Fat Face and the multichannel mailer

Of the mailings that landed on my desk in the last few weeks, the Summer 2011 Fat Face direct mail piece immediately caught my attention. The 6-page foldout mailer is a mini catalogue featuring a small selection of men’s, women’s and childrenswear. And while I found the design to be a little “busy” and crowded at times, I like the way Fat Face cleverly uses the mailing as a tool to drive both online and in-store sales.

There are two offers on the cover: Free delivery and a prize draw. To enter the draw customers need to hand in a tear-off section of the mailer to a shop assistant. Presumably, this then allows the shop to capture the customer’s email address and build a fuller picture of that buyer’s activity online and in-store. Alternatively, customers are automatically entered into the draw by shopping with Fat Face’s website. Rather telling, Fat Face doesn’t give recipients the option of posting back the form, or filling it in online without buying something. This demonstrates the two aims of the mailer: to generate an online sale, or acquire the customer’s email address in-store.

The second offer of free delivery adds a further incentive to buy. To qualify for free delivery, customers need to spend £85 or more and enter a media code found on the front page of the mailer at the online checkout. Or they can quote the code to a contact centre agent. This tactic means Fat Face can match back the order to that precise catalogue mailing, important in deciding where to allocate marketing spend.

What all this goes to prove is that the print medium plays a key part in the multichannel marketing arsenal—with a role in driving store sales as well as online transactions. And while none of this should come as a surprise to seasoned direct marketers, Fat Face’s mini catalogue shows just how uncomplicated it can be.--MT

The September Catalogue Log

In last month’s Catalogue Log, we were wondering why we’d received a scant 71 catalogues in August. No matter: Volume picked up in September, with a vengeance. We tallied 212 catalogues in September, the most in one month so far this year. To put it in context, in May, the month with the second greatest volume, we'd received 155 catalogues. Or, for more context, of the 1,081 catalogues logged during the first nine months of 2009, nearly one-fifth were received in September.

While the number of catalogues received had nearly tripled from the previous month, the percentage promoting sales and discounts dropped appreciably, from 43.7 percent in August to 34.4 percent in September. That’s somewhat higher than July’s 30.9 percent but nearly on a par with June’s 34.1 percent.

The percentage of the September catalogues offering free delivery was 18.4 percent, up from August’s 16.9 percent. It’s also the second highest rate so far this year. Top honours go to April, in which a full 20 percent of the books received had some sort of free P&P offer. Several of the September delivery offers were pegged to deadlines. Fashion brand Joe Browns, for instance, promised free P&P only on orders received by 18th September; fellow apparel brand White Stuff extended its offer till 15th October; yet another fashion brand, Fat Face, offered free delivery but only till 30th September and only on web orders.

The percentage of catalogues offering a gift with purchase was a fairly modest 10.8 percent in September. That’s down from August’s 14.1 percent and the high, in June, of 17.8 percent. Among September’s gifts-with-purchase were a £20 cosmetics kit with orders of £25 or more from BuyCosmetics.com; £12.50 worth of chocolates with each order of £50 or more from the Hotel Chocolat Corporate Christmas Gifts catalogue; and from apparel cataloguer Boden, a Jewelled Pebble Necklace worth £39 for new customers.

The Boden offer appeared in the mini-catalogue inserted in an issue of the Sunday Times; the catalogue cover also offered a 15-percent discount, free delivery, and free returns. Far be it for me to question the wisdom of Johnnie Boden et al, but one could argue that the plethora of promotions makes the brand seem a bit… needy. Yes, annual turnover rose 9.4 percent last year, to £168.1 million, so the company is undoubtedly doing many things right. Then again, pretax profit fell 9.5 percent, to £24.8 million, and while some of this was due to expanding its US facilities, could Boden be overspending on some of its customer acquisition?

Enough speculation; let’s get back to cold, hard percentages. Among the September catalogues, 42.5 percent promised no special offers at all. That’s a significant increase from 31.0 percent in August, though down slightly from 43.6 percent in July. As we get closer to Christmas, it might be interesting to wager how low the percentage of promotion-free catalogues will fall before the end of the year. My money’s on 20 percent: I predict that by December, four out of five catalogues will be touting some sort of discount, freebie, or other promotion. Your predictions?--SC