Lillian Vernon’s mail order business has grown from a black-and-white space ad to nine catalogs

By Alicia Orr , Editor In Chief and Catalog Success

With recent postal hikes, Vernon notes, “We are carefully reviewing our mailing lists to determine the best prospects to receive our catalogs on a regular basis. We don’t mail our catalogs indiscriminately. Our goal is always to mail smarter.”

Statistical models are used to determine which catalog titles to mail to whom. “We use overlay data, for instance, to help us decide, do they need children’s products,” Green notes.