How do You Generate New Customers? Do the Math First! Part 2
In the second part of this series on tips for catalogers looking for useful ways to bolster their housefiles with prospect names, this week I examine the relevant metrics needed to evaluate an effective prospecting technique.
(For part 1, click here.)
Let’s discuss the concept of measurability — making sure the channels you choose for customer acquisition are analyzed and tested thoroughly before roll out. I implore you to seek the advice of qualified professionals to help you build break-even analyses and pro formas up front, and lifetime value analyses on the back end. While you’re likely to add a new channel that becomes a profit center, I’ve seen disasters happen when the numbers are ignored.
- Companies:
- Gilbert Direct Marketing
- People:
- 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.
