that are difficult to keep up with, and I find it fascinating.  How many of you have Google in your pockets as you go shopping?  Have you ever done a price comparison in the store, or sought out another source for the products or services you were attempting to access while out and about?  

Well I was curious about this "Twitter" phenomenon of late.  I am a cycling junkie, and follow Lance Armstrong in the news on a regular basis.  Lately the main source of his news updates (even from mainstream sources) has been through his "Tweets" (I can't stand that word) or updates from his twitter account.    Even during the President's speech a few weeks back, a lot of news came out about various Twitter communications by members of congress.  (Does anyone else think that is rude...to be sending twitter updates during a meeting with your boss?)

I decided to see what the big deal was, and was a bit confused...I guess I expected there to be more content....more to the twitter site.  "What am I doing right now?"  is that all the site is about.... I mean, who cares really?  I feel a bit weird keeping the world updated with what I'm doing and who really wants to get a text from me to tell them "Tom is going to the bank"...to each their own I guess, then I saw it through the eyes of a marketer...and it is subtle but brilliant.  There is Lance, with his nearly 466,000 people following him, telling them that he bought his tickets to Jane's Addiction.  Wow...I loved that band.  I didn't even know they were touring.  Next thing you know I'm looking for tickets myself.  Thanks Lance!  

Tom Blake is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management. He works with a variety of B2C and B2B Direct Marketing companies; both with retained clients and performing marketing best practice reviews.

I recently observed that the relationship between the national government and private sector is undergoing a significant change at present.   With all the media coverage, it is easy to understand and extremely visible.  For better or for worse, the market will no longer be allowed to regulate itself.  President Obama’s policies will make sure of that.

Consumer behavior is also undergoing a significant change.  That change has been in progress for some time and is also easy to understand.  The difference between the two changes is that the relationship between the government and private sector changes with each political era.  The change in the consumer relationship with retail has just changed for the first time and will not return to its roots in the foreseeable future.   The consumer is demanding the ability to choose what marketing messages they will participate in.  There are some brand persuasions that work below the surface in the unconscious realm, but day-to-day marketing messages are increasingly difficult to get through to the consumer.

As Direct Marketers, what does that mean to our current marketing demands?  It is critical that we all accept the new role consumers are playing in marketing practices and be proactive in our strategies.  As direct marketing professionals, we are all positioned well for this transition.   Even the smallest direct marketing company has experience and database resources that are very valuable.  It is time for marketing professionals to revisit the performance of our various media channels with an eye to both ROI and accessibility to our customers.  

Geoff Wolf is a Direct Marketing Consultant who offers 30 years of executive and entrepreneurial experience gained from creating success for his own businesses and success for his consulting clients.
What Geoff brings to LENSER clients is unique in that Geoff has “done it all” from multichannel marketing to merchandising to “shipping the packages out the door” in a direct marketing environment.  Geoff has worked and continues to work with a variety of clients and projects in the areas of Database Marketing Best Practices, B2B Marketing Services and Brand Marketing. 

By Todd Miller, Director - Marketing & Client Services

- Newsflash! (Note the sarcasm.) The effectiveness of e-mail, as a stand-alone marketing channel, is inversely proportional to the glut of commercial e-mail messages presently residing in your customer's in box.

- Per the last LENSER blog post, if there IS a channel that might be down for the count, it's the bricks-and-mortar retail store -- especially one that's in a mall.

- Macroeconomics 101:  one of my favorite blogging economists, Harvard's Greg Mankiw, raised an interesting point yesterday re: the mixed messages Secretary of State Clinton and Treasury Secretary Geithner have been offering China (and the listening public) in regards to its monetary policy. 


Todd Miller is the Director of LENSER's B-to-B Division with a dozen years of multi channel database marketing experience.  When he is not criss-crossing the country visiting clients, he can often be found in the LENSER Conference Room right around lunch time offering live-and-in-person advertising trend musings.

I'm thinking I might get some comments from my Multi Channel Marketing friends with that title.  The death of the print channel, I hear it all the time.  I honestly believe that print media is getting a bad rap, however if you still consider yourself a catalog marketer, that has got to change.  In recent articles I've thrown gas on the fire myself with references to the phone book (when was the last time you used one?)
Okay, so I get texts about elderly women reading books on airplanes with Amazon's Kindle (thank you Todd!), and how on-line social media is growing in popularity with all demographics and it's true.  I canceled most of my magazine subscriptions and seldom read a newspaper, however I do believe that for your true fans, a well designed catalog is still vital.  Don't believe me?  Try skipping the Valentine's Day card to that special person next year and simply send an email or a text instead.  Better yet, just update your Facebook status to let them know your thinking of them. 
A better test might be to hold out a small panel of buyers from receiving a catalog and measuring their performance across all channels for a time period.  These marketing contact strategy tests are not new; we at LENSER have been promoting them for a long time, however they must be set up and measured correctly. 
At the very least, chart your orders (by week) by channel for the last two years.  Do the spikes for web sales follow the spikes for catalog?  Do the spikes correlate with significant marketing events such  as catalog drops? 

I'm not a traditionalist clinging to the past.  I started as a Catalog Marketing Analyst a long time ago.  Since then silos have been broken and multi channel marketing effectively relies more and more on implementing database marketing best practices. 
While prospecting through the print channel has become increasingly more difficult, be careful before you completely discount the value of mailing active customer file. 

Tom Blake is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management. He works with a variety of B2C and B2B Direct Marketing companies; both with retained clients and performing marketing best practice reviews.

By Todd Miller, Director - Marketing & Client Services

- The tighter the ad budget, the greater the focus on targeting.

- A good review re: the slow death of the periodical (i.e., print newspapers and magazines) business, and some forward thinking re: what will rise from the ashes.

- A discussion of Amazon's Q4 2008 success (which, initially, I had a hard time believing), and an article re: how they will monetize digital content.

Todd Miller is the Director of LENSER's B-to-B Division with a dozen years of multi channel database marketing experience.  When he is not criss-crossing the country visiting clients, he can often be found in the LENSER Conference Room right around lunch time offering live-and-in-person advertising trend musings.

The Super Bowl not only show cases the best two teams in the NFL battling it out for four and a half hours, top companies also break out their big guns to battle for the title of best Super Bowl commercial. 

With the overwhelming popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, companies not only had to fork out the $3 Million to buy a 30 second television ad, they also had to branch out to other forms of media to help capture their audience.  With today's younger, more tech savvy crowd, television is becoming less and less of marketing tool to seal the deal when it comes to selling a product.  Companies now have to go that extra mile to sell that bag of chips, or can of soda.  According to an article from Reprise Media, 25 percent of all Super Bowl advertisers linked their landing pages to social networking sites.  Although this number is still fairly low, a majority of companies rely on such social networking sites to help spread the word about their product.  With how fast technology is advancing, that 25 percent will most likely come closer to 50 or even 60 percent by this time next year. 

Aside from using social networking sites to drive traffic to your site, companies also followed the golden rule that most, if not all Direct Mail companies’ use, make sure your audience has a way to contact your site.  Companies such as E*Trade and CareerBuilder.com made sure to include their URL in their commercials to ensure that viewers will know where to go when looking for them on the Internet.

Although television commericals are still a popular form of advertising, unfortunately times are changing and businesses need to do much more than come up with a clever commerical to sell their product. 

Branden Slattery is Multichannel Marketing Analyst for LENSER, specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management.  When he is not putting together Matchback presentations, he can be found hitting the slopes in Lake Tahoe, enjoying the company of his Fiancee, or training for his Summer hike to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.
 

I have the pleasure of actually knowing my neighbors - which to those of you who live outside of California may seem like an odd thing to say, but here, it is a bit unusual. Anyway, what's really interesting is that some of them actually remember what i do for a living. I'm called, alternately, the catalog queen, or the direct mail maven, or the website expert. Oh, why not.

And one of my insideious little pleasures is derived from when my neighbors pass to me some of their 'junk mail'. It's often very different from mine, a testament to the power of modern database marketing.

I got a real eyeful last week, however, which my neighbor Jerry shared three pieces that were in his mailbox, for his 13 year old nephew, who lives with them. It was all mail from US Military branches - Army, National Guard and Marines.

Now I seem to recall some years ago that there were laws against sending unsollicited mail to 13 year old kids. I first encountered it when I was selling RCA Home Videos to families (because we coudn't sell to kids directly). And then some of you may remember the debacle of the pharmaceutical company linking up with a drugstore chain to send unsolicited presecription drug samples (I think it may have been someting like Zoloft) to prospects who were drugstore customers, and they ended up going to teenagers instead of parents. Ooopsie.

Maybe the rules about soliciting to kids has changed - but seeing these three military solications all within a week, to a 13-year-old was pretty shocking. Obviously someone decided that this kid should see glamorous photos of guys and gals, hangin' out together, doing electronics, playing basketball, and dressed civvies or in clean, nifty uniforms. Start seducing them into the service.

Note, I have no problem with the service, by the way. I'm the daughter of a full colonel who first saw France via Omaha Beach. I understand the value and the sacrifice and I respect both the service and the need to recruit.  My problem is with the sloppy contractors who did the mailings!

With headlines like "Earn up to $40,000 with Active First*" and "Attending College? Starting a career? it just got easier." it's pretty heady stuff to start the early indoctrination of a 13 year old kid who wishes he had money and was grown up. Oh yes and the offers - one has FREE custom made Dog Tags - the other has two FREE movie ticket coupons inside. Man, it made ME want to call and sign up. Loved those dog tags!!

If i were to give them benefit of the doubt I'd say that this kid's friends signed him up for mail, as a joke. But that would only be one place. This is already three mailings, and counting.

Whoever is doing their database work isn't doing their job - they're sloppy and irresponsible. And whatever big mega-agency is doing this work for the US military service is really screwing it up in not watching their database more carefully. Hello? there is something called List Hygiene - ever heard of it?

This is our tax dollars at work, folks - paying for mailings to the wrong market - from the copywriting to the design to the printing and postage, and of course the cost of that database work. All out of our pockets, yours and mine.

Anyone got a problem with that?

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

By Todd Miller, Director - Marketing & Client Services

Facebook.  YouTube.  Yelp.  Wikipedia.  Photobucket.  Craigslist.  Flickr.  IMDB.  Digg.  Cafepress.  Technorati.  Linkedin.  del.icio.us.

All of these "companies" (if we can call a few of them this, since they have yet to generate profits for their investors -- perhaps a better word would be "applications" or "content venues") have achieved popularity due to the significant amounts of user-generated content (UGC) supplied.  A few, in fact, are 100% UGC.

Multi channel retailers -- and, in particular, those financially vested in their success -- are on the rampage to monetize UGC-oriented sites.  I believe it will happen, but not anytime soon -- in fact, successful multi channel retailers will, I think, increasingly utilize UGC in their selling proposition.  Amazon and Zappo's are two examples among many -- and the list is growing.

Not every business, though, will be able to effectively utilize UGC -- an article in yesterday's eMarketer newsletter elaborates on this theme quite well. 

The article's final paragraph, I think, says it all:

"...[At] the same time revenue models elude UGC sites, they are still pulling attention away from traditional media, such as newspapers, magazines, television and radio—and putting increased financial pressure on them at a time when they can least afford it." 

Traditional media includes catalogs and other forms of print advertising.

It's getting real noisy other there, folks -- the return on investment (ROI) of ALL advertising mediums is declining, due to the amount of time, energy and attention your customers are increasingly devoting to content mediums that are free of unsolicited advertisements for products and services. 

If your company has a selling proposition that is easily replicated, it's high time that changed.  If your company sells merchandise that is highly commoditized, that dozens of competing companies sell, and / or is easily price searched and compared, you will need every ounce of brand equity that has been built up over the years to survive this advertising sea change.

Ask yourself this, too:  when reading newspaper or magazine articles (albeit online, I'm sure), or listening to talk radio shows (even NPR), do you increasingly spend more time reading reader comments, or find more intriguing (but, admittedly, less informed) the insights of callers, as compared to the host and guest?

Todd Miller is the Director of LENSER's B-to-B Division with a dozen years of multi channel database marketing experience.  When he is not criss-crossing the country visiting clients, he can often be found in the LENSER Conference Room right around lunch time offering live-and-in-person advertising trend musings.

I read in the paper this month about how the restaurant industry is experiencing big jumps in 'happy hour' attendance, but huge drops in drinks purchased with dinner. Alcohol sales are down over 60%.

What a surprise.

Many reading this will have experienced the insult of being charged $8 to $12 for a glass of wine that isn't as good as that $8 BOTTLE you bought a few days ago. Hey, we may be out to dinner with friends but we're not stupid, and we do pay attention to what goes in our mouths. Why these guys are shocked is beyond me.

I have gotten really spoiled because I've had exposure to some good wine in some surprisingly reasonable price ranges. But most consumers do, now. And they feel taken advantage of by this practice by restaurants. Nobody wants to be a sucker.

What's this have to do with Direct Markting or Database Marketing? It's all about psychographics. Anyone could tell these guys that the mood is down, down down right now - and to really make friends and influence the purchase from their wine cellar, these places need to reflect new lower prices on their wine by the glass. OK, it dips into their profit a bit But for goodness sake, they can be profitable charging half as much, and more people buy when they see a good wine at a fair price. Nobody expects it to be sold 'at cost' by the glass. People just want to be treated fairly.

it's the same thing with direct marketing offers. I hear complaints that people are not offer-responsive but getting to know a customer psychographically - feeling some of their pain, finding out what excites them, and having empathy for the information overload they experience - is the key to the kingdom in direct response.

In times like these, whether you're a restaurant trying to upsell to wine with dinner, or an ecommerce site or catalog who's trying to get orders that are larger, or generate that second or third purchase (they're the ones I really like!) you need to look at your customer more intimately, perhaps even do a little research, and then listen to what your customers have to say.

Do that, and you'll undoubtedly start to hear the register ring more often.

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

Often I find myself writing about customer service, and partially because I've been paying attention for so long.  I've been in the multi channel marketing world for a quite a while now and have seen very different approaches to defining or considering the customer experience.  While my experiences of this past weekend do not tie in to multi channel marketing, they offer reminders that excellent customer service is part of direct marketing best practices that can never go ignored, and in fact should be a major emphasis of any company that hopes to retain their customers in an ever competitive market place.

After an exhausting day of being a good patriot and trying to stimulate the economy with my wife (in other words shopping when I should have been doing 100 other things) we debated between two local restaurants.  We saw a ZAGAT rating (ties in to social networking remotely I guess) and the decision was made.  I won't dwell on the details, but let's just say the service was so slow we almost walked out.  Just as we stood to leave our waiter finally came over, apolgized, and took our order.  40 minutes later and they had yet to bring our drinks.  The food finally came and was mediocre to say the least, so here's where I did something completely out of character; I was honest with my reply to the question "How is everything?". 

It wasn't exactly liberating, and the frustrating thing was I simply did it to be helpful.  It wasn't really the waiter's fault as there were some staffing issues, however the entire experience was disappointing, and particularly since this was my first (and last) experience with this establishment.  I really wanted to like it too, I love Indian food and my favorite local place just closed leaving me searching for a replacement. 

Next thing you know the owner was at our table, and he was very nice, gave us a summary of his awards he's won for the dish that we had complained about, his background training, etc.  (in other words, it wasn't his food that was mediocre, it was most likely just us and perhaps we should reconsider our opinions).  He had an opportunity to make things better, and perhaps get us to return, however squandered it.  If it were me, I would have offered a gift certificate toward a future meal, or reduced the charges in hopes of trying to make things better.  While it wasn't my motive to get something for free, part of my direct marketing training has always been to try to win back a customer after a disappointing experience.  You can't make everyone happy all the time, however if a customer takes the time to share a negative experience with you you can learn from it, and often will become some of your best customers if you can win them back. 

Do you have any customer service stories, good or bad to share?

Tom Blake, Senior Marketing Manager

Tom is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management. He works with a variety of B2C and B2B Direct Marketing companies; both with retained clients and performing marketing best practice reviews.
 

 

 

 

Here are links to two articles about the power of word-of-mouth marketing and social networking. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/technology/24kindle.html

Putting aside the power of Oprah Winfrey's persuasion -- which, I'm sure, for Amazon, did not cheap -- the electronic book reader is gaining traction among historically recalcitrant readership demographics because, frankly, the word's getting out that these devices finally work.

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/strategy/e3id78469d81136853904418d754416855e

Companies selling directly to consumers, like Zappo's, that have, in recent years, built their brands primarily online have done so without spending nearly as much on advertising as the companies that came before them.  How?  Word-of-mouth advertising.

When I'm asked what, in my experience, is the most effective advertising medium, I usually answer, "That which you did not have to pay anything for."

So, this is the challenge I would offer to all of your marketing department staff:  how are we going to get people talking about our products and services in 2009? 

There might not be a more effective way to lower marketing costs as a percentage of sales.  The more you engage with your customers (online via e-mails, blogs and Twitters; over the phone during orders and customer service calls; even offline, live and in person), the more they will continue the conversation with their family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances -- i.e., your yet-to-be acquired customers!

Todd Miller is the Director of LENSER's B-to-B Division with a dozen years of multi channel database marketing experience.  When he is not criss-crossing the country visiting clients, he can often be found in the LENSER Conference Room right around lunch time offering live-and-in-person advertising trend musings.

By Tom Blake:
So gas prices have gone down for now...and people are driving again. Still direct marketing (formerly known as catalog marketing) retailers are poised to continue to take traffic away from the malls.  Savvy shoppers can find in minutes thumbing through catalogs or browsing on line what it could take hours or days to find while  fighting the crowds, traffic and parking challenges; all of which can be so incredibly frustrating. 

As more and people learn to embrace shopping through direct channels, retailers will have to find a way to differentiate themselves.  If you are just like everyone else, you will be forgotten, so as a multi channel marketing consultant, I always emphasize the importance of service as a differentiating factor.  Great service is becoming increasingly rare, which can only emphasize the positive impact of a great experience!
In this article from Direct Magazine, they cite that poor service, not price is the top cause for customer churn.  Here's an example about how service actually saved my opinion of a direct marketing company that broke some of the most basic rules of direct marketing best practices and still left me with a positive impression! 

The GPS store sells accessories for....you guessed it...GPS devices.  I had never heard of them, but found them through natural search, as they ranked at the top.
I then placed an order for the item I wanted, however I never received an order confirmation.  While they won the search game, their internet marketing efforts left me armed with a blog rant....missing the order confirmation is at the very least a missed opportunity to create good will, and in my case a complete killer of trust.  Luckily I had printed my order confirmation (which promised me an email to confirm my order, along with a delivery tracking number).  A week later (on a Saturday) I  finally called as my item had not arrived.  I had a difficult time finding a phone number...strike 2.
Once I found the number I called their customer service department which was closed on weekends!  Now I was primed for a confrontation on Monday morning.

To their credit a very friendly human (A HUMAN!) answered right away, and very completely disarmed me with her courtesy and professionalism.  Within minutes my shipping time was confirmed, and I was back to being a happy consumer.  All it took was a friendly professional to give a personality to the company, and that is what I remember from my transaction with them.

The person who took that call became their brand for me...and she did a great job! 

Tom is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management. He works with a variety of B2C and B2B Direct Marketing companies; both with retained clients and performing marketing best practice reviews.

As a Multichannel Marketing Consultant, I've noticed over the last few years the increase in the number of catalog websites that utilize blogging as a way to build brand, customer strength, and communities. A few of my own clients have some great ones, if I must say so myself. Check out Terry Precision Cycling and King Arthur Flour.

Brand building and buyer strength as a result of blogging is hard to measure and are somewhat intangible. Blogging results can be measured however if you use it as a tool to increase search results. From a recent issue of "Multichannel Merchant" comes the following: "By generating and organizing content around topical blogs targeted to specific keywords, an e-commerce marketer dramatically increases their deliverability of content to those keywords."

Identify the top 10-20 keywords used for search on your site and try and incorporate these into your blog posts. Try incorporating keywords that would be used during a Google search. A Google search using the keyword "women's bicycles" resulted in pages of results, with Terry Precision Cycling coming in under the top 10. If you want to improve those results, keep blogging and keep using keywords. A Google search using the keyword "baking flour" shows King Arthur Flour listed as the third result. Good job!

Anna-Lisa is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant for LENSER, specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management. She works with a variety of B2C Direct Marketing companies; small and large.

By Tom Blake, Senior Marketing Manager

"As you know, you have to go to war with the army you have, not the army you want." was a quote from Donald Rumsfeld, whom I must admit that I've never quoted before.  How am I going to tie this into an article about direct marketing best practices?  I like a challenge.  While in a meeting relating to circulation management last week, a colleague mentioned a company that had shifted their creative, logo, and changed their name to appeal to a "younger" audience.  Now you might get a different perspective from other multi channel marketing consultants, however I for one have seen this happen over and over, and simply want to say...."stop doing that!" 

Okay, there are always circumstances where you want to give the brand a face lift, update the merchandise, or spice up the creative; I'm not opposed to change and staying current. When, however you have a housefile that is your "bread and butter", I would advise a company to tread lightly.  A few companies I worked for in the past were concerned about their aging demographics, and wanted to go out and attract a younger audience.  The problem was that this "aging demographic" was paying the bills quite nicely.  Sure, the segment wasn't growing, however they were loyal and spending a lot of money with us.  By changing our image, we risked not only alienating our existing base, but of failing to appeal to the new audience we had hoped we would attract.

These types of strategy shifts take time, and in most cases should be done very carefully.  Don't make the mistake of thinking someone that is 70 years old thinks about themselves as such...I don't act my age when it comes to my purchases.  If everyone bought what they truly need, rather than what they wanted we would have never seen so many Hummer's on the road, wouldn't see people decked out in North Face jackets made for Everest expeditions walking through the malls, and I wouldn't have a titanium racing bicycle with carbon fiber wheels. 

Sometimes there is a need to chase an audience that your products appeal to, however often it is our job as multichannel merchants to find a way to make our audience happy!


Tom is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management. He works with a variety of B2C and B2B Direct Marketing companies; both with retained clients and performing marketing best practice reviews.  At times you can find him in age inappropriate cycling and triathlon clothing defying the aging process by running and bicycling the roads of Sonoma County. 

A couple of months ago, I posted some of my biggest online shopping pet peeves in a Multichannel Tip in the LENSER newsletter.

  Allow me to help you out with some additional multi channel marketing best practices, just in time for the holidays.  Okay, so this isn’t a wordy or worthy treatise on database marketing or circulation management, but direct marketing folks need to hear my pet peeves:

1. Teeny-tiny page numbers to click on to get to the next page in the category.  And no “Next Page” button.  I’ve got 20/20 vision and am pretty web-savvy, and I find it nearly impossible to mouse to the correct page number on the Anthropologie site.  Why don’t they have an arrow, or a “Next” button?  I know it looks cool to be so subtle, but it’s just not consumer-friendly!

2. Adding something to my shopping cart and then being redirected to a different place on the category page when I go back.  Gap, Inc. websites (such as Banana Republic) are huge offenders in this department—if you use their Quick Shop feature on a product in a certain category, and then add said product to your shopping cart, you will be returned back to the very top of the category page.  This can be extremely annoying when you’ve selected “View All,” your page is yards long, and you have to scroll down to the place you were before.

3. Promotion codes that just plain don’t work.  Come on, people, didn’t you test that promo code before publicizing it?!

4. Needing a snail mail address to join an email list.  I just want to get emails—so let me do it!  Don’t make it difficult for your customers to opt in to whatever form of communication pleases them.

5. Last but not least, I am tired of Friends&Family events.  These began as viral offers that were truly for friends and family.  Now they’re touted in store windows, on home pages, and in mass emails to entire databases.  I mean, it’s very inclusive of these retailers to call everyone on the planet their friends and family, but it does take away the cachet of the offer just a tad.  Is there a more creative way you can promote an across-the-board savings?  And save the Friends&Family promotion for a true viral offer.

All of these are small examples of ways in which retailers can so easily lose their customers’ attention and business.  It should be a no-brainer to make your site as utilitarian (and attractive, too) as possible.  Especially in these tough times, you don’t want to give anyone an excuse to leave without making a purchase.  Or worse yet, give their money to your competitor.

Happy Holidays!

Alexandra Singer, Senior Marketing Manager

This weekend, after having a wonderful evening out at the movies, I had the desire to replace some of our cookware.  Our scratched pans have been bothering me for some time, and there’s no better time to get good deals when two large retailers are going out of business.

Mervyns and Linens and Things, two large multichannel businesses, are in the process of liquidating merchandise and closing all stores by the end of the year.  While this may not be seen as positive news, consumers are now being able to stretch their hard-earned dollar further before the holidays to buy things they may not have purchased if they did not find it on sale.  Further, competitors trying to keep their business afloat are also cutting prices to compete with the going-out-of-business sales, offering more savings to the consumers.  Other retailers are feeling the pinch as well and are enticing shoppers with deeper discounts to lure them into their stores.

How long with this last though?  In light of weak October sales, many multichannel businesses are looking to their marketing specialists and purchasing managers to reduce the impact of the poor holiday.  Circulation Managers are revising mail plans while purchasing managers are reducing inventory by canceling product orders.  However, do we know if this is good?  A recent consumer poll revealed that shoppers are delaying, but not canceling all holiday purchases.  Consumers purchasing gifts with cash instead of credit is increasing this year, and many have not even done the bulk of their shopping yet.  Also, UPS, for the first time since being a public company, will not release their forecasts on the annual peak shipping day projection.

Words to the merchants: As you reforecast, do so as a surgeon performing an operation.  No one knows what the days and weeks after Black Friday will bring, and cutting orders may lead to significant lost sales.

Words to the consumers:  Don’t wait to the last minute this season.  Inventory reductions and early sales will lead to popular gifts selling out.  If you know you need to buy a specific gift, buy it.  If you are waiting to see if an item will go on sale, be warned, it might not be there.

Jim Whitford is a Multichannel B2B Marketing Consultant at LENSER, specializing in catalog circulation and database marketing.  Outside of providing direct marketing services, Jim is usually found riding his road bike in the hills of Sonoma County.

Why in the world would a multi channel marketing company bother to allocate resources for a blog?  Direct marketing best practices vary depending on many circumstances; and there may be very little upside for some companies to spend the time to post to a blog site, where for others it could be essential to attracting an audience and making your site a frequent destination.

It is no secret that many companies have focused attention on social networking platforms as a tool for brand marketing and with the difficulty direct marketers have prospecting through traditional catalog circulation channels, much emphasis has been placed on shifting direct marketing resources toward the web.  It is a great idea, but sometimes as empty of a solution as the vague campaign promises we hear during an election cycle.  "Oh, you need to shift your focus to the web!"  What exactly do you do when you shift your focus to the web?

Email marketing is essential to multi channel marketers, however even the best database marketing efforts leave you with true incremental gains through email promotions when properly measured.  In my opinion the best bet you have in order to find new customers is through natural search, and when done properly, certain blogging platforms and procedures can boost your natural search rankings. 

Search engines are the new phone book.  For the same reasons companies used to try to name themselves with a name that would have them alphabetically sorted toward the top of their category in the yellow pages (AAA Painting for example), you must win the search game with keywords that you want your business to dominate.  This is where, when done properly,  social networking marketing practices such as a blog can pay huge dividends. 

At LENSER, we have conducted an experiment with our own blog.  We have tapped into a blogging platform designed not only to communicate with our customers and prospects, but also to reach them by helping us win in natural search.  In a recent LENSER newsletter article I have outlined how this system can benefit some of our clients, and the article was also featured in Multichannel Merchant.  We have been very pleased with the results of our experiment.  Not only have we been able to utilize our blog as a new forum to speak to our friends, but we have also learned that a small amount of effort can truly enhance your search results.   Not all blogging platforms are designed to strategically enhance natural search engine results.  We are pleased to have partnered with a company called Compendium Blogware that has been designed to do just that, and have seen very positive results.  Please call with any questions as to how this solution may work to enhance the multi channel marketing efforts of your business.

NEWSFLASH:  As soon as I posted this blog, I noticed this article in today's Mulitchannel Merchant i-merchant newsletter. It was authored by Chris Baggott, the co-founder of LENSER partner Compendium Blogware. 

Tom Blake is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management. He works with a variety of B2C and B2B Direct Marketing companies; both with retained clients and performing marketing best practice reviews.