Ramping Up For The Holidays? Make It Count!

Hi! I’m Chloe! I’m already knee deep in holiday catalogs from a host of people I’ve never done business with! But, that’s OK! Catalogs that arrive during the holidays give me a chance to expand my horizons and think about gifts I might not have targeted through my online browsing or shopping excursions. Of course, […]

Riding The Wave Of Killer Catalog Design

By Katherine Tattersfield, Print Geek I love catalogs. Ever since I got my hands on a JC Penny Christmas catalog when I was about 5 years old, I’ve been hooked on these print marketing tools. I remember impatiently waiting for holiday catalogs to arrive so I could make my list for Santa. My mother still recalls the day […]

Who’s REALLY Consuming Print?

“In the last decade, while the digital marketing space has gotten noisier and considerably less effective, print has enjoyed a renaissance of increased conversion rates and marketing return on investment. Customers actually appreciate getting a nice postcard, well-designed catalogue, or personal thank you note in the mail today.” (via www.printisbig.com) A couple of years ago I […]

What Apple Didn't Announce: New App Store category for Catalogs

This is one of those good news/bad news things depending upon where you sit in the Marketing industry. For the digital crowd, especially designers – congrats and enjoy your free time while it lasts. For the Print people, well catalogs aren’t going away (at least for now), but I have to imagine the volume will […]

Experts Weigh In On Likelihood of Huge Catalog Postal Rate Hike

The news last month that the U.S. Postal Service may be increasing rates sharply for the so-called “underwater” classes/subclasses of Standard Mail flats raised plenty of questions. Most pressing is the amount of the increase and how soon catalogs will see it, says Hamilton Davison, president and executive director of the American Catalog Mailers Association. […]

New Data Show Mailing Lists Can Be Hard to Shake

Merchants send Americans 20 billion catalogs a year, and more than 1,100 brands offer to share their mailing lists.That amounts to a lot of name sharing, which can turn into a headache for people who want to get off lists. There is no law requiring all companies to let consumers remove themselves from mailing lists, […]

New Poly Letter Wrap Product for Catalogers

The U.S. Postal Service’s new business plan calls on customers and stakeholders to provide it with creative ideas that keep mail an attractive communications tool. Innovative Packaging has one: The supplier of polymer-based substrates to the direct mail and publishing industries has developed a new generation of poly film that offers the properties required for […]

How Old-School Catalogs Help Drive Up Online Sales

I recently received an email from Internet Retailer promoting a piece of research which suggests that online shoppers that received a catalog in the mail spent on average 163 percent more than those that didn’t. One hundred sixty-three percent? That’s a big difference. This prompted me to go back to the research into the Lessons […]

Marketers brace for paper cost increase

Direct marketers and catalogers are preparing to face paper cost increases this fall, while also planning for a possible significant postal rate increase in January. Marketers say volatility in the paper market in recent years, due to economic instability, has made it difficult for them to project costs from one year to the next. Many […]

USPS pitches print catalogs

The US Postal Service (USPS) is targeting e-commerce merchants with an integrated marketing campaign emphasizing the potential of print catalogs. The effort includes direct mail, webinars, instructional DVDs and web banner ads. The USPS created the campaign internally. The “Getting Started in Catalogs” initiative emphasizes that companies can double online transactions and achieve revenue lifts […]

Postal Service emphasizes value of catalogs to Internet retailers

The US Postal Service is targeting e-commerce merchants with an integrated marketing campaign emphasizing the potential of print catalogs. The effort includes direct mail, webinars, instructional DVDs and web banner ads. The USPS created the campaign internally. The “Getting Started in Catalogs” initiative emphasizes that companies can double online transactions and achieve revenue lifts of […]

Catalogs by Barneys, Sears, J.C. Penney get creative

After a seven-year hiatus, Abercrombie & Fitch brought back its racy A&F Quarterly Saturday, but the controversial publication is making a comeback as many retailers are heading in the other direction. With retailers forced to take a hard look at their bottom lines during the recession, catalogs are adjusting, but not disappearing, says Leslie Linevsky, […]