Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Direct Mail, Catalogs, Amazon and Christmas lists from kids. Oh, and some thoughts on using nostalgia in your business.

Amazon-Proof Your Business➡️ https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Are you using nostalgia?

Hi, I’m Brian Pombo. Welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Today I wanted to talk about something I got in the mail. This if you have not seen one yet, is an Amazon.com Christmas catalog made specifically for kids.

At least it appears to be. It’s all it’s all kids toys and so forth.

As soon as I got it, it very much reminded me of something from my past. And it’s not accident. I can almost guarantee you it is not accident, even if it was accidental once they would have figured it out by now. Because I’ve heard many people say the same thing about this is depending on where you grew up, and then in the people you had in your family and everything, I had a grandmother still have a grandmother, who, but at the time when we were kids, she would get the Sears catalogs delivered.

I believe she had Sears and JC Penney’s, and they always had the toy version of it, or they had a toy section in the back of it. I believe it was in the back where all the toys were at.

And she said, Okay, go through this and circle everything that you want and market either with your color or is me and my sister were the two oldest grandchildren at the time, or the only grandchildren at the time.

She’d say, market with a B for Brian or a J for Julie, and or with our specific color, we’re using a highlighter or something like that. And then I’ll know that that’s what you want.

And it’s pretty easy to tell which ones the girl wanted. And the boy wanted in most cases, especially back then, that things were things were a little more distinct back then when it came to catalog toys.

But it was all the same stuff that you’d find in the stores or anything else. But it’s not necessarily that she ordered it from Sears, although most of the time she did, I think.

But that enjoyed that was more exciting than Christmas itself. It’s a pre made Christmas list. You’ve got all the toys, right sitting stuff you never knew even existed. And you’re sitting there, oh, I want that, oh, I want that.

And just the anticipation was huge.

Amazon’s jumped on this bandwagon. And there’s a whole lot of interesting things. If you’ve I believe I’ve brought this up last year, when they came out with one. And I think this may go to prime users. But I let me know if it went to you also, this is current resident.

So I think they’re going pretty far and wide with this and it’s all kid stuff. It’s all toys, action figures, dolls, games, you know, all the Hot Wheels and all that stuff.

My kids were going nuts. As soon as they saw that it was here. And I said, No dad gets to use it first for tonight’s video and then then they can go through it and tear it up.

And it’s even got, it’s pretty clever. They’ve got like stickers and stuff that you can take and put on the different pages or use to, you know, graffiti your household, which is what happens in my house.

And, you know, all ages are really young, young type and everything. So that’s the style job. This isn’t for the kids. Yes, it’s for the kids. But it’s also for the parents that went through that era, where we would circle things in a catalog.

It’s a paper catalog in a time of digital marketing. Don’t forget that Amazon is one of the top dogs out there. And they are putting out paper catalogs, in mass.

They’re sending these things out there. They have to work. Okay, so one thing, don’t ever forget that direct mail still exists and still works. Don’t ever forget that paper catalogs still exist and they still work.

There’s a number of large e-commerce companies that put out paper catalogs that swear by them. And if you’re doing it to your buyers, you’re going to get a good response off of it almost guaranteed.

Having a physical item, in addition to what you’re offering digitally, makes a huge difference. And if you’re able to tap into nostalgia, tap into what families are already into traditions that are already there into holidays and so forth that are already built in nostalgia, they’re already stuck in our heads and you go with use that to your profit, hey, more power to you.

That’s what these guys are doing. Just realize they’re doing it to you too.

And that if you want to communicate with people, you got to get past the conversation going on in their head and sometimes that conversation is, 20, 40 years old.

So consider that when reaching out and using marketing of all types. Physical print still works, and it works through snail mail. So just a quick idea.

If you’re looking for kind of larger, that’s a tactic really, that’s really a conversation of tactics. But if you’re looking for larger strategies that you could use in your business, let’s talk about ways you could defeat Amazon ways that you can survive even being the little guy.

9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. This book right here, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, is a new book. You go get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com. We’ll be back here tomorrow night. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.