The Playbook: A Missing Element

Here's our playbook.

You, of course, are a play caller. You make decisions. You have a playbook with all sorts of "plays".

Those of you in old-school cataloging ask a common question.

• "If we didn't have a catalog, we wouldn't have anything to say. How do we close that gap?"

Yeah, there's a missing element for those folks ... an element that (some) ecommerce brands possess.

The missing element?

Events.

You just watched the Super Bowl a few days ago. That, ladies and gentlemen, is an "event". The entire football calendar is built around events.

Events can be sales, but they should be more than sales. Customers don't care about your MARCH SALE - HURRY, 50% OFF PLUS FREE SHIPPING when the customer knows that a month later there will be an APRIL SALE - HURRY, 50% OFF PLUS FREE SHIPPING. Those are events by definition only.

The old-school cataloger essentially had monthly events ... a catalog delivered to a mailbox. Take the catalog away and there is a void.

The void must be filled ... with events.

Here's Olive and Cocoa (click here). That's a business based on events ... they don't have to create events because the entire business model is based on events.

You remember Amazon? Prime Days? Yes, there is a price component to that ... but not all prices are cut, and it isn't a sale with a blanket 30% off everything.

Williams Sonoma has virtual events (click here) to complement in-store events. How hard is it to create virtual events?

The catalog is going to go away (for my catalog-centric readers) - your partners are going to increase costs to unmanageable levels ... it has already happened and will continue to happen. You will replace catalogs with events. You have no choice.