Formulating a B-to-B Catalog Mailing Plan, Part 2
During his presentation at last week’s MeritDirect Co-op in White Plains, N.Y., the list firm’s vice president of database strategy Dan Harding touched on key points regardng production and creative costs; all factors to be considered when setting up a B-to-B mailing plan. In this second part of a two-part series in this edition, he laid out six more tips.
7. Integrate page changes. Harding noted that modest page changes from edition to edition of catalogs can improve productivity compared to pages that don’t change. He suggested changing 6 percent to 10 percent of inside pages with each monthly catalog mailing to customers. Creative change costs generally increase total mailing costs by 2 percent to 8 percent, but usually deliver much larger gross margin increases. Effective changes include changing category sequences and creating two or three versions of each important product listing (at the same time) and alternating them from month to month.
8. Use incentives to lure new customers. Offer incentives to draw in new customers that are worth keeping — those that spend big or buy frequently, Harding said. Consider such incentive offers as free shipping, 10 percent to 20 percent off everything, $10, $20 or $30 off total order, or 15 percent off first orders plus $40 off second orders that are placed within 90 days.
9. Improve reorder frequency & AOV. The average order frequency for B-to-B is 12 months, Harding said. To help improve upon this, offer an incentive to reorder within four months. Renotify customers with this offer every 30 days or less. Also add relationship products with natural high usage and reorder rates (at least 100 different items), increase customer mailing frequency and send special e-mail offers based on previous orders. To increase AOV, Harding suggested putting impulse items and consumables near the order form and getting larger companies as customers.
