Ecommerce has been changing at digital speed since it showed up in the marketing world 25 years ago. Print marketing has taken 100 years to evolve from the early days of newspaper to magazines, then to direct mail and finally catalogs. Catalog circulation is the sturdy bedrock art of targeting what records to mail, when […]
Not too long ago, catalog was king. We’d toss our e-commerce creative team the bones of our catalog feast to make their meal. But we’re past that, right? We need to give our websites the same love our catalogs get; they’re completely co-dependent sharing the same audience. That’s right, it’s ONE CHANNEL! Think of it […]
Must be 21 or older All bourbon is whiskey. All scotch is whiskey. But not all whiskey is bourbon. And not all whiskey is scotch. Make sense? No? Have some whiskey. It’ll get your attention and make everything clearer. Just like a good headline. Because in a lot of ways, a good headline is a […]
(No, not you. Your catalog!) If you haven’t heard, the United States Postal Service has increased the piece rate weight limit for catalog mailings. As of January 22, 2017, your catalog can qualify for the Flat-Size Marketing Mail postal piece rate if it weighs 4.0 ounces or less (up from the long-reigning 3.3 ounces). With […]
How to gamble on new ideas without losing big I just spent this past weekend in Vegas. Nice little getaway. Saw a show, played a few slots, danced with a monkey (don’t ask). But as I contemplated how much to wager at the Blackjack table, it occurred to me that there are no sure bets. […]
By Chris Hayes, EVP Brand Strategy This 18th Century quote from my high school lit class got me thinking about a conversation I had with a marketing director from a well-known cross-channel brand a few weeks ago. He mentioned his company would like to do comparison research on their catalog covers to determine which ones […]
Sorry for the clickbait title. I see it all over the web, so I assumed it must get an AMAZING response, and I wanted to test it. Now you deserve a payoff, so I’ll share with you the most interesting test I helped conduct this year, in which we tested some catalog creative for a […]
“Marketing is rapidly becoming one of the most technology-dependent functions in business.” In 2012, consulting firm Gartner predicted that by 2017, a company’s chief marketing officer will be spending more on technology than its chief information officer.” (Harvard Business Review, July-August 2014) Wow, technology expense as a variable marketing cost is quite a concept! It […]
Who said “yes” to what? I’ll get to that in a minute. First, let me share a story. Decades ago, we heard the following from almost every food retailer we worked with: “We want our catalog to look like Harry & David’s.” Why Harry & David? Because at one time, they set the standard for […]
