Database Marketing

During the past 10 years, the catalog industry has continued to evolve in dynamic ways. For example, if you’re like most of your colleagues, you’re struggling to find incremental names to mail. You’ve seen cooperative databases take the prospecting market by storm, accounting for millions of names rented every year. And you’re trying to more efficiently integrate e-commerce into your marketing and communications plans, especially since the Internet accounts for 20 percent to 50 percent of demand and orders for many catalogers. Despite these marked changes in how you accept orders and acquire customers, one thing remains the same: how to correctly

Next year, postage rates are expected to increase from 13 percent to 20 percent. This will be the first increase since mid-2002. It’s important to spend the next 12 months preparing to absorb an increase of this magnitude. Don’t wait until the increase is in effect before deciding what to do. Now is the time to begin making adjustments. Following are 10 cost-savings tactics to try. Action Steps 1. Look at your catalog trim size. If yours is a pound-rate catalog (i.e., weighs 3.3 ounces or more), a slight reduction in your book’s physical trim size will reduce your postage (and paper) costs.

Expert evaluation of catalog mailings was problematic in the past, but mostly just for those few catalogers who had retail stores. That’s not the case anymore. Now virtually every catalog company is multichannel as customers increasingly use the Internet to place orders. The result often is a haphazard online collection of key codes. In this article, we’ll examine the problems with traditional campaign analysis and how you can use a matchback between orders and mail files to substantially overcome these issues. The Problems With Traditional Factored Allocations While unattributable orders usually have been in the range of 10 percent to 20 percent, now

If you think you’ve done all you can to improve the success rate of your list selections, you should stop reading right here. But if you suspect there’s more to be done, try database modeling. It’s a tool that can benefit nearly every catalog in terms of fine-tuning list selections — both on housefiles and outside lists. Here are five tactics to consider for boosting the effectiveness of modeling: Tactic #1: Recognize which kind of models can be most useful for you and will give you the biggest bang for the buck. According to Bryce Connors, director of the Consulting Services division for

Here’s how to answer those questions. Prospecting for new buyers enables you to maintain a set level of revenue from year to year and grow your business. In simple terms, if you stop prospecting, sales and buyer counts will decline. It’s important to prospect at least to a level that will maintain your 12-month buyer count. And if you want to grow your business, you have to prospect for even more. As you know, it’s difficult to achieve incremental break-even prospecting given today’s cost structures and response rate levels. So, when is the best time to prospect in order to maximize

In an era of computerization, it’s easy to imagine that all your competitors’ tasks are fully automated. Such a thought can make you, an individual cataloger, feel a bit embarrassed about your many manual tasks. But no matter how many computers you buy, you’re still going to find yourself forced to manually perform certain tasks simply because cataloging comprises many activities with ever-changing components that resist computerization. But manual tasks don’t mean inefficiency. One key to profitable cataloging is knowing how to perform manual tasks well. “Congratulations! You’ve paralyzed every phone in the company!” A national gift cataloger (that also has

Catalogers have historically relied on outside prospect lists to generate new buyers. But it’s becoming more difficult to find good lists and thus, fresh prospect names. Moreover, list universes are flat or declining. Consider alternative methods of generating new buyers. Insert media, for example, can provide a cost-effective way to generate incremental catalog business. Of course, insert media can’t replace the use of outside rental lists. But it’s wise to test other ways of attracting new buyers. This month, I’ll discuss what insert media is, the best strategy for testing it and what results you can expect. Insert media encompasses the forms

This article will give you a basic understanding of how housefile statistical models work. Additionally, it will show the various ways a marketer unfamiliar with statistical models can provide input to the development process to optimize model performance. It seems there’s a word for every type of phobia known, including “triskaidekaphobia,” which is a fear of the number 13. Yet I was surprised I couldn’t find a word for the fear of statistics — indeed, “statisticaphobia” is a word that really should exist. From experience, I know that catalog marketers without backgrounds in statistics often are ill at ease when participating in model-development

Few catalogs make money on first-time buyers. Ultimately, the profitability of a new buyer depends on his or her lifetime value (LTV) to your company. Catalogers tend to evaluate lists based on the first sale. You compare the results against an incremental break-even point and determine if that particular list will be mailed again. That is, some catalogers take a short-term view to a long-term opportunity. It’s the value of a new name over time that’s important. LTV helps you determine how much you can afford to invest in a new buyer, looking beyond his or her initial purchase. For example, you can

Problem: Massage Warehouse was receiving delivery fines from shipping companies and returned packages due to incorrect customer address data. Solution: The company implemented QAS’ software to validate addresses using U.S. Postal Service (USPS) data. Results: Delivery surcharges dropped by 63 percent, staff productivity significantly increased, and customer satisfaction grew due to faster delivery times. When both delivery surcharges imposed by shipping companies and the number of returned packages began to rise due to incorrect address formats, Massage Warehouse realized it needed to adjust its customer address data management. For example, the difference between “Strt.” and “St.” as an abbreviation for “Street” was costing the