What Direct Merchants Can Learn From Direct Marketers By David Rosen While the most sophisticated direct marketers have applied for decades statistical modeling techniques for teasing out subtle insights to optimize catalog and direct mail investment, the majority of traditional retailers who evolved into equally robust direct merchants through their e-commerce and e-mail investments have remained on the outside looking in....

The Brand Experience By Lois Boyle (Multichannel Merchant) The American Institute of Graphic Design defines brand as “a person's perception of a product, service, or company.” That definition has nothing to do with a mission statement...

Only Skin Deep: Vermont Country Store Misses the Love Boat By Richard H. Levey The allegedly Valentine's Day-themed edition of The Vermont Country Store's catalog cover promises romance, but delivers liniments and flannels ...

List Hygiene: Cleaning Up By Tim Parry (Multichannel Merchant) With a postal rate increase on the horizon, you might expect catalogers to be agonizing over their mailing plans and slashing circulation. But so far, list industry executives say, that's not the case....

Dance: 10; Looks: 3 By Richard H. Levey The innovative minds at Canada Post, the Canadian mail system, had a good idea: Take a dozen popular catalogers and feature their wares in a single mailer, which would be sent to homes across the Great White North in time for the holidays....

Precision Marketing Is a Green Initiative By Jeff Zabin Can an investment in improving customer data analytics to drive precision-marketing effectiveness be considered a green initiative? ...

Delving into Data-Driven Marketing By Gina Valentino Is your business ready for data-driven marketing? Did you know that data-driven marketing is nimble enough to fit even multichannel merchants with annual sales of less than $5 million? A little known secret is that data-driven marketing works for any size organization....

Research: Women Say, Keep Those Catalogs Coming! By Janie Curtis The holiday season is upon us, full throttle, and although 2005 is already a vague memory in the futuristic minds of channel marketers focusing on summer 2006, the “Shopping Methods & Mindsets” study from Frank About Women reveals some intriguing insights on what marketers are doing right – and where they can improve....

Bluefly CEO Payner: Customers Want to Talk to You By Tim Parry Customers want to talk to brands. And because Bluefly took a chance with an open-ended survey, thousands of consumers told the online retailer what a girl wants....

Using All Your Channels...Including Your Catalog By Tim Arnold

Calculating Incremental Response By Jim Wheaton, Catalog Age When measuring the effectiveness of a promotion, it's not enough to know the overall response and revenue. What you really need to measure is the incremental order activity generated by the promotion. ...

HP Opens Door to Hispanic Market By John Fischer, Catalog Age According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, the number of small and midsize Hispanic-owned U.S. businesses is now at about 2 million and expected to grow to 8 million by 2010. ...

A Clean B-to-B Database Reaps Almost Instant ROI , Catalog Age Building and maintaining your business-to-business house file can be daunting, says Bernie Goldberg, president of Yardley, PA-based Direct Marketing Publishers. ...

Best Book Forward By Margery Weinstein, Catalog Age The needs of prospects, who may never have seen your catalog before, differ from those of returning buyers, who already have some relationship with you and know what to expect inside the book....

The Latest Matchback Tools By Mark Del Franco, Catalog Age By now most multichannel merchants know about matchbacks and the importance of understanding where online and retail buyers are coming from rather than guesstimating the percentage of sales driven by the catalog or an e-mail campaign....