Thursday, September 26, 2013

B2B and B2C Merchants Still Count on Print Catalogs

Print catalogs are still an important marketing tool in the direct-to-customer sector, according to results from Multichannel Merchant's Outlook 2013 survey. In fact, more than half of respondents said their companies market products directly to consumers and businesses through a print catalog. Even more interesting, nearly half of those merchants said they planned to increase print catalog circulation in 2013. Besides relying on catalogs to drive sales, business-to-business and business-to-consumer merchants also reported using catalogs as a prospecting tool and a web traffic driver. For a copy of the survey report, go to http://multichannelmerchant.com/mcm-outlook/mcm-outlook-2013-catalogs-still-have-staying-power-01072013/#_

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Pinterest Pins Outlive Twitter, Facebook Posts

A pin on Pinterest has a useful marketing life that’s thousands of times longer than that of a tweet or Facebook post, according to a new study by Piqora. The marketing response tail of a pin can last beyond 30 days, while Facebook posts can become obsolete in hours and the value of a Twitter tweet may expire in minutes. That's good news for a brand like Sephora, which says its Pinterest followers spend 15 times more than its Facebook fans. More marketers are figuring out how to put Pinterest to work for them as well. Piqora also found that Pinterest virality, the rate of "repinning," increased 42% from the fourth quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2013, which Piquora sees as an indicator that marketers are getting smarter in their pin usage. See the article at http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/17/why-the-half-life-of-a-pinterest-pin-is-thousands-of-times-longer-than-a-tweet-or-facebook-post/