Calculating direct mail breakeven is critical because it’s a key metric when planning the circulation of a successful direct mail campaign. Start by using estimated costs to determine your initial campaign breakeven. Then create a preliminary circulation plan based on the projected revenue of each list segment. An increase in print quantity has the potential to lower your campaign breakeven. On the flip side, a...
Direct marketing is on the rise and it doesn’t show signs of slowing down. Customers appreciate targeted marketing more than ever. You can see this trend in the growing number of users turning on their adblockers; that number climbed to nearly 26% in 2018. But customers still enjoy sorting their mail and seeing offers that are targeted towards them. When our spam folders are overflowing, it’s...
In this ever more digital age, catalogs would seem like an outdated marketing strategy used by people in decades past. Yet, this could not be further from the truth. Direct marketing is, in fact, a key part of the consumer buying process. If used correctly, catalogs can be a highly effective tool for generating income and reaching out to new customers. Direct marketing print catalogs...
A popular discussion these days is how to compete with Amazon. Mega retailers with physical stores and/or well-designed ecommerce platforms often hold the best cards when working with their suppliers. Strong merchants in their own right, including leading apparel brands, often need mass merchants like Walmart and Amazon, to boost the volume sales and distribution of their products. In August, Amazon announced that its Marketplace...
Catalog co-op prospecting models have been around for a couple of decades. But if you haven’t considered them in a while, it might be time to take a new look. Most of the big co-ops have diversified and added digital prospecting programs to their list of catalog services. Who Should Try It? Your customer acquisition program has started to plateau (or even decrease) while acquisition...
Each year we recommend that catalog and ecommerce companies be prepared to test up to 10 customer prospecting ideas, with the understanding that only one or two might be home runs. Expect to have some failures and learning experiences along the way, and that’s ok. It’s important to test several ideas – even if some of them seem a stretch – because the goal is to...
There’s a marketing trend underway that's worth watching and trying if you're looking to grow brand awareness and acquire new customers. It's called micro influencer marketing. It can provide a new and valuable source for customer acquisition. Micro influencer marketing represents a way to work with small, but more authentic, influencers. Even Amazon.com just started a beta program recruiting them, according to TechCrunch. Read more....
Acquiring new customers at an acceptable cost is becoming a huge challenge for many catalog companies and eCommerce retailers. A common complaint among catalogers that are accustomed to leveraging co-op databases for low-cost prospecting is that their models are performing less effectively and response rates have decreased, driving up their customer acquisition costs. And even in digital marketing, brands have found that increased competition in...
Customer acquisition is the lifeblood of a catalog business. Without a steady inflow of new customers, how will you grow? In this digital world, competition is fierce. How do you grow your “hot prospect” customer file? In the world of Amazon Prime and competitive shopping, how can a cataloger compete? Today’s article focuses on three strategies to capture hot prospects. Next time, the focus will...
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