PRESIDENT'S CORNER FEATURE ARTICLE CASE STUDY CIRCULATION TIP CREATIVE TIP multichannel TIP CLIENT HIGHLIGHT—MEDALS OF AMERICA PARTNER SPOTLIGHT—CAROL WORTHINGTON-LEVY AFFILIATE FOCUS—DIRECT LINE TELE RESPONSE
PRESIDENT'S CORNER Once again, the LENSER Client Summit is just around the corner, and every year gets better and better. We believe that the ongoing educational and professional development of our clients plays a vital role in their success. To that end, this year's Summit has expanded to almost three days of back-to-back sessions that will help you achieve higher levels of sales and profits. New this year—on Wednesday afternoon, Oct 3rd, we will kick off the Summit with four intensive 3-hour tracks focusing on Database Marketing, Creative, Merchandising, and Internet disciplines. These will be small, intimate working groups with a lot of opportunity for one-on-one interaction. Also new this year is our Solution Room, where you will have an opportunity to meet key service professionals whose products and services can strengthen your business strategies. Thursday morning we’ll jump right in with postal guru Gene Del Polito on Understanding and Responding to the Postal Increase. After “going postal,” Ken Burke, founder of MarketLive and noted internet innovator, will give us a view of the future with “The Evolution of the Internet Shopping Experience Over the Next Five Years.” Ken is a tough act to follow, but LENSER Partner Michelle Farabaugh will give it a go with her nitty-gritty, take-action-now session on “Getting Ready for Your Core Season on the Internet,” complete with breakthrough strategies for success this fall/holiday season. After lunch, LENSER Partner Mitch Siegler, himself a “graduate of the school of hard knocks,” will be joined by a panel of LENSER clients to share their experiences in the School of Hard Knocks and Lessons Learned. Next up on the docket will be Al Bessin with “Understanding the Impact of Demand Generation Across Multiple Channels.” Batting clean-up in the afternoon will be the ever popular and brilliant Carol Worthington-Levy, LENSER Creative Partner, with “Creative Makeover,” a before-and-after look at applying creative best practices to making over your catalog, with tons of examples. After Friday morning’s opening remarks from Bill Nicolai, industry guru and LENSER’s Senior Partner, we’ll jump into “Merchandising Solutions from the Small Guy,” a panel led by LENSER Partner Geoff Wolf which will feature real world examples on how to compete with the big guys. After our last hard-working panel, “Let’s Go Green Together,” with an exchange of environmental issues and ideas for catalogers, we have a real treat for attendees. This year, our Summit sessions will conclude with keynote speaker Dr. John Gray, the best-selling author of all time, including the number one best-selling book of the last decade, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. Dr. Gray will entertain and inspire you with his practical insights and communication techniques that can be immediately applied to your work and to your life. While the content of this year's Summit is important to all of us, perhaps the most valuable aspect of the conference will be spending time with your fellow direct marketers. As I look back, I have benefited hugely from the relationships I have formed with those who are daily experiencing what I lived through in running my catalog companies. During the kickoff dinner at my home Wednesday evening or at Thursday’s dinner at the Corinthian Yacht Club overlooking San Francisco Bay, you can relax with not only other catalogers but with our partners, staff, and participating sponsors. If you have not yet signed up for the Summit, I strongly encourage you to do so. I know it is difficult to take time out of your busy fall schedule, but in the long run you will be way ahead by giving yourself a break from the daily grind. You will not only come away with valuable knowledge and new relationships, but also give yourself the needed time to reflect on where your business is going and how you can better achieve your goals. This event is by invitation only and is a complimentary event for LENSER clients and selected direct mail companies. If you haven’t received an invitation and would like to attend, please contact Mary Beth Lenser at marybeth.lenser@lenser.com, or any of the LENSER partners.FEATURE ARTICLE Growing up in the Midwest, I remember my mother growing rose bushes, which she still does to this day. I learned that just because the roses looked nice when Mom planted them doesn't mean they were destined to stay that way. With the changing seasons and through the years, each bush grew, evolved, and changed. Left uncared for, a rose bush can become thorny and scraggly. The need to prune rose bushes provides several parallels to maintaining a healthy multichannel retail business. Periodic checkups and rebalancing will create more beautiful rose bushes and healthier and stronger merchandising and marketing portfolios. The importance of rebalancing is also evident in investing. If you don’t rebalance your investment portfolio periodically, your financial returns will start to drift as conditions change. The reason is simple: changing market conditions bring external factors to bear that can impact performance. Think of it this way. We have enjoyed a nearly five-year bull market in stocks. If, at the outset of this bull market, your portfolio was allocated 60% to stocks and 40% to bonds and never rebalanced, today your allocation would be more than 75% stocks and less than 25% bonds. As time has passed and market conditions have changed, your portfolio has become subject to more volatility and risk than you originally intended. Presumably, if you had wanted this more aggressive portfolio in 2002, you would have allocated your investments that way. As such, today’s different portfolio allocation is likely inconsistent with your desired situation, especially as prices have risen and risk levels have increased. We see this dynamic at work in marketing portfolios, as well. Just as a booming stock market can cause changes in our investment portfolio allocation, external factors can cause changes in the performance of mailing lists. Apparel retailers know that unseasonably warm weather can depress sales of sweaters and other cold weather clothing. If you use apparel catalog lists in your prospecting, you may see declining buyer universes in the season following a mild winter. And, when you then rent a list from an apparel catalog, more names from these lists may be younger buyers of less expensive short-sleeve shirts, rather than older buyers of pricier angora wool sweaters, which could also impact your performance. And how about a cooperative database model constructed with data from multiple apparel retailers? The seemingly benign external event—a mild winter—can really affect the performance of this model because the impact on both overall sales and particular items sold is magnified across a number of companies. To make matters worse, the pendulum can swing wildly in the other direction when the marketing department evaluates results and scales back usage of the apparel catalog list and the apparel model—or eliminates them entirely—for the next season. Doing so will essentially guarantee that the weather will then return to normal in the same way that you can always count on rain after washing your car. Now, a previously strong contributor to marketing results is playing less of a role or is completely out of the marketing mix. Since marketing results often impact merchandise mix, and vice versa, these external factors can impact several areas of the business. Rebalancing is key in merchandise assortments, too. Several years ago, I noticed a gift retailer featuring a holiday-themed sweater in its fall catalog. The sweater caught my eye because of its fashion-forward design, vibrant colors, and high-quality embroidery. Presumably, initial sales of this item were strong because the following fall this gift retailer, which had previously not offered sweaters, featured 14 different sweaters. I wasn’t the only one who noticed this beautiful sweater. Similar items appeared that second fall in competing gift catalogs, one of which featured a virtually identical garment on its cover. The results were somewhat predictable—in the third fall season, the gift retailer had completely exited the sweater business. Perhaps many competitors did likewise, leaving a market opportunity for someone to sell sweaters that season. I frequently tell clients that the mere fact that they haven’t mailed a list in several years may be sufficient reason to try it again. The same principle works with merchandise. When an item sells well, more like items are added and competitors copy it as well, leading to excess supply and deteriorating results. Then after the glut, everybody shrinks or completely abandons the item or category, leading to a vacuum. Often, supply and demand causes last season’s winner to be next season’s loser and a winner again the following season. Rebalancing is a time-tested technique that makes great sense in theory but is often difficult for direct marketers to practice. That's because it typically involves trimming winners from your portfolio and being more disciplined with respect to growth of lists or merchandise categories – which goes against our natural instincts. Astute marketers and merchants are somewhat contrarian in their thinking and take a somewhat counter-intuitive approach to testing and growing list usage and merchandise assortment. The more often you mail a particular list and the deeper into that list you mail, the faster you will deplete the good names and the quicker the list’s performance will decline. The same principle holds for merchandise—the wider the assortment within a category, the greater the risk of splitting sales across like items, depressing performance for all such items. Conversely, it’s essential to test new lists and develop new products and merchandise categories before you need them. These new forays are generally not as profitable as the tried-and-true, but if we wish to harvest in the fall, we must plant in the spring. Every offer, list, and item, no matter how strong, has a life cycle and will eventually peak and begin to decline. Seasoned marketers and merchants take a proactive approach to rebalancing each season so list usage and merchandise assortment don’t get out of whack. There are lots of ways to achieve this and it’s far less important how you rebalance than that you do rebalance. Once you overcome the psychological hurdle of pruning some of your best performing lists, items, and merchandise categories and reallocating a bit into what may appear to be your weaker segments, you're well on your way to a healthier business.CASE STUDY How do you achieve relevancy in a catalog or printed piece? Printing technology has come a long way; however, it is still very costly to create unique catalog versions for different mailing segments. It may be more cost-effective to simply change the catalog covers by customer group, but that can still be expensive and your creative team will moan about creating additional catalog covers for each mailing. Let’s explore another option. Landing pages and vanity URLs allow retailers to customize their offer, making it relevant to the consumer. By utilizing customized inkjet messaging on the back cover of the catalog, consumers can be directed to a custom landing page designed and personalized just for them. A unique URL is created which incorporates the consumer’s name, spurring the consumer to type it into his/her browser out of curiosity. Further marketing of this personalized landing page can be achieved through a dot whack on the cover referring consumers to the inkjet area for their unique and personal URL.
Segmenting the catalog mailing into large groups of similar consumers is easier said than done. These landing page groups should not be too narrowly defined. Ultimately, you are likely to find two or three segments that provide the highest return on investment and the highest conversion. Going beyond that, the results could start to provide diminishing returns. Start segmenting the catalog mail file at the highest level. This could include internet-only customers vs. store customers vs. multichannel customers. Or consider something as simple as buyers vs. prospects or active buyers vs. inactive buyers vs. prospects. This will allow for the creation of custom landing pages that recognize the consumer and their relationship with you. Acknowledging best customers through personalization and recognition will increase conversion, and special offers can be created to drive reactivation or greater customer acquisition. The following is an example of an inkjet message promoting a special offer:
Landing pages should be personalized with custom content. The customer’s name should be used, and a strong headline should be created to stand out and appeal directly to the target audience. This is a great opportunity to recognize best customers, or those you haven’t heard from in a while. You could refer to a local store. Be sure to have a call to action, because the ultimate goal is to get these consumers to purchase at a higher level than they would have without the custom landing page. Specific product recommendations should be included with copy, price, and a “buy now” button. Creative and messaging should remain consistent with the overall brand and other aspects of the marketing campaign.
We have seen conversion rates increase 20% to 50% with the use of personalized custom landing pages. This lift increases further with highly relevant offers. Deeper segmentation could be by product category purchased, single buyers vs. multi-buyers, and/or high AOV vs. low AOV. Target the right individual with the right message at the right time and consumers will respond—and you will build great customer loyalty and higher lifetime value.
It is more important than ever to have relevant landing pages on the internet. Not only will conversion increase, but your marketing programs will have greater visibility through search engine marketing and search engine optimization. The Google Quality Score is determined by your keyword’s click-through rate (CTR) on Google, and the relevance of your ad text, keywords, and landing page. Yahoo is also following this strategy to better serve their search consumers. High quality ads and landing pages attract more clicks, encourage user trust because the landing page is delivering what the consumer is looking for, and ultimately, result in better long-term performance. The example below is a great natural search example. Netflix advertises ad text of “$4.99/month, over 75K Titles, Free Trial.” The landing page is not only relevant, but it delivers on each element of the ad copy. Many companies struggle with being able to create these landing pages. When IT or the internet team is relied upon, the relevant landing pages can decrease due to the length of time to create them or just the hassle factor. A solution like the Individual Landing Page Application powered by Naehas that LENSER now offers removes these barriers and allows anyone in the marketing program the ability to create custom landing pages in a matter of minutes.
By utilizing vanity URLs to drive consumers to a personalized landing page, you can not only bring relevancy and customization to the print world, you can also drive cross-channel behavior. Tests have proven that if a consumer of one channel preference has even one purchase from another channel, their lifetime value increases threefold. This does not mean that driving a catalog customer to the web to purchase will turn them into an internet buyer going forward. In fact, we see just the opposite. Once a catalog buyer purchases from the internet, their subsequent catalog purchases increase substantially.
Driving any multichannel interaction provides significant increase in customer lifetime value. This chart illustrates the subsequent buyer behavior versus that of a single channel, catalog-originated buyer. After having just one purchase on the internet, catalog sales increased substantially in addition to the internet value created. The final result is a customer lifetime value three times higher than when that same buyer was a single channel purchaser. This phenomenon has also been seen with internet-originating customers who subsequently make a catalog purchase. Their subsequent internet sales increase significantly along with their lifetime value. If you would like to learn more about using customized individual landing pages to drive improved catalog response rates or how to increase search engine optimization (SEO) conversion, join me for our webinar Wednesday, September 12 at 9:00 AM PDT.CIRCULATION TIP Ideally, a complete housefile suppress file record should include customer number, name, and address fields—this should ensure a proper match process during the merge/purge. When sending housefile suppress files to your service bureau, make sure that you are including customers who no longer wish to receive your catalog, but also records you’ve deemed as unmailable—i.e., fraudulent or bad debt customers. Caution: Never put the “Do Not Mail” suppression files through NCOA or any other address integrity processing. You should always maintain the suppression record exactly as the customer gave it to you. For example, many a good customer will ask you to suppress their old address when they move. If you apply an NCOA change to this suppression record, you will now be suppressing the new address of a valued buyer. Also, make sure that the “Do Not Mail” suppression file does not include records of those who have only opted out of your email campaigns. These records should be mailed a catalog unless the customer specifically requested to be suppressed from mailings. Keep in mind that if your service bureau also handles your list rental files, you’ll want to make sure to suppress the “Do Not Share/Do Not Rent” housefile records from the rental files since they do not want to have their names and addresses rented or exchanged with other lists or co-op databases.CREATIVE TIP How do you know if your guarantee is helping you or dive-bombing your effort? The answer: Just think like a customer! In the old days, guarantees were as simple as ‘guaranteed, or your money back!’ Simple, straightforward, and reassuring. After all, the ONLY reason you had your guarantee was to show your customers that you would treat them with integrity, and that you’d done all you could to make your product to their liking in every way. Today, guarantees have become legal quagmires, often too wordy and sadly mealy-mouthed. There are so few really succinct and sincere guarantees that the one Lands’ End developed so many years ago is a breath of fresh air. It reads: GUARANTEED. PERIOD. Deeper in the website or the catalog, the full text reads: “The world is full of guarantees, no two alike. As a rule, the more words they contain, the more their protection is limited. The Lands' End guarantee has always been an unconditional one. It reads: "If you’re not satisfied with any item, simply return it to us at any time for an exchange or refund of its purchase price." If you don’t trust your customers, they certainly won’t trust you. If your own guarantee has limits—like 30-, 60- or 90-day—this is another thing that is killing you. Countless studies have proven that guarantees with time limits will cause lower response—AND are many times more likely to get RETURNS! Meanwhile, guarantees that are LIFETIME get very, very few complaints or returns. This is simple logic—if you have time pressure by which you need to return or complain, you can’t help but keep on edge until you decide. Customers are much more forgiving when you give them room to breathe. Take the guarantee challenge: I’d like to suggest that you read your guarantee as a customer would. Show it around to friends and colleagues and ask if this is a guarantee that makes them trust you enough to buy from you without hesitation. If you see a squirm of discomfort or you feel a pang of unease, or if you just know that the company’s attorneys will have a fit if you change it (I’m not kidding!), then it’s time to rewrite it and deal with the internal rules that make it a negative instead of a positive. Start with making the statement just one sentence. Make it simple, honest, and sincere. Then create a headline that is no more than four or five words—less is better. Consider that “100% satisfaction guaranteed” or “We guarantee you’ll be satisfied” sound more sincere than a basic “Satisfaction Guaranteed” that sounds a bit canned. The word ‘guarantee’ has strength, but are there other words you can use such as ‘promise’? Think about it, try a few on for size, and show them around. Be a tough judge of your own guarantee and I GUARANTEE you’ll have more trusting customers who are more willing to buy.multichannel TIP An example of the groups would be: Phone/Mail, Retail Store Requestors, Internet Requests, and perhaps DRTV or Space Advertising. Depending on your ability, you could get even more detailed, such as breaking down internet requestors by search terms they originated from: the more specific search vs. a generic search. The requestor who actually types in your company name, as opposed to coming to you through search results for a specific item you offer, is most likely a better prospect. Based on the results of each group, you can then fine-tune your contact strategy. For example, we have found that for one mailer we work with, only the most recent 0-6 month internet requestors perform above breakeven. On the other hand, space ad requestors can be leveraged back to 24 months. For email campaigns, you may find that the internet requestors can be contacted more often than the phone/mail group. As usual, testing is key! Your requestors are a vital part of your housefile, and you should treat them as such. These potential buyers have shown a specific interest in your offer. The more you can find out about how they perform by originating source, the better you can appropriately target your marketing to these groups. Requestors, when cultivated properly, can grow into profit-rich buyers.CLIENT HIGHLIGHT—MEDALS OF AMERICA To Frank’s surprise, several other family members asked him to do their medals, and his wife, Linda was struck by an idea. She told Frank at the time, "You know, there's a need for a company to do this for veterans and their families.” From that idea and from Linda’s years of dedication to the growing business, Medals of America became what it is today. Medals of America was using Response, LENSER affiliate CoLinear’s state-of-the-art order processing system. Frank and his son, Lee, Medals’ VP of Operations and Marketing, saw John Lenser’s presentation at the annual conference of the Response Group in 2005 and appreciated what he had to say about circulation techniques. They already knew they wanted to grow their business to the next level, and they knew LENSER’s sophisticated circulation management would free up valuable internal resources that could then be focused on operational improvements. The mission at the South Carolina-based, family-run business is simple and admirable—they want to enable every veteran and service person to proudly display the medals our grateful nation awarded them. And for over a quarter-century they’ve been assisting members, past and present, of our armed forces with that goal, with the help of an extremely knowledgeable customer service staff, all of whom are themselves veterans. LENSER Partner Al Bessin says, “Medals of America is the epitome of a niche player—they excel at finding the right products and services to support their market, hiring the right people to serve their clients, and developing the right systems to support the business.” Furthermore, Al adds, “For a business of their size, perhaps of any size, Medals of America has developed very sophisticated processes that let them offer highly customized products efficiently and at low cost. There are many larger companies that would do well to study a business like this.” In turn, the management team at Medals of America believes that the combination of outsourced circulation and access to LENSER’s expertise in all aspects of catalog management has helped them to grow and be successful. The product mix available on the web at www.usmedals.com and through the Medals of America print catalog includes medals, ribbons, and insignia from all branches of the U.S. military, as well as distinguished flag and medal display cases and accessories such as hats, ties, mugs, and t-shirts that express the individuality of their customers. Medals of America, we salute you!PARTNER SPOTLIGHT—CAROL WORTHINGTON-LEVY Carol explains further, “Many clients came to me without a business plan, and now I could refer start-ups to John so they could get the counsel they needed to develop a business plan, or even to help them decide NOT to start up if they wouldn’t make it. I always liked knowing that John would treat these people with integrity, even if it meant I’d never see them again!” One of their first shared clients was Herbalife, and over the years they continued to refer work to each other. Carol’s studio, Worthington-Levy Creative, became nationally known in the direct marketing and catalog community during its tenure from 1984 through 2003. Her work made millions of dollars for clients from BMW to AAA Auto Clubs to The Highlander Catalog. The 8 DMA Echo Awards and 4 Caples Awards her studio earned were the result of bold clients who showed faith in her marketing-driven approach to creative. Carol credits her team, made up of a small, carefully trained and cultivated staff as well as freelancers, for their dedication. “Our studio always treated our client’s dollars as if they were our own. Every decision we made was based, first and foremost, on whether it would provide the most powerful results for our client. It’s amazing how differently you operate as a creative consultant when you take on that advocacy for a client’s success.” Invited to join LENSER as the fourth partner in 2003, Carol knew that this was an opportunity to be part of an exciting and growing firm, with partners—including John himself, Bill Nicolai, and Geoff Wolf—who had impressive track records for building businesses. Carol recalls, “I trusted John. I already knew and liked Bill. It was a no-brainer.” A speaker on the DMA circuit since 1986, Carol is one of our most active speakers and columnists, and she’s what Paul Miller at Catalog Success refers to as “our own Herschell Gordon Lewis.” “Wow, I hope I can live up to that high praise!” she says. Her work as a creative director involves both copywriting and the concept/design side of the business, and she’s highly skilled in both sides of the creative mix. These days Carol’s free time is limited by the breathtaking growth of LENSER, but Carol loves to travel and managed to sneak off with her husband to Croatia this year. In 2008, they are off to Morocco! Carol is a painter, producing perhaps 50 paintings a year, and she sings in an oratorio choir and plays 12-string guitar. She even had a tour of duty with the USO. Married for almost 30 years, she and her husband are East Coast transplants to California. LENSER Partner Michelle Farabaugh notes with a laugh that “Carol says she’s always learning about business from me, but she is my mentor for how to live a great quality of life outside of work.” For Carol, that personal balance is what gives her the energy to do the best work for LENSER’s clients. To learn more about Carol, please visit her bio.AFFILIATE FOCUS—DIRECT LINE TELE RESPONSE “Since what we do may sound simple to many people, the perception has been that ‘all answering services are the same so I might as well flip a coin or take the lowest price.’ Nothing could be further from the truth,” says Greg Gottstein, Direct Line’s Communications Consultant. ”All answering services, like any kind of business or profession, are not the same, and I’ll tell you why Direct Line stands head and shoulders above other answering services.” “Direct Line has been owned and operated by Ruth and Larry Goldenberg, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for over 27 years. We have specialized in medical, professional, and service telemessaging, emergency dispatch, order entry, and answering services. “What makes Direct Line unique in providing quality service is the ability to coordinate and maximize the three elements necessary to provide this quality service: a) personnel, b) technologically sophisticated equipment, and c) efficient call flow systems,” Gottstein continues. “After all, you will be entrusting your company's reputation to the answering service you select. They will be your front line marketing department every time they answer your phone. You have no other vendor that interacts directly with your clients day and night. We understand that and we respect that. Your business is our business.” The folks at Direct Line Tele Response pride themselves on carefully training their Tele Receptionists to provide personalized, quality service. This dedication has garnered them recognition for the quality of service they provide by winning the Association of TeleServices International (ATSI) Award of Excellence and Award of Distinction several years in a row. “You spend a tremendous amount of marketing dollars and effort to get someone to pick up the phone and place an order with you,” says John Lenser, “so do you really want to let that call go unanswered or get bungled by a lesser trained and less professional customer service rep? I think not.” Direct Line Tele Response caters to the smaller client and is willing to take on start-ups and boutique clients, either taking 100% of their calls or on a seasonal or off-hour and back-up basis. They offer a low monthly minimum and have a very high caliber of personnel. As we continue to strengthen our breadth of services, LENSER has identified and carefully screened key services to support its clients, representing the best in their areas of expertise. As part of the LENSER promise, each of these companies will keep its fees competitive and “always go the extra mile” for LENSER clients. We have successfully partnered with Direct Line Tele Response to our clients’ direct benefit. To get in touch with Greg Gottstein at Direct Line Tele Response or any of our other affiliates, please call Michele Salmon at 415-446-2500 ext. 211 or email her at michele.salmon@lenser.com.NEWS BRIEF
|
- Home
- What we do
- Services Offered
- Consulting
- Business Strategies
- Circulation Management
- Marketing Analytics
- Creative Services
- List Services
- Database Solutions
- Who we are
- News briefs
- Newsletters
- Articles
- Affiliate program
- Employment opportunities
- Contact us
