TELEVISION, MAGAZINES AND JUST ABOUT EVERY FORM OF media are bursting with fashion advertising targeting women in their tweens, teens, early 20s and 30s.
But then a strange thing happens. As that woman ages, her spending power typically increases — but marketers' interest in dressing her decreases.
Appleseed's wants to help this damsel in dis-dress. The Beverly, MA-based cataloger, e-marketer and retailer has done extensive research on the over-50 women's market. It has developed a profile of its customer — which it's dubbed “Kate” — and is pursuing her aggressively.
But take note: The target is not some demure grandma sitting in her rocking chair. “This woman is busy, she's active, she's doing a lot,” says Claire Spofford, senior vice president for marketing and retail.
Direct talked with Spofford about what the company is doing to reach “Kate.”
WOMEN'S CLOTHing cataloger Appleseed's is the first foray into the world of direct marketing for Claire Spofford, who previously spent 10 years at Timberland in a variety of roles, including spearheading start-up leather goods business and serving as vice president of global marketing.
“One of the things I'm finding is that the basic tenets [of marketing] are the basic tenets [of direct],” she said. “Know your consumer, understand the market, understand your competition, understand where you're positioned — and then execute in a disciplined way against that.”
Direct marketing, said Spofford, senior vice president, marketing and retail for the Beverly, MA-based cataloger, retailer and e-marketer, is “just terrific. It's challenging and exciting for someone coming from a wholesale/retail environment to have the kind of knowledge we do about our customer.”
Spofford has been with Appleseed's for about two years. Her main areas of responsibility include marketing, branding, catalog creative and production, as well as overseeing the online and retail operations. While catalog is currently the company's primary branch, she stresses that it's important to keep an eye on the whole orchard.
“The direct channel is not the business. The brand is the business, and the direct channel is one very important piece.”
Spofford talked with Direct recently about how the marketer is working to define that brand for its target audience, the woman over age 50 who feels ignored in the fashion marketplace.
Appleseed's did more than 800 telephone surveys with 200 customers, 200 catalog requesters who never purchased, and 400 other women in its demographic target, to find out what they're looking for and how to serve their needs. To do so, the company is reinforcing its brand in print, revamping its Web site and relaunching the retail operation it shuttered in 1997.
DIRECT: Who is Appleseed's typical customer?
SPOFFORD: It's evolving. We did a huge piece of research about 18 months ago, and that's really driven a strong evolution here, in terms of a renaissance of the brand, and updating the creative and the product line. We're focusing our value proposition against a specific customer in the 50-plus market. I think when people think demographically they believe every 58-year-old is like every other 58-year-old, and there are vast differences. [We want] to be more powerful in terms of our message, and more clear in terms of what we stand for in product, creative and service across channels. We're seeing great trends in average order value and units per transaction that tell us we're satisfying our house file customers better. We're excited.
DIRECT: How would you describe your customers demographically?
SPOFFORD: They're over 50 years old, and primarily more suburban than urban. Most are married with grown children, probably grandchildren. They're educated, and our target customer has 61% Internet penetration in the home. The Web is becoming an increasingly important part of our business. We're in the middle of a complete relaunch of our Web site, which will be up in September. Our current site is a little bit out of date and [the relaunch is] an important part of a multichannel approach to satisfy this customer. Our customer, who we call ‘Kate,’ is definitely looking for a high service environment. She's looking for updated classic clothes, she's willing to invest in quality, she feels under-served from a retail standpoint, she enjoys shopping but it's not her life. She's very involved in clubs, organizations, and way over indexes on volunteering in the community. Those are all insights that we use to drive how we speak to her and how we portray our clothes in the catalog.
DIRECT: Who do you see as your main competition?
SPOFFORD: I think the segment is very under-served. Obviously, she's buying from someplace. Some of the brands we know she'd consider are [catalogers and retailers] Talbots, Coldwater Creek, and brands like Liz Claiborne and Ralph Lauren. She hates the department stores, but there aren't a lot of options for her.
DIRECT: How has your product mix and creative evolved to reach this customer?
SPOFFORD: [Our customer is] very practical, in that she's not looking for very trendy clothes, but [rather] updated clothes. She doesn't want to give up style for fit or fit for style. It's a false choice, and to some extent that's what people ask these customers to do. So we're updating things, making them look a bit more current. We're upgrading fabrics, we're working really hard on making sure our basics programs are delivering great value. We're actually seeing greater importance on updated accessories, fun ways to just make an outfit your own and update it without buying things that are going to be in today and out next year.
DIRECT: What's the current catalog circulation?
SPOFFORD: We mail about 35 million a year. We do three main books with remails every season and then a ‘best of.’ We know a lot of customers are receiving the catalog and then go online to order. Our circulation actually has been increasing this year. We're seeing nice increases in demand and as we infuse the book with a new energy, we're finding new circulation opportunities and we're taking them.
DIRECT: How are you finding those opportunities?
SPOFFORD: We are prospecting pretty aggressively and working with database models. We're doing e-mail pushes and direct mail things in support of the stores that connect to the catalog. Everything connects from a brand standpoint. We don't want the customer disappointed in any way she chooses to interact with us.
DIRECT: Why has Appleseed's started moving back into retail?
SPOFFORD: It's important to the business. Only 10% of the dollar value in this market is done through the direct channel. Ninety percent is done at retail. By staying just at catalog, it really limits your market opportunity. We currently have two stores, plus one that opened in June in Mashpee, MA. Three more will open in the fall in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
DIRECT: Do you plan to eventually move beyond the New England area?
SPOFFORD: Yes. What we like to do is cluster the stores so we get some operational and marketing leverage. We've stayed close to home because we're just building the store model and improving it. But the idea is that we have a national brand footprint with our catalog, so we believe there could be a national retail opportunity as well.
DIRECT: With the stores you have now, are you seeing a lot of crossover between the catalog and retail buyers?
SPOFFORD: Definitely. We're seeing a couple of exciting things. We're seeing a little over half our business coming from current catalog customers, and when they become multichannel customers they definitely become more valuable to us. But we're also seeing new customers coming on the file through the retail stores. Those are people we weren't reaching before. And we're seeing very little cannibalization of the catalog business within 30 minutes' drive time of the stores.
DIRECT: Was the pullback from retail a business decision by the previous owner, Jemoli Versand?
SPOFFORD: Yep. [Jemoli] had taken the catalog and the brand in a very different position. They went younger and more sort of rugged outdoorsy with the product line, and it hurt the business, so they pulled back and closed the retail stores. When Brenda Koskinen, our president, bought the company back from the previous ownership, she recentered the brand where it had been.
DIRECT: Do you have a loyalty program, and is it promoted across direct and retail?
SPOFFORD: We are developing a robust loyalty program. We do have a private-label credit card that's been very successful for us. It offers a discount when you sign up, a 10% discount during your birthday month and a dollar reward when you hit spending thresholds. And yes, we promote it across all channels and we'll be doing more with the loyalty program concept going forward.
DIRECT: What are the main challenges you face as the company becomes even more multichannel oriented?
SPOFFORD: Just making sure that we execute relentlessly, and that we're always putting the customer [first] and look at things from the consumer's standpoint. I think companies get into trouble when they look at things from the inside out. What we try to do is keep our customer in front of us and think about what she would want, what she would expect to experience from whatever channel she chooses to engage with. That's the key. It sounds simple, but it's really hard to do.
DIRECT: What's the next step in Appleseed's evolution? Where would you like to see the business two or three years from now?
SPOFFORD: I'd like to see it bigger. You know, I think we're on a great track. There's a huge opportunity from a demographic standpoint. There are 50 million women over the age of 50 in the United States today — a baby boomer woman turns 50 every 14 seconds. This is a large, growing, under-served market. So we're going to stay on track strategically and work really hard.
