CBA Industry Blog

The Down "Lo"

Hi. For those of you who haven’t met me yet, I’m Lauren. Lauren Anne Zaczek to be precise. Yes, that is how you spell my last name. No, that is not how you pronounce it. Phonetically it is zay-check, just like a paycheck.

Most days though I’m just plain Lo.

As the idealistic whipper-snapper in the office, I typically make it my job to have the down “Lo” on just about everything happening everywhere. I’m the nerd who plays Jeopardy for fun, has my homepage set to CNN so I can always know the latest headlines, and probably bores most people with the random trivia I know like the largest movie theater ever built in the US is Radio City Music Hall and when it opened in 1932 it had 5,945 seats.

If it wasn’t apparent from that last tidbit, I love the film industry, particularly the Christian film industry. I also write a lot of the DVD reviews for CBA’s magazine Retailers+Resources. You can pretty much guarantee that if there’s something cool going on in the Christian film world, I already know it or will want to know about it.

My generation has grown up living vicariously through films, and lives dramatically change because of this medium. To quote a producer and friend, “Movies are the ultimate form of entertainment. They can be watched both individually and collectively, and with recent technology advancements, films are everywhere all the time.”

And movies are powerful – they blend dialogue, moving pictures, music, and hopefully strong messages that transform lives.

So when I read Greg Holland’s CBA CROSS:SCAN newsletter the other day, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. According to CBA’s CROSS:SCAN data and excluding Bible sales, the #1 best-selling DVD of 2007 sold more units than the #1 best-selling book of 2007.

Does this mean we should stop selling books? Absolutely not. Does this mean we should evaluate how effective our entertainment departments are? Absolutely yes.

Here are a few questions to get you started: Do I know what my customers are watching? Do I have what they want to watch? Do my customers think of my store as the ONLY place to purchase family and faith-based entertainment?

Like we said when we launched this blog, we want it to be a tool to serve and empower you to be successful. Hopefully you’re a little bit more empowered now that you know the down “Lo”.

To learn more about Greg Holland’s CBA CROSS:SCAN newsletter and how it can add to your store’s success, email Eric Grimm. To learn how you can benefit from CROSS:SCAN, email Tammy Horvath. Know something I don't know? Email me.

Have Blog, Will Link

In an effort to create a convenient hub of information on the Christian Retail Channel and a strong community for you, we’d like to solicit the fellow bloggers out there to include a link to your blog on ours.

Send all pertinent info to Lauren at lzaczek@cbaonline.org.

Thanks!

Being Jesus in Retail Ministry

If you missed CBA’s Industry Conference, let me give you a little comparative insight based on recent customer findings from Border’s, as reported in the National Retail Federation’s Stores magazine. The $4.1 billion bookseller found customers who say they’re interested in sales and promotions are less likely to buy than those who want richer content, such as author interviews and book excerpts.

Borders studied responses to offers it its loyalty-program newsletters. While newsletter offers did create store traffic, consumers who came in with coupons were 31% less satisfied and 13% less likely to buy something compared to those who wanted content. The study’s conclusion: Bargain hunters aren’t brand loyal and people looking for something special in the store tend to be more loyal and less price sensitive.

While that’s not really news, for a big-box bookseller to say that today really reinforces what the CBA conference was all about. Specialty retail – which includes Christian stores in the grand retail milieu – are poised for resurgence because consumers are looking for something that relates to them, their desire for special experience, and their personal interests, values, and needs. It’s not all about price and transactions; it’s about store experience, relationship, and serving customers’ needs in relevant ways.

Doesn’t that sound Christ-like?

Who could do that better than Christian stores? What came from the conference speaker platform is hope for stores who better engage their customers and create experiences that can’t be duplicated elsewhere.

How does that happen? Some of it depends on the creativity and innovation of retailers who know their customers, some of it depends on allowing customers to help co-create the experience and the products through store engagement, and some of it requires better communication, coordination, and understanding between retailers and their supplier trading partners.

Speakers presented case studies of successful retailers who discarded the traditional and routine to bring expectations of surprise, quality, unique products, overboard service, and personal interaction.

What’s surprising about your store? How do customers feel when they visit? One of the speakers, a self-proclaimed Christian mother, said she doesn’t visit her local Christian store anymore because she felt intimidated by the language and expectations put on her.

So I guess the question is: How do you be like Jesus in a retail ministry?

Welcome to CBA's Industry Blog

Well, hello there. You found us. We’re glad you ventured into the blogosphere to join us in this endeavor known as the CBA Industry Blog. We hope you make it a habit.

Like the name claims, this is the blog for the CBA Industry – the place where it’s all happening, where progress is made, and where the industry speaks.

On a ridiculously regular basis we’ll post information, blurbs, opinions, tactics, thoughts, words, pictures, puzzles, videos, anything really that is helpful to you – our members. We’ll raise issues, question the answers, work to provide solutions, and always ask for your input.

If you think it’s great, let us know. If you think it’s not great, let us know. We’re beyond excited to serve you through this blog, but we also need to know if we’re serving you well. This is your forum just as much as it is ours.

Also, you’ll notice we already have a few posts up. These are from the Industry Conference blog. We’ve simplified things for you so you only have to go to one web site now to get all the information you need.

As time goes by and more posts accumulate, be sure to check out the category links on the right side. These will help you get a sense of what we’re blogging about and how to find information you need.

So, now that we’ve established the ground rules, you should get to know the bloggers. In no particular order, they are:

Eric Grimm, CBA’s Retail Technolog & Strategy Manager

Kathleen Samuelson, CBA’s Publications Manager

Scott Graham, CBA’s Meetings & Expositions Director
Lauren Zaczek, CBA’s Business Development Coordinator
Curtis Riskey, CBA’s Strategic Solutions Executive

This blog has been a labor of love. We hope you will love our labor.

So what have you done that's new?

It's been ten days since we left the Marriott in Indianapolis. Since then I've had four canceled flights, two lengthy delays while sitting in O'Hare airport, and one extra night spent in the Chicago Hyatt Place McCormick. I LOVE travel.

So how's your last ten days been? Hopefully, WAY better than mine!  :)

Ten days. Plenty of time for you to start to implement at least ONE of your Action Items from the Conference. What did you do? I'm very interested to know.

And if you haven't launched anything... well, don't wait! You invested valuable time, money, and energy to attend the conference. Get started now!

And as promised, I will be holding a teleconference next Monday for those who attended the conference, February 18, at 5:00 ET (2:00 PT). I will be doing a little follow-up presentation, short but sweet, leaving most of the time for talking with you. I want to hear about what you've done to get started and what new ideas you've come up with. I also want to answer any questions you might have for me. Those who attended the conference received an email invitation with the teleseminar information. If you attended the conference and did not receive it, please email marketing@cbaonline.org for details of the event.

Mark it on your calendar! I'll talk with you again next week!