How to Determine Your Catalog’s Break-even Point
That means it costs you nothing out-of-pocket to acquire a new buyer, which is highly unlikely. The cost of printing and mailing catalogs today, combined with lower industry response rates overall, makes it difficult to prospect above breakeven and still grow your business.
Limiting the amount of prospecting you do to those outside lists that are greater than the incremental BEP will obviously limit your growth. The lists that perform at or above the incremental BEP will be few. Typically, these are the lists with limited universes available for rollout or continuation. Again, an investment is required to grow your housefile.
- 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.
