Narcissists are great interviewees. I know from experience. I’ve interviewed hundreds of candidates for positions ranging from sales to IT to administrative over the sixteen years Catalogs.com has been in business. Reviewing resumes, conducting preliminary phone screenings and then conducting interviews is hard work. It is time-consuming, exhausting, and often frustrating.
The narcissist makes my job easier. Dealing with narcissists makes my job more difficult.
That’s what some eager interviewees are being told during the process of applying for a job – and what has media buzzing about privacy and employment issues.
Pinners are the enthusiastic and creative people who grow their individual Pinterest presence by creating “boards” (think old-fashioned bulletin boards) and filling them with “pins.” Pins are images found around the web, especially from blogs, or shared from the pins of other pinners. Content that is off-limits includes right-protected web images, copyrighted or adult material, and everything on Facebook.
It’s the time of year when thousands of catalogers and e-commerce retail web stores are making plans for the Internet Retailing Conference & Exhibition 2012: scrambling for rooms in over-booked hotels, trolling the Web for reasonable airfares and juggling work and family schedules. Not to mention spending a ton of money. Our booth is reserved - #544 - and we are beginning to tell our clients that they should head to Chicago because this is the biggest e-commerce show in the country.
I get hundreds of emails with hundreds of people sending me “stuff,” but when a very accomplished doctor sends me something … my interest is certainly piqued.
As a business owner, the move into a catalog channel can open doors … or open a hole in your marketing budget. Good planning and sound catalog marketing practices can maximize your chance of success in the catalog market.
As a marketer with decades of working with catalogers, and helping to market catalogs, I have observed both opportunities and challenges with print catalogs. There is more competition in the retail arena due to the explosion of multiple channels – radio, television, internet . There is also more opportunity. The challenges of making a print catalog one part of a cohesive multi-channel marketing effort are creatively energizing.
Print catalogs are not dead; they have just found a new place in the total marketing plan, for niche, mid-sized and large businesses.
Here are ten catalog marketing tips to help businesses get the best out of every catalog dollar.
10. Keep it focused
Make sure your catalog is focused on the products you really want to sell through that channel. While background is nice, and branding is important, make sure the message in your catalog marketing is focused on the product.
A friend of mine shared a post on leaving effective voice mail messages from TheLadders.com CEO Marc Cenedella's blog "Stones." My colleague read the post and thought of us immediately - he knows that our marketing specialists spend the entire day on the phone. Almost everyone at Catalogs.com wears a headset to keep their hands free while "power calling" their way through the day.
I have been so focused on digital catalogs for the iPad and the desktop that I was surprised by the new 2011 catalog from Dennis Kirk. It's a CD.
Dennis Kirk hires us for lead generation. Shoppers on Catalogs.com do request Dennis Kirk's big, 1" thick catalog - I know because people in the office get Dennis Kirk's big paper catalog. But when we generate names to build Dennis Kirk's opt-in list, the company can market to those potential customers in any number of ways.
That's why getting Dennis Kirk's CD in the mail made me look twice. The CD was unexpected, different in a good way, and felt "new."
The CD accomplishes exactly what we tell online retailers to implement. Provide shoppers with many options to access your products. Guide them to your website. Print a catalog - or series of mini-catalogs. Send an email newsletter. Build a digital catalog that is optimized for every device: iPads and smartphones.
Remember that each of your marketing tools should promote your brand consistently. All your marketing efforts should offer the shopper other ways to browse and purchase your merchandise. From your website, feature your digital catalog. From your print materials, show your website address. From your CD, offer easy links to your website.
The CD from Dennis Kirk does this seamlessly. It is simple to click from the Dennis Kirk CD to their website. But if I didn't have an internet connection, I could still shop ... like on long plane trip.
And the CD is easy for me to pass on to a friend, much more convenient than the huge catalog.
And don't worry that one of these will "steal" business from your other marketing efforts. In the end, it's all about your product, no matter where people land and how they prefer to shop.
It's about giving all kinds of customers what they want. This is the oldest rule in selling, right?
I'm not complaining, because I appreciate how fortunate Catalogs.com is to be in hiring mode. We are actually trying to fill three positions. Lots of business owners are still feeling the crunch of the still-sluggish economy.
Running a full-out effort to find candidates can dominate my already over-scheduled day. I really like the challenge of finding the right person for the position, and there is no shortage of people looking for work.
I'm glad to have a surplus of resumes to review, but still ... I'm shaking my head. And not because of the amount of work that it takes to review resumes, screen applicants, interview and negotiate.
Is it me? There seems to be more in the latest piles of resumes that confuses me than enlightens me about these job seekers.
If I can't scan and comprehend a resume in less than a minute, I usually move on. But I was so surprised by these candidates' marketing gaffs that I had to stop ... Who are you targeting, dear job seeker?
I actually let some resumes divert my attention from the task of screening just for some intellectual relief.
Take these resume marketing mistakes, for example, all of which sent me to Google to do a little research:
ZAR - the "zar" is used in South Africa ... and I'm hiring in Florida ...
Master's in Museology - the "diachronic study of museums" which I didn't know existed and which sounds interesting, but not applicable
Six Sigma Green Belt - if you are not familiar with this - like I was not - visit this site ... sounds intimidating
emr/ehr - general note: using acronyms will lose eyeballs. And "emr" (emergency medical records?) and "ehr" (electronic health records?) don't apply at all to our business
Pet photos - printing a portrait of yourself with your cat on your resume isn't a good idea
Coffee stains - I appreciate a clean resume as much as I don't want to know what anyone had for breakfast
My advice to anyone submitting a resume: make certain that it is reader-friendly. Don't use jargon, irrelevant degrees without explanation and foreign currencies.
My advice to anyone reading resumes: if the job seeker doesn't make the effort to tailor their resume so that it is relevant to your company and appropriate to the job opening, move on. Quickly.
It might seem brutal, but when you see the size of the resume pile you will amass, every screening tool will keep you sane.
While everyone is trying to think of the next social-savvy venue to engage readers, or to stay more than just one step ahead of the tech curve, the most brilliant marketing move may be to leverage the power of nostalgia.
Nostalgia is a way of associating images from the past with feelings of well-being. Nostalgia is good. It makes people feel happy, even in a workplace setting.
Have you ever taken a tangent down "memory lane" with a co-worker, with reminisces of bicycle messengers, telecopiers and correction tape in your typewriter? (I'm showing my age on this one ...)
Combine my love of catalog shopping and my workday of catalog marketing, and imagine the volume of mail that I receive. Here's a visual: I travel with a rubbermaid bin.
If something stands out in my bin, it's got to be good!
Today I received an excellent specimen of attention-getting, feel-good, nostalgia marketing:
Remember these?
It looks like an interoffice envelope, but it's not.
This magazine mailer is a standard envelope, printed on two sides to look exactly like a string-tied interoffice envelope. It's photorealistic perfection.
Inside the envelope is an industry catalog promoting IT services. Brilliant … it feels personal, immediate ... important.
This is not a new idea, but when executed well, it's not particularly complex or expensive, and it's extremely effective. The next time your creative team is trying to think of something new, try thinking of something old. The power of nostalgia is strong.
Whether you've been to a press run one time or one hundred times, you can't miss feeling a combination of excitement and trepidation. This is the point at which a creative project is ready to "hit the road" ... when edits aren't simple and still (relatively) inexpensive.
I'm sure that many of my colleagues in marketing and creative professions share my point-of-no-return emotion. Like me, they can always change or improve concepts by tweaking one word, changing punctuation or shifting a color palette.
Sometimes middle-of-the-night inspiration has me re-thinking entire strategies and adjusting the messaging of an entire marketing piece.
So how do I get big projects out the door?
Here are my five tips to help you let go and get your marketing project on press successfully:
1. Outline a strategy
Brainstorm your project at the front end, not after it's a growing file on the designer's computer. Make certain that every angle is considered and every person involved in the project is included. If this is a sales piece, include sales staff. Talk with the printer for direction on what is possible. Consider all ideas that will save you money and make your project the most effective.
2. Establish a budget
Do the basic math: how many pieces you need, how much will it cost (copy, creative, project management, printing, fulfillment, etc.), what your target response rate is and the dollar value of each response. Make sure that you have a firm handle on your anticipated ROI - don't let yourself be surprised by timeline snafus and budget overruns that eat into the fiscal effectiveness of your project.
3. Set firm deadlines
Let your team members know the deadline, and the interim deadlines for all components: budget development, copy, photography, mailing list compilation. Build in time for unavoidable delays (scheduling issues, equipment failures) at the front end of your project. Circle your PRESS DATE in red. Make yourself adhere to your schedule.
4. Assign clear responsibilities
Establish a point person for each phase of project. This may be one person, or a series of people across departments. It might only be you. Be clear about who does what. Write names on the project timeline, right next to dates. Make certain that everyone has a copy of deadlines and responsibilities.
5. Retain your creative vision
Set high standards for everyone. Change any part of your project that isn't what you want it to be -- before you go to press. Negotiate at every stage. Make certain that revisions, additional components and extra effort don't blow your budget. But get what you want. When I go to a press run, I might change the color three times, but the final product is perfectly aligned with my expectations.
How do you move your projects efficiently from concept to printing press?
Our iPad marketing piece on the press ... and the colors look gorgeous!
If you slept late yesterday, ate cinnabons, lounged with the dog or watched football with a bag of chips, you weren’t as productive as we were.
Even though it was hard to ask our team to abandon their weekend activities, we spent a productive Sunday with social media consultant Krista Neher.
Krista runs Boot Camp Digital, and she put us through a six hour workout – pointing out where we are a little slack with our social media, where we are being lazy, and also where we are in pretty good shape. A serious “physical assessment” of social media muscle tone is important for business owners conscious of their sales numbers and brand awareness, and we undertook the workout ready to make some changes.
It was difficult to let our egos and pride of ownership go, but the encouragement of a good consultant, like Krista, helps you commit to being brutally honest about what is working and what is faltering, if not failing altogether. It really is like a session with a physical trainer.
I took some notes that I will check back on as we work on our social media physique:
Be consistent
We need to tweak (not Tweet!) the consistency of our messaging. For example, we have multiple Twitter accounts, and it was easy to see – through an outsider’s eyes – where we lost sight, at times, of our target audience from one account to another. Visualize the persona of your reader and speak to her directly and confidently.
Make a list of all your social media accounts - in addition to our Twitters, we are on Facebook, Linkedin and have multiple blogs – and analyze each one, honestly.
Set clear expectations
Many businesses, like Catalogs.com, are guilty of jumping too quickly into something new and exciting. For example, we ran a contest during the holidays and were surprised at the number of emails we captured over a frantic 5-day period.
Krista pointed out that we failed to set measurable goals, and to clearly delineate how we would determine the success of the contest. Although we captured 1800 email addresses, we didn’t test them to determine conversion rates, if any, compared to our general email database, we have no idea how effective this type of contest is in garnering valuable new email clients.
State your rules of engagement
This may seem obvious, but it’s easy to overlook when you have multiple social outlets that are always being updated. For example, on the Catalogs.com Facebook page, we encourage our fans to “Find great deals.” On the Catalogs.com home page, the great deals are not front and center. Like Krista pointed out, this is a major disconnect. But not one that’s not fixable.
These social media “rules” stand out in my notes from yesterday:
o Don’t spam
o Don’t oversell
o Build relationships
o Provide value
o Be human
o Focus on business outcomes
o Remember to say “thank you”
My take away from our Sunday at the office? Get down regularly and do some social media sit-ups.
Next week, I'll be considering whether email marketing is having a harder time cutting through all the noise.
I am sitting on a panel of email experts presenting "Changes, Innovations and New Strategies for Email List Growth."
I have been busy pulling together the material that I will be contributing: contests, newsletter sign ups and social media activities. We've come a long way in 14 years of growing our email list. It's much, much harder to reach people's email boxes just because of the sheer volume of competition. Add spam filters and the need for professional list management, and email marketing today calls for new strategies and flexibility.
I am intrigued by a side conversation on email marketing we've had in the office.
Someone abruptly declared "email is dead." (I'm not naming names.)
Someone else shared an email they had just received from a retail store: "Don't look for our newsletters in your inbox any more. We're going social, to connect with you on Facebook and Twitter in a two-way conversation. Join us!"
While the EEC panel will focus on evaluating email strategies to figure out what's working and what's bombing, I'm hearing a little buzz that things are really changing.
What is an email really worth to an email marketing company, if it's not worth anything to its owner? Most of the people I've canvassed confess that they have at least one email address created just to receive their "junk" emails - newsletters, contests, sweepstakes, lists.
I love lists that promise the “Top 10,” “Not-to-be-missed,” or “Year’s Best.” If a reviewer recommends a resource that brings something new to my attention, I am thrilled.
It’s especially valuable when a reviewer couples their list with insight that is particular to their industry and expertise.
I am intrigued with Brian Patrick Flynn’s list of “Eight Great Decorating Catalogs.” Like Flynn, I am a big fan of decorating catalogs. I too find that many catalogs are as attractive and inspiring as home magazines. That’s not a stretch for me, I’m an undying catalog lover. I have a pile of home decorating catalogs that I keep, along with Architectural Digest and House Beautiful.
I like Flynn’s suggestion that the key to successfully designing with catalogs is to spread your home decorating budget around different stores. Just like most people wouldn’t purchase an entire room – furniture, pillows, knickknacks and books - off the floor of a furniture store, it’s not good practice to buy everything from one page in a catalog.
A few of Flynn’s "great" catalogs are already on my list. Two are also on Catalogs.com, so I am especially proud that these catalogs made the “8 Great” list. The Company Store is my go-to solution for bedding, and was my first choice when giving my kid’s rooms new looks. I look at Lamps Plus often, too, because I think that the perfect lamp really “lights up” a room in more ways than one.
What could be more fun than amassing a long list of decorating resources? In addition to the great catalogs on Flynn’s post on HGTV’s blog, take a look at all the home décor catalogs at Catalogs.com.
What would you put on a list of great decorating catalogs?
I haven't had this much fun in years. We wanted to do something really creative and fun, with a sense of humor, to promote the Catalogs.com for iPad app.
Especially at this time of year, when gift givers were thoughtful enough to fill wishes for iPads. And iPad owners are having fun finding great apps for their new toys.
A video was the obvious answer. Something that we could put on YouTube and spread around the net. Being budget conscious, we decided to be good sports and take on the leading roles. The script would be minimal, and we could write it in-house. We have plenty of friends who helped us set up scenarios for a few silly skits.
We laughed a lot, and got the video done with much less pain than I expected. What a great marketing tool -- this is the way for small businesses to go. I learned a lot, and discovered that doing video also has a lot to do with intuition ... from "Take 15" to the editing room and deciding when to cue the background music, the entire process was fascinating. We really got it. It was a great follow-up to the months and months of long days and nights brainstorming Catalogs.com for iPad, developing the app and planning our marketing efforts.
And we really didn't do too badly in our acting debut, either!
Watch the video below and see if you can identify the actors:
Another thing that we all learned is that it is good not to always take everything too seriously.
"Easily incited to laughter" is a great core competency.
Visit Catalogs.com for iPad now and download your free app. Be careful, it's addictive.
It’s the time of year when thousands of catalogers and e-commerce retail web stores are making plans for the 
I am surfacing from under a pile of resumes. 
