I recently received two Soft Surroundings catalogs within a couple of days of each other. One catalog was a 68 page sale catalog and I noticed that they used two tactics to improve key code capture and highlight catalog awareness. On the right side of the back cover of the catalog, Soft Surroundings added "use your key code to keep receiving our sale catalogs" along...
In the current climate of integrated marketing, digital trends and consumer behavior, "next best action marketing" is growing in popularity. In an environment where the latest digital trends are shifts like AI, voice user interfaces, cloud computing, augmented reality, machine learning, and more, next best action marketing is all about meeting the consumer where they are, through any one of these tech channels and experiences. In order to implement...
Planning your 2019 catalog circulation plan and creative? Make sure you check out the following promotions. The USPS filed its 2019 Mailing Promotions with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) on October 10, 2018 and is awaiting approval. We do not expect any major issues with the approval as many of the promotions have been offered for several years in a row. Tactile, Sensory and Interactive...
In our previous catalog matchback post we discussed matchbacks and how we should not attribute 100% of the sales results to the catalog mailing because many of the sales are digital in origin. Customers are often touched multiple times (print, email, retargeting) along their purchase journey. Today we will look at catalog hold-out tests and how they can be used to modify your catalog matchback reports...
With software like Hubspot, you can track opens on emails, gain metrics on clicks, and measure the response rates of campaigns — which tells you the level of success and profitability you can expect from a conversion. But what did direct marketers do before the era of digital metrics and tracking? Catalogers relied on key codes to track response by customer segment. Most orders arrived either by mail...
Your seasonal catalog strategy and catalog circulation plans were developed many months ago, and now the Holiday season is rapidly approaching. But you’re in good shape because you’ve already ordered paper and scheduled catalog production time with the printer based on your catalog in-home dates. And now it’s time to execute the final steps of mailing your catalog. Use the following timeline as a guide...
Take a scroll on your Facebook or Instagram feed and you'll be surprised at the number of Shopify stores that tout themselves as e-commerce retailers. Selling everything from drop-shipped T-shirts sourced on AliBaba, to hats, pop-cultural tchotchkes and even sweaters with a pouch to hold your cat, the age of digital has given way to the age of e-commerce. So maybe you're already well-versed in the world...
Marketing without a well-thought-out strategy, be it catalog marketing or otherwise, is just like building a house without a blueprint. It doesn't necessarily mean that you will never get there, but there will be a lot of wasted time and resources before you do. Equally as important, is for you to remember that no strategy is fool proof, regardless of how much thought and analysis was put...
We need to talk about the "D" word. Digital? Data-Driven? How about, "all of the above", plus one you may not have expected: Direct mail. If you've been drinking the "Kool-Aid" served up by industry bigwigs, you might think that direct mail is not only a relic of yesteryear, it's actually a casualty of digital. But that's where you'd be wrong. Direct mail is far...
The following announcement was released by the USPS on 5/21/18: The U.S. Postal Service’s first scratch-and-sniff stamps will add the sweet scent of summer to letters of love, friendship, party invitations and other mailings when the Postal Service introduces the Frozen Treats Forever stamps June 20 in Austin, TX. The stamps can be pre-ordered at this link soon for delivery shortly after the June 20 issuance. The...
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