Melissa Rothchild

Recently we’ve begun using three test cells in our direct mail/catalog campaigns. We use a control piece, a test piece in a less expensive format and a test e-mail to see how many customers we can drive online. —Melissa Rothchild, senior director of marketing communications, B-to-B accounting products catalog CPA2Biz

Regularly benchmark your pricing policies against that of your competition and also within similar industries. Make modifications as needed. A small price increase or decrease can have a dramatic effect on your bottom line. —Melissa Rothchild, senior director of marketing communications, B-to-B accounting products catalog CPA2Biz

Regularly ask for feedback from your customers regarding your Web site. Invest in some kind of analytics to pay attention to where your customers run into problems on your site. Look at search logs. • Which searches return no results? • Where are your entry and exit pages? We do Web usability studies before any major Web enhancement. —Melissa Rothchild, senior director of marketing communications, B-to-B accounting products catalog CPA2Biz

The best tips often are small actionable ideas that come in large doses. Such was the case at the “50 Direct Marketing Tips in 50 Minutes” session at the recent List Vision conference in New York. What follows is a highlight reel of some of the most applicable tips for catalogers. 1. Segment your search engine marketing (SEM) offers by geographic region. “People from different places often benefit from a different user experience,” said Kevin Lee, founder and executive chairman of search engine marketing firm Didit.com. There are a lot of customer characteristics that correlate with geography, such as income level or psychographics. The