We Can Learn From The Sears Catalog – The First 2.0 Marketing Site

So, I recently returned from vacation – and while I was on the East Coast my wife and I visited Colonial Williamsburg.  Don't even get me started on what a cheese-fest that was and how it does NOT measure up to the Web site content (that's for a  different rant).  But I was intrigued by a comment one of the tour guides mentioned as we toured the town market.  As he demonstrated how heavy the homemade buckets were, he noted how difficult  it was to actually purchase and, more importantly, acquire new goods in the remote community. Whaddya mean no Starbucks drive-thru, and no Amazon one click purchase and delivery?   That's just not even human.But then I got to thinking about what the real "2.0" of marketing and commerce was back in those days – and I'm no historian, but I got to thinking about the Sears Catalog.  And as I started to look at its  history, the relevance to today's content marketing trends just amazed me.  It truly was the 2.0 marketing company of it's time.        

The Sears Catalog was started in 1888.  It was the perfect time for content marketing and commerce through what, at the time, was a brand new technology – mail order.  The westward explosion of population fueled by the Homestead Act (20 years before) meant there were large populations of people that needed a way to  purchase things remotely.  The U.S. postal system helped this by giving "special rates" to catalogs and introducing the "rural free delivery" system – which meant that for the first time catalogs could be delivered to the homes of people who lived in very remote areas (e.g. the sticks).  Quick Fun Fact to impress your friends: if you've ever wondered what the RFD in the television show Mayberry RFD stands for – that's what it is – Rural Free Delivery. 

    Anyway, By 1895, a mere seven years later – the Sears Catalog was more than 500 pages (most of our Web sites aren't even that big!!) and offered all kinds of different content including handwritten notes from the CEO, self-applicating-tests for eyesight and what kind of glasses you'd need, stories of how to use products, and more than 50 pages of customer testimonials.  50  Pages!! 

As the century wrapped up, Sears did a number of innovative things in the catalog some of which will sound so very familiar today.  They offered special deals through the catalog and started asking for direct customer feedback.  They started inviting people to come to the Sears Headquarters and take a tour. And, maybe most interestingly, they started inviting people to "pool" their desires with their friends and family as "club order programs".  This would enable groups of customers to combine their orders and receive a significant discount.  Hmmmm… Anybody feeling entreprenurial? How about a Web 2.0 Social Networking Ecommerce Mashup anyone?  Anyone? 

But the magic of the Sears Catalog wasn't breadth.  The magic was the catalog's ability to reach the rural American with good content, spoken in plain language in a friendly way – and with plenty of customer testimonials.  It was, as Time Magazine said in 2001, the catalog's "resolute, unswerving squareness that constituted the big book's greatest charm and its lasting value as a  record of middle-class American life." 

That's what made it an iconic piece of the American landscape.  In short, a retail sales catalog became known across the country as "The Farmer's Bible" or "The Nation's Wish Book" or just simply "The Big Book".  

Can you imagine your content Web site today commanding such respect? 

It's slightly ironic that the print catalog ended in 1993, anachronistic to be sure, and just  prior to the rise of the Web. 

But consider for a moment a study that just came out from Hitwise saying that "content driven web sites receive 73% more traffic than transactional ones."  Now, the research only covers Internet visits in the UK, and I haven't found a US equivalent – but I would bet the trend is true in the U.S. as well.   

Hitwise found that looking back three years (2006) that "transactional sites" accounted for about 5% more visits than content driven sites.  In other words, three years ago, e-commerce sites were getting more visits than content sites.  But over the last three years, content has exploded and  traffic has jumped over to content sites considerably – now generating 73% more traffic. 

Okay, so no surprise right?  We're all spending much more time on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter  etc… And, with shopping tools like epinions.com, Pricegrabber, Shopping.com and Froogle –  finding the best deals is just that – a search and retrieval exercise. 

But consumer attention to content is more than just watching cats play piano, getting poked and Mafia Wars.   It's research and education before purchase.  The explosion of content and use of social networks to segment it (what Clay Shirky calls publish then filter) makes it easier and easier to do  research on *anything* prior to purchase.  And it makes it imperative that OUR content, or content generated by OUR customers be at least part (if not ideally most or all) of the research that fuels that decision. 

We can learn alot from the "Big book" that differentiated a brand for more than 100 years.  A  focus on useful content delivered to our audiences and a commitment to that audience is what will win today's loyalty and trust. As Forrester says "we're all media companies now" and we can start to look at the trends that are becoming much more than just interesting discussions – but real markers in a shifting marketing landscape. 

So, what are these markers?  Well, okay here are seven.  These aren't the top seven, nor are they the only seven.  But hopefully they are seven mildly interesting markers that support this argument. If nothing else, they're great fodder for a business case presentation: 

1. Traffic to Content sites is outweighing transactional sites by more than 73% (Hitwise, 2009).
2. Word Of Mouth, Brand Websites, Consumer Opinions Posted and Editorial Content make up the top four content categories that consumers "completely" trust. (Nielsen, 2009)
3. 62% of consumers say that "web sites with user reviews" are the sources of info that they are "very likely" to use before making a decision on "entertainment". (Marketing Sherpa, July 2007)
4. 84% of marketers say that, by 2020, maintaining "customer trust" will become marketing's primary objective. 82% say that "collaboration with customers" will BE the new marketing. (1to1 Media survey of the 1to1 Xchange panel, April 2008)
5. Online sites lose up to 67% of consumers due to lack of online product information. (Allurent,  January 2008)
6. 83% of online shoppers would make purchases if sites offered increased interactive content elements.(Allurent, January 2008)
7. In Business to Business marketing, “White papers remain the most effective piece of marketing collateral." 86% of marketers found them moderately to highly influential in the purchasing decision,” (Eccolo Media study reviewed in B2B Magazine, January 2009). 

Whatever the case may be for focusing on Web content for consumers and our marketing – remember one other thing.  The Sears Catalog was ultimately undone by economics and change in tastes.  As the country moved into specialty shops, and niche oriented boutique brands – the idea of a 1,500 page catalog offering… well.. everything… seemed dated.   And one wonders if an organization like Amazon will ultimately face the same set of risks.  But that's a different blog and a different set of questions.     

Right now, as marketers of our own products and services, we should focus on creating that trust, loyalty – and ultimately value with our consumers.  And if we can create the same level of value with our content, and trust in our products and services for even a quarter of the time that the Sears Catalog did, we will have done a very big thing indeed. 

Now if Kenmore would just make a blogging tool….