The Success Secrets of Catalogue Marketing
How to make catalogues make money – both on and offline. Lessons direct from Boden, The White Company and more
Here’s a rare opportunity to find out what has made Britain’s top cataloguers so successful while others have struggled to find their feet. You’ll hear direct from expert operators such as Mark Binnington (Boden), John Ashton (John Lewis), Katy Ingram (The White Company) and Mark Dugdale (Flying Brands). They will share with you exactly what works and what doesn’t as they span the whole field of catalogue marketing in two action packed days.
“There has been no training ground specially for cataloguers and nowhere to develop technological expertise,”says Nigel Swabey. “That’s why I am delighted to endorse this essential IDM course.”
What delegates will learn
Catalogue marketing is growing at an unprecedented rate but it takes dedication and technique to ensure success. In two days you’ll learn all this and more from some of the best in the business:
- How to develop sound strategies for growth
- What factors really drive your profit
- How to secure a niche in the market and in your customers’ minds
- The importance and secrets of good campaign planning and management
- How to plan your catalogue – pagination, product space allocations and more
- Effective catalogue copy, design and layout
- Correct evaluation of catalogue performance
- How to set and meet objectives for customer acquisition
- Allowable marketing costs-per-sale and the importance of customer lifetime values
- Customer profiling and mailing lists – how to choose and use the ones that will work for you
- Offers and incentives – why, how and when to use them
- Selecting the right media and integrating new online media opportunities
- The essential information required for an effective home shopping database
- Multi-channel integration – how to do it right
- Understanding your customers, spotting trends and identifying the most responsive segment
Who should attend
Anyone with responsibility for the marketing of a mail order catalogue or transactional website. This could include owner/managers, marketing managers or campaign managers/planners. Anyone else who works in a catalogue marketing related field who would benefit from a greater understanding of what makes a mail order business successful e.g. agency account handlers, printers or fulfilment houses.
Outline Programme
Course introduction and welcome
- Introduction to home shopping in the 21st century
- Mail order essentials – key concepts explained
- Home shopping success and how to achieve it - overview
- What you can expect to learn over the forthcoming two days
- Discussion of key issues and problems
Understanding mail order business dynamics
- Understanding what’s essential planning and forecasting
- How to identify the numbers and key metrics that drive to your business
- How to manage these to improve your business performance
- How to analyse your catalogue sales and use these to improve future profitability
- Simple modelling templates and practical exercise/discussion to help you
Creating catalogues that sell
- Engaging the customer – how to secure the right niche in the market place and in your customers minds
- Understanding the creative briefing process and the key things your creatives need to know about your catalogue
- Planning your catalogue and making every page work as hard as possible
- Allocating the right amount of space to each product
- Top tips for effective copy, design and layout
- How to ensure your ancillary pieces (envelopes, letters and order forms) work as hard as your catalogue
- Practical critique session – learn how to view and assess the catalogues of your competitors
Taking your catalogue online and how to achieve Internet success
- What makes for successful website: review of the UK’s most successful B2C and B2B websites
- Key considerations and pitfalls to avoid when taking your business online
- Why usability is important and how best to achieve it
- How to address specific trouble areas such as trust and privacy, shopping basket design and accessibility issues
- Where to go to for help
- Online case history from The White Company
Customer acquisition planning
- Key planning considerations when acquiring new customers
- Calculating your allowable marketing cost
- Customer lifetime value (LTV) – what it is and how to use it
- Strategic options of one-stage versus two-stage customer acquisition
Selecting and evaluating media for customer acquisition
- Overview of the media options available i.e. inserts, press, direct mail, door to door, DRTV, email and web
- Competitive review of who’s using what and with what success
- Deciding which media options are right for your business
Attracting visitors to your website
- Understanding your online audience
- Getting the most out of search engines and directories
- Pay per click advertising and how to make it work
- Affiliate marketing and strategic linking
- Other online advertising opportunities
- Exploiting offline media and channels
Creating and developing profitable customer relationships
- How to put customers at the centre of your planning
- How to understand customer’s needs and expectations
- How to transform your customer data into a goldmine of opportunity
- How to optimise your list selections and mailing frequency
- How incentive marketing can shape response and long-term customer value
Meeting the multi channel challenge
- Why become a multi channel retailer?
- The problems and risks in becoming one
- The winners and losers in the battle for customers
- The changing nature of the High Street and how store retailers must adapt
- Some case studies
Course tutor
Iain MacDonald M IDM, Casa Consulting
Iain established Casa Consulting in November 2001 after more than 20 years’ experience of catalogue marketing. A former Marketing Director of Boden, Sunday Times Wine Club and Webb Ivory, he has also been Senior Consultant with Sterling Marketing. His clients have included BBC Worldwide, Boden, Boots, Fingerhut, JCPenney, LLBean, Mothercare, The White Company, The Science Museum and Unicef.
Guest Speakers:
John Ashton, Catalogue Development Manager, John Lewis Direct
Having completed his M.B.A. In 1996 John started his career as commercial analyst for Ladbroke Racing, and moved into mail order with Boden as marketing manager in 1998, where their turnover grew from £5m to £18m in two years. John joined The Great Little Trading Company (GLTC) as marketing director in September 2000 and left in 3 years later having achieved similar levels of growth. After a brief spell as Head of Direct Marketing at The Discovery Store, John joined John Lewis Direct in March 2004 as catalogue development manager, where he is responsible for managing the end to end catalogue process producing over 900 pages a year as part of John Lewis multi channel strategy.
Carol Trickey F IDM, Creative Director, The HotHouse
Carol came to London in 1966 and worked as an art director on the client side before starting a new direct marketing agency - Smith Bundy and Partners - with George Smith, in 1975. Carol and George built Smith Bundy and Partners into one of the most consistently successful and award-winning agencies in the UK, before selling the agency to concentrate on producing work rather than managing it. Carol is considered to be a forerunner of creative catalogue design, and she has spoken regularly on creativity and catalogues in many locations including Monte Carlo, Los Angeles, Montreux and Sydney, as well as at many UK direct marketing conferences. In addition, Carol is one of the most respected judges for the UK and Irish Direct Marketing Awards and for the Direct Response Awards for Innovation. Carol is now Creative Director of advertising and marketing agency The HotHouse, and Creative Partner of new agency Senior Direct.
Katy Ingram, The White Company
Katy joined The White Company 4 years ago as Marketing Manager. During that time Katy’s role has grown substantially and she now not only manages the direct marketing team but she is also responsible for internet and retail marketing as well. Prior to joining the White Company Katy worked at EMAP ELAN for 6 years working as Product Manager across the homes and health titles.
Chris Lofts, Business Development Director, Snow Valley
Chris is responsible for developing relationships within Snow Valley’s key markets. Snow Valley are UK leaders in the development and operation of complex e-business solutions: customers include Toys 'R' Us, Oddbins and Reuters. Chris has worked in the technology sector for many years and has spoken on e-commerce at several industry events.
Colin Gillespie, All Response Media
Colin started work in 1988 at Cogent Elliot in Midlands as a media planner/buyer before moving to help establish their London media office in 1989. 1n 1990 he joined CIA Direct as a senior planner/ buyer being promoted to the position of Associate Board Director by 1994. A year later Colin moved to become Managing Director of a CIA Group joint venture Company - Portrait Marketing before leaving to join All Response Media in 1997 as a founding Director and shareholder. In August 2000, All Response Media launched Digit-all to consolidate and focus fiscal and intellectual value for their digital portfolio in which Colin is also fully responsible. In September 2004 Colin was made Managing Director of All Response Media.
Mark Binnington, Marketing Director, Boden
Mark joined Boden as Marketing Director in May 1998. He has spent his career in direct marketing, the last 14 years of which have been spent in home shopping, starting as Marketing Manager of the Next Directory in 1989. He has worked in both new and mature mail order businesses, moving from Next to join Selfridges in 1993 and then on to HMV. His final position before becoming Marketing Director of Boden was as UK Catalogue Manager for Walt Disney. In his time at Boden sales have grown from £9m to £45m and customer growth has risen by 300%.
Mark Dugdale, CEO, Flying Brands
After over 20 years’ home shopping experience. Mark Dugdale was appointed Chief Executive of Flying Brands last year. This Jersey-based quoted plc controls Flying Flowers, Gardening Direct, Listen2Books and Benham Collectables. Mark first worked at the Reader’s Digest, co-founding RD Family Insurance Services and developing a merchandise catalogue. Then, in 1989, he became Managing Director (Europe) of The Hamilton Group, a US-owned collectables company (later sold to Bradford Exchange), establishing profitable companies in the UK, France and Germany. This was followed by spells at CD Direct (where he set up a transactional web site in 1995!) at Innovations Group plc and Burton Home Shopping. From 1998 to 2002 he was Managing Director for Dial Home Shopping, a joint venture between the Arcadia Group and Littlewoods. This became Arcadia Home Shopping in 2001.
IDM members receive a substantial discount on this course. To find out more about becoming a member of the IDM click here.
You can claim 14 CPD hours for attending this course. To find out how to enrol on the IDM CPD scheme click here.
Course fee includes all tuition, comprehensive manual, lunch and light refreshments.
If you have any queries, please contact the team on 020 8614 0277 or email training@theidm.com.
