Determining the effect of catalog mailings on retail and Internet sales is the bane of many a multichannel marketer’s existence. But since October, when it began beta-testing Web-based sales tracking system ChannelView, hunting and fishing supplies marketer Bass Pro Shops has found the task much easier.
Using ChannelView, from Broomfield, CO-based co-op database provider Abacus Direct, Bass Pro found that of its fall/holiday retail and Web sales, almost 34% had some connection to its catalog mailings. These customers either brought their catalogs in to Bass Pro stores or placed orders on Bass Pro’s Website after having received the print book, says president of direct marketing Ron Ramseyer.
Bass Pro uses the system to track all sales placed by customers who received its catalogs — “or any channel that can be connected to a source code,” Ramseyer says. Users can update their ChannelView sales data daily.
For instance, Bass Pro captures telephone numbers with most of its store transactions, Ramseyer says. “Then nightly, we have those numbers reverse-appended to names and addresses.” By inputting such data in to the system via ChannelView’s Website, the $325 million-plus marketer can adjust circulation for subsequent mailings, making sure to send catalogs to customers who used them to make purchases through other channels.
Springfield, MO-based Bass Pro has built up its retail business during the past several years to encompass 14 stores — some as large as 180,000 sq. ft. — that draw customers from a 150-mile radius, Ramseyer says. Though the company’s catalog sales have been flat in recent years as its retail and Web channels have taken off, the print books have remained an effective support mechanism for the stores. But Bass Pro previously didn’t have any way to prove that the books were driving store traffic, Ramseyer says, as its internal systems could not make connections between channels as quickly as ChannelView can.
“ChannelView can track our sales on a process basis, as part of a daily routine,” Ramseyer notes. “The information is more reliable, and it enables us to be more responsive.”
The program can also pull the databases that marketers keep for each marketing channel into one central depository, says Abacus Direct general manager Paul Imbierowicz. This also makes it easier for marketers to find retail or Web buyers who have been influenced by the catalog.
At press time, it was still too early for Bass Pro to gauge response from the catalog mailings prompted by the ChannelView reporting. Abacus Direct formally launched ChannelView in late January. Imbierowicz declined to cite specific cost information.