Contributions to Profit: Plan for 2007, Part III
You can also place a welcome letter/offer in your product shipment in conjunction with your bounceback catalog. Or try including multiple product inserts for individual products. Tip: Gang print all your inserts to reduce expenses.
3. Bind it in. Bind a card with a coupon into the catalog between pages 2 and 3, or 4 and 5. You also get another great benefit, because the way the insert gets bound leaves a “tail” sticking out the other side of the catalog. So what? This is another great spot to place or reinforce an offer.
4. Blast it out. Another great place to stimulate future business is via e-mail. Try adding an offer to your order confirmation e-mails.
I recently purchased some software for my computer and got three separate receipt, shipping and delivery confirmation e-mails. A great opportunity to present a cross-sell offer was missed by providing only this confirmation information. They easily could have put a complimentary product offer in these e-mails. That same company has a music download division that always offers me three cross-sell choices—based on my purchase behavior—with my e-mail receipt. Maybe the software and the music division should compare notes.
Catalog Alerts
5. Teasers and chasers. Postcards and e-mails can be used before and after a catalog mailing to stimulate business. Test these to see if you can get a response boost from your catalogs. Send a special offer before a catalog mails to your customers. Get more mileage out of a catalog mailing by sending an offer a few weeks after the catalog has hit and the order curve is on a downward trajectory.
6. Loyalty programs and differentiation. Loyalty programs have become the norm in the catalog business. If you don’t have one, create one now. The easiest loyalty program to develop is points-based—the more items your customers purchase, the more points they receive toward future purchases.
Jim Gilbert has had a storied career in direct and digital marketing resulting in a burning desire to tell stories that educate, inform, and inspire marketers to new heights of success.
After years of marketing consulting, Jim decided it was time to “put his money where his mouth was" and build his own e-commerce company, Premo Natural Products, with its flagship product, Premo Guard Bed Bug & Mite Sprays. Premo in its second year is poised to eclipse 100 percent growth.
Jim has been writing for Target Marketing Group since 2006, first on the pages of Catalog Success Magazine, then as the first blogger for its online division. Jim continues to write for Total Retail.
Along the way, Jim has led the Florida Direct Marketing Association as their Marketing Chair and then three-term President, been an Adjunct Professor of Direct and Digital marketing for Miami International University, and created a lecture series, “The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing,” which he has presented across the country at conferences and universities.
