Catalog Doctor: How to Grow Your Small Business This Year
Likewise, don't assume all growth has to come from what's new. Improvements in existing programs can deliver big dividends like these:
- Top sellers: Are you making a big enough deal out of your best products? You may be tired of them, but new prospects — and yes, old customers — will deliver higher sales when you drive home the great features and benefits of those products in an attention-grabbing way.
- Design: Are you keeping current with what's pleasing and scannable to your customers? Here's where the results of your "magazines I read" survey can pay off.
- Circulation: Have you examined your mail plan lately, or are you rerunning an "old rules" plan? Take a close look at best times and best frequencies. Work aggressively with your prospect list provider to improve selects and models.
Big or small, growth opportunities abound if you look closely. Good luck.
Susan J. McIntyre is Founder and Chief Strategist of McIntyre Direct, a catalog agency and consultancy in Portland, Oregon offering complete creative, strategic, circulation and production services since 1991. Susan's broad experience with cataloging in multi-channel environments, plus her common-sense, bottom-line approach, have won clients from Vermont Country Store to Nautilus to C.C. Filson. A three-time ECHO award winner, McIntyre has addressed marketers in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, has written and been quoted in publications worldwide, and is a regular columnist for Retail Online Integration magazine and ACMA. She can be reached at 503-286-1400 or susan@mcintyredirect.com.
