Don’t pull back too much or you’ll regret it

By Steven Lett

1. Mail Internet Buyers
You can mail your zero- to 12-month catalog buyers with much success; they’re the heart and soul of your housefile. But the same may not hold true for the zero- to 12-month, one-time Internet buyers.

The lifetime value of an Internet buyer is often not as great as that of a catalog buyer, because a large percentage of online buyers never make a second purchase. They often search the Internet for specific gifts or other items and aren’t always “shopping,” per se. So test eliminating these one-time/first-time buyers from your circ plan. Key code and mail them as a group, track the results, and see how they perform after you do a matchback.