Groundbreaking Survey Part of Big Package

In sitting down to write this month’s Editor’s Take, I first took a good look at all I’d just edited for the issue and man, not to take anything away from our other issues, but this one’s packed. Great tips to be had here throughout, great writers, veteran industry experts; it’s all here for you. Read this issue cover-to-cover, implement the million-dollar ideas that apply to you, and bingo, you’ll be ready to retire before you know it (kidding... well, sort of).

What I’m most pumped about, however, is the groundbreaking survey we conducted in late August in partnership with the La Crosse, Wis.-based multichannel marketing ad agency, Ovation Marketing (see IndustryEye). This is the first of four quarterly surveys we’ll be conducting jointly going forward. For the complete methodology, please turn to the survey.

I chose to use this space to give you two of the more revealing sets of results we got from this survey. We don’t have space for either of these in the main article because they’re both short-answer questions. So here are the questions and answers.

We asked, “How many more base (primarily all-new) catalogs do you have in the current year compared to last year?”

* 56 percent said 1 more;

* 26 percent said 2 more;

* 4 percent said 3 more;

* 0 said 4 more;

* 2 percent said 5 more; but

* 12 percent said more than 5.

(Mean: 2.02 more)

Why More?

Here’s the juicy part. Then we asked if you could explain why you increased the number of base catalogs this year. Here are some of the responses given (verbatim):

* more products, more market segment insight;

* increased volume;

* more prospecting;

* added a sale catalog;

* implemented a new contact strategy;

* identified new product segment;

* created a new catalog to focus on one specific product line;

* additional mailing opportunities;

* expanded product line;

* separated products that were previously in the same catalog into a smaller catalog to save on mailing costs;

* went from a B-to-C catalog with 40 to 50 items and added a B-to-B wholesale catalog with discount pricing for consumers and 60 to 80 items;

* to hit our housefile more often;

* created for a specific target market;

* to increase awareness/brand impressions;

* separated our two main product categories into different catalogs;

* more narrowly market-focused catalogs; and

* new catalog start-up program.

And Why Fewer?

Then we asked, “How many fewer base catalogs do you have this year compared to last?”

* 44 percent said 1 fewer;

* 25 percent said 2 fewer;

* 6 percent said 3 fewer;

* 0 said 4 fewer;

* 12.5 percent said 5 fewer; and

* 12.5 percent more than 5 fewer.

(Mean: 2.5 fewer)

Here are some reasons you gave for cutting back:

* not enough successful new products to warrant an additional book;

* we do more re-mails;

* reduced our frequency;

* cost and time to return;

* mailed too heavy last year; 2007 goal was to be more efficient without sacrificing too much demand;

* didn’t see a substantial increase in sales with more catalogs;

* insufficient new products to warrant new catalog; and

* decline in sales in our industry.

Again, I urge you to check out the other survey results in the IndustryEye section. There’s certainly plenty for all readers to learn from this, both B-to-C and B-to-B. Take a look at the “unabridged” version of all the results on our Web site.

Paul Miller, Editor-in-Chief

(914) 669-8391, pmiller@napco.com