Multichannel Marketers Integrating Channels; 70 percent Report Increased Sales

Nearly 70 percent of catalog marketers reported increased multichannel sales over the prior year, and 59 percent reported increased catalog circulation in 2006, according to the Direct Marketing Association’s “Multichannel Marketing in the Catalog Industry” report, writes MarketingCharts (via BtoB).

The study - which the DMA said is a road map for best practices and trends in channel integration within the catalog, retail, and e-commerce infrastructures - found that successful multichannel marketers have consistent and integrated standards across all channels, according to the DMA.

“Consumers expect - in whatever channel they opt to use - to interact with one company with integrated systems that are transparent to that consumer. After all, the different channels feed off of each other - a consumer looking at a mail-order catalog, for example, may order online. So the marketer’s channels must all be consistent,” said Anna Chernis, DMA’s senior research manager.

“This view is a major departure from earlier thinking, in which companies thought the internet channel would require different pricing, promotions, and other approaches than the other channels.”

Among the 2007 DMA study’s key findings:

• Among those surveyed who have mail-order catalogs, 44 percent of total sales are consummated via the web (vs. mail and telephone), up from 39 percent in 2005.
• 33 percent of respondents say their online sales were “incremental” - i.e., that they would not have received the order without the existence of their website.
• Respondents whose online sales are increasing reported an overall 20 percent growth rate.
• When asked to account for the online sales increase and their positive outlook for 2007, respondents said a symbiotic set of factors - overall economic conditions, overall company growth, and simply better response rates - were the most influential.
• 45 percent of respondents said their “website/e-catalog” was their primary marketing channel. This was followed by paper catalog (33 percent) and retail stores (22 percent).

MarketingCharts provides some more findings, here.