Want 6 Easy Tips To Get Your Website And Catalog Producing Higher Dollars?

While there are some “home grown” product merchandising experts in the age of laptops and scanners, most successful catalog and web designers accept these "rules" as basic to increasing dollars per page. You might want to apply these to your latest creation as a final litmus test:

*Copy is more than critical; Key words need to be relevant and emotional tag lines supportive of moving the buyer to action.

*Consistent ordering SKU/identifying numbers, and pricing at the bottom of the product's descriptive copy.  This makes it easy for the patron to identify and buy in 3 seconds:

Chocolate Covered Cherries.

Creamy milk chocolate with

liquid centers and a cherry. 

D347  |  6 OZ  |  Boxed  |  $6.49

Flexible Plastic Storage Bowls.

Set of three  (10 | 8 | 6 | inches).

D483  |  Shrink Wrapped  |  $9.99

*Covers count!  Front/Back pages (outside and inside) plus the center spread are the critical “sweet spots”.  Their job is to grab attention, put the best foot forward i.e. products, price points and get the reader to pick up the catalog and go inside!  Sometimes this gets lost in translation when designers get distracted looking to create a pretty picture instead of a great performing catalog.  These pages are paramount to “selling product” and demand a lot of attention.

*"Touch points” and “eye movements” (for readers) start with the attention going to the top right of the page and moving in a “C” across both catalog pages.  Web site viewing always starts at the top and moves downward i.e.  gravity pulling the reader to the bottom. Strategically place your best selling products for maximum effect.

*Relevant offers (call to action promotions) should be on both your website and catalog. Catalog front and home pages of the website are very important "silent salespeople".

*Be a consistent steward of your brand, on both your catalog and website.  Fonts, color ways, best sellers, low price points, should all be similar in the initial customer experience. 

As always, do with this what you will, I keep these “basics” close and have found them to hold true even in the face of an ever changing 21^st century marketing world.

Do Manners Still Matter In Modern Business Success?

I’m compelled to write this after hearing about the Bob McDonnell (Governor of Virginia) “F” grade remarks in American History last week. His totally off the wall revisionist "political" proclamation was a huge injustice to African Americans, Historians, and former black governor Douglas Wilder for sure. In my humble opinion this was also very insulting and displays  bad manners, unbecoming of a modern day "Virginian".

My blog focus today, however motivated, is a look at business manners in the age of the modern internet which was merely spawned by his recent misguided perspective of  "all" Virginians.

Most Virginians in my long travels have been held in the highest esteem by many  for their well mannered social skills in the business world. Whether I’ve been on the winning or losing end of a project, I’ve mostly admired this trait where Virginian business folks can leave you with a sense of dignity even when you have lost the “deal”. They are generally always tough, but polite, have impeccable manners, and are well spoken. Governor Bob McDonnell appears to be an isolated exception to my perception in this specific case.

I submit, manners are still one of the great traits of successful businesses people.  Even in a point and click world quality leaders want to connect with the human behind the keyboard.  Some notable selected examples in my career that I will never forget:

•       Williamsburg, Virginia and Gettysburg Pennsylvania merchants, per my reference to the Governor's recent remarks (He used these towns as examples to make his point), are really very business savvy.  The Governor should now apologize to these modern merchants as he is not fully understanding why they are so successful. Both town’s represent two of the top destinations for tourism and buying of consumer goods in the world.  They present traditional, powerful branding,  marketing, merchandising, customer experience, and ebusiness as well as any.  Both towns welcome all to their doorstep, it's about commerce and proudly making all visitors feel like very important guests.

•       Most striking in these two towns is the open public display of manners that make you feel special where ever you come from or your background. Always a “please or thank you Sir or Madam”, doors opened for ladies, and proper but friendly table and server manners on display from 2 stars to 5 star restaurants. These merchants have successfully blended the past traditions with modern marketing, always remembering how appreciative they are of the buyers coming to their doorstep. They are marketing leaders in person, television, printed catalog,  or over the internet.

• Suzie Ormond has the gift and respect of manners! At one time in my career I had fun being a guest presenter for the QVC television network. My first show was nerve racking as can be and much was new to me.  I was following the Susie Ormond show, one of QVC’s top stars and shows.  To this day I will always remember her simple kindness in reaching out her hand and offering to carry my boxes in from my car. Suzie was next up and under pressure to go on, yet she extended this incredible “human” offer. I mentioned I was impressed by her being a big star and so grounded; her response was “We are all in this together, I was just raised this way”.  Needless to say she has my respect forever, and again makes my point of why manners are a distinguishable trait of highly successful people.

•       Richard Chan owner of Morningside Investments (Former cancer M.D. in Boston, and one of the world’s wealthiest people) in Hong Kong understands the force of manners in the business world. In visiting his firm for expansion capital he met me at the Oriental hotel on HK island , but asked me to stand by a certain spot and he would come by, find me, and quickly leave to another location.  Five minutes before our meeting he showed up and personally opened the doors for me as we walked to his office.  During the meeting, he always stood up when someone entered and was the last to be seated.  I surely appreciated such an important person picking me up but was respectful of his time and my relatively small request compared to his holdings.

•       I, however, was very puzzled.  When I openly asked and complimented him about this, He told me he does this every time he meets a new person to make them feel comfortable and give undivided attention.  I was blown away by Richard's explanation that was now becoming familiar; “I was raised to have good manners by my parents”.  I’ll never forget his lesson that day! This is what I now call a class act!

      So, in the age of modern technology, my question to many of the young business people and entrepreneurs hitting the career street in the next few year is simply “How were you raised?” My sense is traditional good manners will be a great arrow to have in your quiver to differentiate you for your business competition in the growing high tech world. JMHO

Are Some 2010 Olympic Athletes And Sponsors Guilty Of Questionable Hidden Persuasion?

*As a long time alpine ski/snowboarding family, dad, and believer in brand marketing, there are some questions I have for the ski /snowboarding gear industry.  My beef is regarding over all brand honesty this year (Truth in advertising) and photo ops showing name brand equipment by winning athletes.  As I watched every night, with Home theater HD joy, the Vancouver Winter Olympics had a few questionable use of logos on shifting equipment models and overreaching shots in the winner's circles.

To be sure,  I looked up at my walls to see my own OCD personality displayed in my recreation room decorated with "real" ski/snowboarder race gear circa 1996.  It’s not a “sports bar”, but my own home version of one with a winter sports tilt from "back in  the day".  I noticed something odd  at what I was seeing on my TV vs my "wall" and  now have a few questions for today's advertisers and athletes using product placement photo ops after a race.:

• In the Women's Downhill, did Lindsey Vonn race on “long traditional, old,  dated Head men’s racer downhill ski’s and at the bottom  show "new" short wide Head recreational level skis for the cameras? (Hence a brisk discussion at my house with hard core skiers who were upset at this illusion and deceitful promotion… see photos).

• Allegedly, did some of the top skiers spray paint their long time racing ski boots with the current and future colors as they did not want to use the newer equipment? (Look closely at the paint chipped boot photos).

• At what point are sponsorships going to be called on  regarding dishonest brand  and model manipulations? How many times are after race photo ops misleading consumers to believe the winner actually used that equipment shown?

• Check out the entire photo’s of this year’s games and ask youself; did Ad agencies and sponsors go over the line this year advertising their brands? Could it be getting a little tacky and intellectually deceitful? Just a little bit? Is it getting worse?

• On a personal note, can NBC ever put their logo on the bottom right of the screen like most TV stations? It is very distracting  on the upper right and HDTV really sharpens how annoying this positioning is…. JMHO.

• Gotta Love Apolo Ohno’s values and ethics, he is “old school”. No goggle glass sponsorship or preening for the cameras with brands…. He is the brand! I would look at buying what he advertises and represents, based on his “story”. The really great ones always are the brand!

All in all, I am a very big fan of the Winter Olympics, all the athletes, America’s team, and the NBC coverage this year. My rant is minor, but in hopes that this blog brings some  attention to this exagerating practice to get more truthful in the future of product placements.  Bravo to all the athletes, we are all very proud of you and what you did in Vancouver! Ad agencies and agents, please don't cheapen our national treasure of current olympic youngsters, they deserve better!

*Photo by Doug Mills/NY Times

Branding; Are You Headed To Extinction Or Distinction?

Have you looked at where your brand is headed lately?

You may be surprised at some of this year’s top 100 movement up or down. If you believe a brand ranking is the canary in the mine as I do, the year 2009 has some telling signs of where the economy is affecting buyer’s habits. Check out the below selected activity from the top 100 global brands list*.

New brands on the top list in the last two years:

·Polo Ralph Lauren, Burberry, Puma, Adobe, Burger King, Lancôme.

Dropped backward:

·Toyota, Intel, Disney, Mercedes Benz, BMW, American Express, Oracle, UPS, Sony, HSBC, Dell, CITI, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Harley Davidson, GAP, Starbucks, Lexus.

Rising brands this year over last on the top 100 list:

·McDonalds, Google, HP, Gillette, Cisco, Marlboro, Honda, Samsung, Apple, H&M, Pepsi, Nescafe, Nike, SAP, IKEA.

Where is your brand headed in the next five years? What have you done for your buyers lately?


*Interbrand 2009 rankings

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