A little more action: Holiday sales robust in 2009

The company, which specializes in hard-to-find favorite food gifts from different regions, tried a new approach to prospecting, Stone says. Instead of buying lists and mailing direct, it bought space — including the cover for one airline — in the in-flight airplane catalog SkyMall.

“This gave us access to many more potential customers than we would get if we did our own focused mailing,” Stone says. But she notes that “these folks were also not necessarily historically food-gift buyers, so that was a gamble.”

What's more, Foods Across America opted for SkyMall in lieu of printing and mailing its own catalog this past holiday season. “The spend for SkyMall was about 30% less than what we spent for our mailing for holiday 2008,” Stone says.

The company might have shown a higher conversion with a more conventional mailing to food-gift buyers, Stone admits. “But the chance to expose our products to such a great number of potential customers during the holiday season via SkyMall — which traditionally does not offer a lot of food in its catalog — was something we couldn't pass up.”

Foods Across America did step up its spending on public relations, “which got us coverage, such as inclusion in holiday gift guides, in a number of major publications,” such as Cooking Light, Everyday with Rachael Ray and Redbook, Stone says.

It was definitely a time for thinking outside the box to keep costs down while generating new business. And as has been the trend in recent years, many looked to the online channel for growth and innovation.

Gifts cataloger The Henry Ford saw its overall holiday catalog sales jump 20% year-over-year, with 40% of the growth occurring online. The company does not have a formal sales plan, but Terri Anderson, its senior director of national retail sales and licensing, attributes much of the success to the company's catalog design, unique product offerings and careful analysis of numbers.

The catalog, part of the U.S. history experience organization founded by auto pioneer Henry Ford, kept its print circulation the same and focused more efforts online. It had boosted its e-mail file 20% in the past year and embarked on a Google Adword search program; it also improved its organic searchability through more targeted copywriting.

The Henry Ford also incorporated new online technologies, such as adding a digital catalog, to further enhance the stories around its products, says its chief marketing officer Carol Kendra.

For example, it created an online video to showcase the elaborate process of making The Henry Ford's glass candy canes. “This video was then embedded in both the digital catalog and online store and posted to our YouTube channel,” says Kendra.

So with the worst of the recession behind us, merchants are looking to the next year with cautious optimism. That 2009 ended fairly decently for most retailers, says McMillan Doolittle's Stern, “is, hopefully, a sign of better things to come in 2010.”

But he adds that “there are still a number of tough macroeconomic factors, such as employment and housing, that continue to weigh the economy down.”

PENNEY GETS SOCIAL

It wasn't a banner season for J.C. Penney, as the retailer's total sales for December decreased 2.4%. But Penney did step up its social media efforts.

The merchant in November launched a gifting application on its Facebook page that allowed fans to share stories and browse gifts, which they could post on their wall, forward to friends or click through and purchase on jcp.com. “On our Twitter account, we sent out tweets on Black Friday and posted “Daily Deals” throughout the season,” says Penney spokesperson Tim Lyons.

Penney also unveiled a mobile commerce site this past season that allowed customers to browse its gift assortment, upload stories to the Facebook gifting application, find a store, and even register for a wake-up call on the day after Thanksgiving and day after Christmas.

The retailer also brought back its “Beware of the Doghouse” online campaign that allows women to put their significant other in the “doghouse” for bad gift choices. Along with a sequel to 2008's “Doghouse” short film, this year's site allowed users to visit BewareoftheDoghouse.com “and build a virtual ‘case’ against their bad gift-giver with written statements and imported photos, videos and witness testimony,” Lyons says.— JT

BUSINESS FLAT FOR B-TO-B MAILER

Wayside Technology, a distributor of software for engineers and other computer professionals, reports that fall/holiday sales were in line with company plans — that is, basically flat compared to the prior year. “Our focus on direct enterprise selling has increased, and that has helped level dips in consumer and small business sales,” says director of marketing Richard Bevis.

Although Wayside increased new customer prospecting via additional outside sales reps, its main thrust was driving business opportunities in current and dormant customers through sales outreach, e-mail and other programs.

Bevis says Wayside kept its Programmer's Paradise print catalog circulation flat, but the company introduced an e-catalog for its TechXtend value-added reseller business. “Unsurprisingly, we see our vendors focusing their marketing investment on our electronic, rather than print, programs,” he notes.

Since Wayside's customers are primarily businesses, it doesn't use any significant holiday promotions. “We did some limited e-mail promotions around gadgets for business gifts and saw some response for personal-use products — such as e-book readers and game consoles — that we would not normally expect to sell,” Bevis says.— JT