Slingsby magalogue works it

By now we’re all familiar with the magalogue format. Part magazine, part catalogue, the magalogue’s aim is to sell through engagement. As Sean King, chief executive of customer publishing agency Seven Squared once told me, “owning your own media—magazines, websites, blogs, Twitter feeds—is an effective way of reaching and engaging with customers, existing and potential,” something a catalogue alone cannot do.

By that token, there is no reason why a magalogue should be the preserve of consumer brands. DIY giant Kingfisher, for example, launched a customer magazine in January called Trade Talk. The publication, created by John Brown, is distributed to customers via Screwfix's trade counters and at TradePoint counters within B&Q’s stores.

Most recently I received a copy of Slingsby’s Work-it magalogue. Landing on my desk in April, Work-it combines the workplace equipment provider’s seasonal items, including spring cleaning items and outdoor equipment, with features and news articles.
Slingsby says it will produce the 64-page publication twice a year and feature supplier and customer interviews, buying guides, tips, ideas, news articles and, of course, product. The first issue contains six interviews, special offers, competitions, product reviews, and health and safety advice. According to Lee Wright, Slingsby’s marketing director, the first issue was circulated to a wide range of customers across a variety of industries. So far, he says, “response has been fantastic and we are delighted with the feedback we have received.”

Creating editorial content is much more than including a competition or publishing a recipe, something Slingsby seems to appreciate. It appears to have worked hard to create a publication that warrants a second and third flick-through. There are tips on site maintenance, a case study on Slingsby customer and engineering firm WFEL and an interview with the chief executive of the British Institute of Facilities Management. My favourite feature was the “To-do board”. Designed to look like a cork noticeboard, the spread on pages 24 to 25 has tips on the most important jobs of the season—pest control, road maintenance, outdoor furniture, and drains maintenance. A handy reminder for readers, it’s also a perfect way to showcase commodity products that customers may not have associated Slingsby with. I also liked the feature on health and safety in the workplace detailing all the regulations with which businesses must comply—a feature that can be kept for future reference.

Work-it is a very comprehensive magalogue, with plenty going for it but there are also improvements to be made. Slingsby uses Feefo to gather customer feedback online, and featured a spread of reviewed products. I would have liked more to be made of this as the idea seemed a little half-baked. For example, for the £97.05 air cooler, the Work-it magalogue included 103 words of descriptive copy, compared with only 11 words of customer review. For the next edition, I’d like to see Slingsby print the entire customer review. After all, it’s commonly accepted that people trust other people’s opinions more than they trust sales copy. I would also like more “good, better, best” features. Slingsby included a “compare it” column on the same spread as the feedback, which in my opinion could be much improved and used more often throughout the publication. I’d like to see real-life examples as to why a particular item costs £200 more than a similar model and some pros and cons so that users can make a truly informed choice.

Evidently, this is an ideal vehicle for Slingsby to demonstrate its expertise in facilities management. And if it can work for that sector, it could work for any business-to-business merchant. There’s plenty of scope for an educational supplies cataloguer, for example, to produce a magalogue with the latest on the curriculum, interviews with recognised professionals in the sector, and ideas on “back to school”. A supplier of hair and beauty products to salons could use the format to create seasonal magalogues, such as hair and beauty at wedding season, or a summer special with advice on tanning or waxing. An IT products supplier has the potential to feature hints, tips and tricks of the trade to get the most out of the hardware it sells, plus expert advice and how-tos for specific IT projects--the opportunities are surely endless. I look forward to seeing all your magalogues very soon.--MT

April Catalogue Log

Catalogue volume took a dive in April. The Catalogue Log tracked 83 catalogues last month, compared with 140 in March and 104 in February. I suspect the three bank holidays in April had something to do with it.

Nevertheless, the good news is that volume was almost double what we tracked in April 2009—when we logged a mere 42 catalogues—and more or less in line with April 2010, which recorded 96 catalogues.

The continuing trend for catalogues to feature more promotional front covers was evident in April. More than a third of catalogue covers promoted some sort of sale or discount. Although this was significantly lower than March and April, the figure is higher than we recorded in previous years—34.9 percent compared with 29.2 percent in April 2010 and 30 percent in April 2009. Among those using discounts to woo customers were apparel retailer Crew Clothing, which gave us 20 percent off everything, and vitamins and supplements mailer Higher Nature, which offered us 15 percent off our next order.

Free delivery was also marginally more popular in April 2011 than it was last year, with almost a fifth, or 16 catalogues, touting free shipping on the cover. Business-to-business marketers Staples Direct, Rajapack and Ironmongery Direct all offered their customers free next-day delivery. On the consumer side, clothing catalogues Hush and Pure Collection were among those to offer free delivery coupled with free returns.

Last month we also noted that 16.9 percent of catalogue covers offered a free gift with purchase. This is an appreciable increase on March, when only 10.7 percent of covers did so. Again, it was mostly offered by gardening and b-to-b catalogues, but we also saw sporting guns and shooting accessories cataloguer William Powell and apparel catalogue La Redoute use the tactic to encourage sales and/or higher average order values.

We noticed a trend for more magalogue-style mailings too. We’re getting quite accustomed to picking up customer magazines from merchants that have store networks, for example M&Co, New Look, Office or B&Q. Less common, as far as the Catalogue Log is concerned, is a b-to-b customer magazine. I think the reason we may not receive many b-to-b magalogues is that they are predominantly used as retention rather than acquisition tools. Because we’re less likely to purchase, say, building supplies on a regular basis, we probably don’t qualify to receive such a mailing. That said, we did receive a magalogue from industrial and commercial equipment cataloguer Slingsby in April.

The 64-page, glossy, perfect-bound magalogue titled Work-it features articles on health and safety in the workplace, a day in the life of one of its key staff, as well as product news and money-off vouchers. A more thorough review of the magalogue will be featured in an upcoming blog post. We’d love to know what Slingsby’s ROI is on the publication, because it’s certainly a great idea. Our favourite feature is the “To-do board”—but more on this later. --MT

April Catalogue Log

In terms of sales, discounts, and free delivery offers, April 2010 panned out much the same as April 2009. Of the 96 catalogues we received and logged last month, 29.2 percent (28 catalogues) promoted a sale or discount on the front cover compared with 30 percent in April last year. Free delivery was just marginally less popular in 2010, with 18.8 percent of covers promoting it, compared with one in five of all catalogues logged in April 2009.



Curiously, free gifts were much more popular in April 2010, and were promoted by 16.7 percent of all catalogues, compared with 12.5 percent the previous year. And it wasn’t just the usual—business-to-business—suspects touting a freebie: Organic cosmetics brand LoveLula offered free samples with every purchase; environmentally friendly goods purveyor Ethical Superstore sent customers who spent £40 or more a free bar of soap and apparel and homewares cataloguers Clifford James offered a free reading lamp to anyone placing an order of £40 or more.

One growing catalogue trend we’ve noticed in recent months is the shift to a more editorial style. We’ve written about the rise of the customer magazine—now known also as a magalogue—back in September (Getting engaged: The rise of the customer magazine), and noted that while editorial pages may not be selling product, they are still promoting the brand. We also featured two launches not so long ago: Loungewear cataloguer Hush and tech specialist Jigsaw both recently unveiled customer magazines with the aim of further engaging customers with their brand. During the Catalogue Log tracking in April, we came across at least three more catalogues that seemed to be heading in the same direction.

The first was MacSolutions from Cancom. On first impressions this could easily pass for a magazine—it is laid out with a title, issue number, and copy pointing to special features within. Once inside, the magazine theme continues—for example, on page 59, the Final Cut Studio software is given a full page and each of its functions broken down and explained in great detail. However, it’s also worth noting that nearly every one of MacSolutions’ 68 pages is a selling page. So it’s more buyer’s guide than magazine.

On the consumer side, April’s Catalogue Log recorded a mailing from catalogue group JD Williams. Together with its main catalogue we received JD Williams’ Summer 2010 Style Book. The Style Book was back for its second season, having debuted in autumn/winter 09. Its aim is to help JD Williams customers make fashion choices based on their body shape and the latest trends. For this edition it picked four “real people”, each with a different body type, to model clothes in the style that best suited them. There is also a fashion Q&A (with questions like “I have chunky upper arms, so hate the summer season when strappy tops come into fashion. I’ve tried short sleeves but always find these too tight. Can you solve this?”) and a centre-spread dedicated to building a capsule wardrobe on a budget. All the items featured are available to buy in the main summer catalogue.

Finally, the Little Book of Pests from Harrod Horticultural caught our attention. The name conjures up images of kids eating worms, but it’s actually a handy gardener’s companion helping Harrod’s customers to identify which pests have damaged their plants. The book is a veritable A-Z of nasty critters from ants to whitefly. What we like best is that Harrod Horticultural is using its knowledge of plants and their predators not only to help customers, but to advise them of the best remedies available, naturally, via the Harrod Horticultural catalogue. Although sadly I didn’t inherit my grandfather’s green thumbs, I can see this book having real staying power with customers; most likely lifting sales of pest-control products at the same time.

Through editorially led features, these cataloguers are establishing themselves as go-to sources for information, thereby increasing customer engagement. Home shopping businesses know it costs less to keep an existing customer than recruit a new one, and that lifetime value matters more than a quick win. So whereas a sale or discount may capture that bargain hunter, what April's Catalogue Log shows is that building customer loyalty is higher on the agenda.--MT

Third time’s the charm

We weren’t enamoured with Very’s catalogue or its website at all (see Doing less with more and Very ambivalent). And consequently we didn’t have high expectations of Very’s customer magazine either. So when it landed on my desk this week, I was pleasantly surprised.
The first 11 pages of the magazine are dedicated to introducing Very, its core values, reasons to join its shopping network, and the content you can expect from its contributors. I particularly like the way it spells out the benefits and advantages of shopping with Very on pages 6 and 7 and its emphasis on the word you—“gorgeous buys for you, your, family and your home”, “if you become an insider…” “Very customers like you can write reviews… share your online experience”. Not very subtle, but on target in positioning Very as a customer-focused “community”.
And where the Very catalogue failed in its salesmanship, the magazine excels. Unlike the catalogue, the Very magazine varies the pace and layout to actively sell the merchandise. Whilst product copy is still minimal, many spreads feature customer testimonials that add to the community feel Very is striving to create. The fashion spreads are nicely done and seem to hit the right balance between looking aspirational but affordable. Similarly, the “get the look” section in the home department looks to current trends to help customers update their homes without it costing an arm and a leg.
Granted there isn’t that much to read, the kids section for example would have benefited from more editorial, such as some suggestions for outdoor games, or a craft section to keep children occupied during the summer holidays. But already this is a huge improvement on the catalogue.
This is just the preview issue, we’re promised much more in September's “bumper” edition. If the magazine continues along this path, it looks set to become a handbag staple. Finally, it looks like Very got one of its social-shopping components Very right.—MT