Five Ways to Make List Selects Work Harder for You

And for Lenexa, Kan.-based food cataloger Wolferman’s, it’s the traditional recency, frequency and monetary (RFM) value, along with gender, that tend to work best, according to Laura Brady, general manager.

Speaking of monetary value, ALC of NY’s Belardi explains that it pays to know precisely what you’re getting when it comes to catalog selects. “Dollar selects don’t always have the meaning you may think they’re going to have — especially if they’re based on cumulative purchases,” says Belardi. If you’re considering a dollar value or average order select, have your broker discern what the data really mean, she recommends. Oftentimes list owners maintain a cumulative average dollar select for each buyer, not a per-order dollar value, she says.