Strategy: Master the Analytics of Page Count

The idea of creating a smaller prospect book full of best-selling pickup items is appealing. You might think it saves money and in theory has little, if any, impact on performance. However, in practice, this usually isn’t the case. A catalog of best-sellers might perform so well that it counteracts the falloff due to a lower page count at first. But prospects tire of seeing pickups. When prospecting, you select many of the same names over and over. In fact, if you’re actively mailing prospects, some see your catalog as often as your housefile sees it. Therefore, it’s important to introduce new items to stimulate sales.