Attention Internet Marketers, Start up Your Catalog Engines Like This…
Voila, you’re now in the catalog business. Chances are, you’re making a small profit on your bounceback catalog and your catalog request mailings.
3. Mail your catalog to customers who’ve purchased from you in the past six months, or if you’re more brave, mail the past 12 months of buyers. Sort out your buyers by three-month increments, and again by one-time buyers and multibuyers (those who’ve ordered more than once). Analyze the results. Each segment should be profitable.
4. Next, add some list rentals to the picture. You do this once you find lists that have the right affinity to your customers. And the truth is, the cost to add more catalogs to your print run is inexpensive compared to the setup of your initial run. Assume your housefile will absorb the costs of producing the catalog. In other words, the housefile and bouncebacks have to cover the initial creative development expenses. Then calculate what your break-even point per catalog mailed would be if it didn’t have to cover the creative — only the incremental costs of printing the additional list-rental catalogs.
Once you do the break-even math, you’ll know exactly what response rate you’ll need to break even on an incremental basis. If you’re not sure how to calculate your breakeven, e-mail me and I’ll shoot you an Excel template.
5. Congrats. You’ve just entered the catalog business in four steps. Here’s the fifth step, the icing. Add the catalog channels into your marketing mix and you’ll likely see an increase in your customer lifetime value.
Multichannel shoppers have been proven to spend more money and purchase more often! Good luck!
Speak to you next week,
Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing, a full-service catalog and direct marketing agency. You can reach him at jimdirect@aol.com or 561-302-1719.
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- Jim Gilbert
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.
