Create A Successful Circulation Plan
Circulation planning usually is broken into two planning components: house list and rentals. Let’s start with house list planning.
House List Circulation Planning
Step 1: Take the basic mailing information at the segment level (quantity mailed, orders received, gross sales for the year prior to the one you’re planning) and calculate the performance measurements: percent response, average order and dollars per book. If planning only one season, work from the books mailed in that same season of the prior year. So if you are planning July 2001 to December 2001, use the information from the same books July 2000 to December 2000. If you’re planning from books that aren’t yet 100-percent complete, forecast to completion, and use those numbers.
- Companies:
- Lett Direct Inc.
Steve Lett graduated from Indiana University in 1970 and immediately began his 50-year career in Direct Marketing; mainly catalogs.
Steve spent the first 25 years of his career in executive level positions at both consumer and business-to-business companies. The next 25 years have been with Lett Direct, Inc., the company Steve founded in early 1995. Lett Direct, Inc., is a catalog and internet consulting firm specializing in circulation planning, plan execution, analysis and digital marketing (Google Premier Partner).
Steve has served on the Ethics Committee of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and on a number of company boards, both public and private. He served on the Board of the ACMA. He has been the subject of two Harvard Business School case studies. He is the author of a book, Strategic Catalog Marketing. Steve is a past Chairman of both the Catalog Council and Business Mail Council of the DMA. He spent a few years teaching Direct Marketing at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
You can contact Steve at stevelett@lettdirect.com.
