2009 Goals And Objectives For Catalog Brands

In business, everybody is evaluated against strategic goals and objectives.

So here's a short list of goals and objectives for fiscal 2009, with an eye toward learning things that benefit our business in 2010 - 2011.


Objective #1 = Use Mail / Holdout Groups To Understand How Many Catalogs And E-Mails To Mail To Each Audience, On An Annual Basis. Determine The Organic Percentage For Each Segment.

• Audience = Loyal online shoppers, regardless of source.
• Audience = Loyal retail shoppers (if applicable), especially those in urban/suburban areas.
• Audience = Rural customers who place orders over the telephone.
• Audience = Lapsed buyers, those without an order in the past 13+ months.
• Audience = Customers with no e-mail address.
  

Objective #2 = Test New Micro-Channels For Customer Acquisition Potential. Measure The Results Across Channels And Develop A Roll-Out Sales Plan For 2010.

Objective #3 = Thoroughly Understand The Relationship Between The Merchandise Offered In Outbound Marketing And The Merchandise A Customer Actually Purchases. Are There Items That Drive A Customer To Your Website To Buy Other Products, And If So, How Does This Change Your Merchandise Advertising Strategy?

Objective #4 = Partner With An Agency To Measure Your Net Google Score. If You Find That You Are Driving More Sales To Your Competitors Than To Your Own Brand, How Will You Change Your Marketing Strategy? Coupled with this strategy, measure how much paid search your catalogs generate, and then allocate paid search costs created by catalog mailings back to the physical cost of mailing a catalog, re-analyzing segment-level profit and loss statements.

Objective #5 = Hold Innovation Forums With Key Vendors.

• Visit at least one non-competitive online pureplay to understand their customer acquisition strategies.
• Meet with every co-op vendor to discuss business strategies when catalog customer acquisition is no longer viable.
• Meet with your printer to determine unique targeting and pagination opportunities.
• Meet with key ecosystem vendors like Google, Yahoo!, your E-Mail vendor, your Paid Search vendor, your Web Analytics vendor. Open your books and share your 2009 strategies, then ask for feedback.

Objective #6 = Determine A Viable Shipping And Handling Strategy, Going Forward. Free Shipping may not be sustainable, Free Shipping with a hurdle may be sustaining, $3 or $5 shipping may be sustainable, $16.95 shipping is no longer sustainable.