A Chat with John Economaki, Founder and President, Bridge City Tool Works

CS: Have you done anything then, toward new customer acquisition?

JE: Well, a little bit. We're doing a little bit of missionary work. I'm now starting to believe in computer-aided design programs. We're trying to get out there to designers. But then you still get down to the, "How's it going to get made?" question. There's just been a lot of erosion in the market. It's still fun though. We're doing some e-mail/Internet marketing, referral marketing, pass this on to a friend, viral marketing sort of thing, I guess you'd call it. We're not doing a lot in print any more. The flyers/books that we make, 80 percent of those go to buyers. The circ[ulation] is fairly small. The remaining 20 percent, we're try to get this prospect cell to work. Our best efforts have come from compiled lists. We work with Abacus, we're still able to prospect profitably with Abacus. We don't risk much anymore, though. I used to do a 5,000 name desk cell, and if the numbers came back black, I'd order 100,000. I didn't bother with all of those statistical significance rules. I wanted to grow fast, so I ignored a few best practices. And I think those were good decisions. It worked. But now I won't do it anymore.