Crisis Drives Innovation for Catalog Mailers

Specifically, co-ops are focusing on buyer optimization to squeeze the nonresponsive households out of housefiles. The co-ops are recognizing what catalogers have known for years: The housefile is the profit engine for catalogers, and they're vitally interested in keeping theirs in peak health.

* Abacus pushed catalogers to know and understand that gray zone of prospecting slightly below breakeven where the prospecting investment is paid back in six months to a year — what it calls “near-term value.”