The Experience Equation

Your creative and merchandise teams need to work together to understand this dynamic and then brainstorm techniques that will bring this sort of relevancy alive online and in your catalog. Ideally your marketing team should have subscriptions to relevant periodicals or should watch niche cable shows to understand the current culture of your market segment.

Many mailers are squeamish about giving up a square inch of selling space to anything other than a product. The fear is understandable, but it can also hold your business back. In the catalog format, it's a matter of building spreads that engage, using copy and photographs that mirror attitudes and concepts important to your customer. Online, where space is not at a premium, it's about providing the information relevant to visitors, then guiding them to it, with search, tabs, drop-downs, and other tools.

Looking internally to clearly define and consistently present your merchandise concept and brand, then adding the external factor of what's relevant to your customers results in an opportunity to create a buying experience for customers. And by creating a memorable experience, you will differentiate your company from the competition as well as engage your customer's heart and retain his loyalty.

As a formula, “(M + B) + R = experiential selling” may seem simple enough, but few multichannel merchants spend time trying to achieve this concept outside of their store channel. It takes a conscious effort on the part of the entire marketing team to understand the formula and, even more important, to develop a logical creative plan that you can execute consistently in your catalog and on your Website.

Recommendation: With every season or marketing event, all stakeholders should bring their collective research, get together, and discuss how to achieve and execute techniques that will engage, entertain, and create a shopping experience for customers.

Below are two examples of catalog/online merchants that understand the concept of experiential selling and put the aforementioned formula into practice. Each sells a different experience, relevant to their customers' needs and desires.

	SPIEGEL

It's immediately obvious that Spiegel has reinvented itself and understands its marketplace. The company's catalog and online presence almost mirrors what is presented in the popular fashion magazines its customers would read.

Instead of page after page of one garment after another, Spiegel shows how you can mix and match items or accessorize them to create multiple looks. It creates spreads with a specific theme (“Feminine Accents,” “Accessory Dressing”) even if it means reselling an item shown elsewhere in the catalog.

Spiegel also features its own celebrity designers telling you what is “hot” and fashionable and offering fashion tips, providing a service that is aligned with its merchandise concept. While all this may seem “editorial,” the catalog still understands the art of selling, with easy-to-find descriptive copy, options, and pricing.

Online, Spiegel continues this theme on its home page by telling you what the next “big thing” in fashion will be. Along the left-hand navigation column it uses fashion terms such as “collections,” and provides engaging prompts such as “Trend Watch,” “Reality Dressing,” “Fall's Top 50 Finds,” and “Stylist Advice,” terms also used in relevant magazines and cable shows. Customers can self-select what is important to them, creating an experience that meets their own unique needs and wants.

	IMPROMPTU GOURMET

This cataloger sells chef-inspired, already-prepared gourmet meals, but it also sells an experience. The tagline — “The Art of Dining In” — supports the merchandise concept.

In both its print catalog and its Website, Impromptu Gourmet uses creative techniques to help customers create their own special dining experience. Beautiful photographs showcase gourmet entrees, with the chefs offering advice on side dishes and appetizers in informative sidebars.

Impromptu Gourmet had started out offering complete meals for two, but research showed that customers were interested in creating their own menus — selecting the side dishes and appetizers themselves rather than having them preselected. Armed with this knowledge of what was relevant to their customers, the company developed spreads in which the chefs make core recommendations but customers create their own menus, from the appetizer and the entrée to the side dishes and the dessert. Everything is presented in an easy-to-use format so that customers are involved in the process, right alongside the chef.

The experience does not stop once the order is taken. The food arrives in a beautiful designer shipping container and includes a dining guide with information on wine selection, napkin folding, and plate presentation. Some packages even include a CD of dining music to complete the gourmet dining experience.

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Lois Boyle is president of J. Schmid & Associates, a catalog consultancy based in Mission, KS.