Almost two years ago, L.L. Bean began to move investments from infrastructure and staffing to prospecting and advertising. The results are just now coming in

By Reported Donna Loyle

“Previously, we were relying too much on our housefile for sales,” says Fuller. “But we learned that was a short-term solution at best.” Buyer fatigue set in and attrition soon followed. “We had to be out there with our marketing message in a broad-based way,” he notes. “One of the big lessons we learned was that customer retention at the expense of acquisition is only a short-term strategy.”