B-to-B Insights: 3 Ways for B-to-B Retailers to Save Marketing Dollars … and 1 Way Not To
Page-count tests can be expensive and complicated to manage, so I'm not here to convince you to conduct one. However, reinstating a good old-fashioned square-inch analysis is in order. Hint: If your catalog is too big to conduct a square-inch analysis, it probably has too many pages.
If you don't have the time to conduct an analysis on a product level, run your analysis on the category level instead. Identify product categories that clearly aren't selling enough to justify their space. You now have a direction to follow when choosing which products to cut. Bringing in a third party to analyze your merchandise can help. If they don't know your sacred cows, they'll give an honest evaluation based on your metrics and not on who wants to keep a product in your catalog.
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A columnist for Retail Online Integration, George founded HAGUEdirect, a marketing agency. Previously he was a member of the Shawnee Mission, Kan.-based consulting and creative agency J. Schmid & Assoc. He has more than 10 years of experience in circulation, advertising, consulting and financial strategy in the catalog/retail industry. George's expertise includes circulation strategy, mailing execution, response analysis and financial planning. Before joining J. Schmid, George worked as catalog marketing director at Dynamic Resource Group, where he was responsible for marketing and merchandising for the Annie's Attic Needlecraft catalog, the Clotilde Sewing Notions catalog, the House of White Birches Quilter's catalog and three book clubs. George also worked on corporate acquisitions.
