Front-Runner

Little Choice
It’s not as if Hodges Badge made the transition to a slim-jim format without any trepidation. While concerned the move could hurt response, Hodges says the company didn’t have a choice — increased postage rates were eating away at its margins.

On top of that, Hodges Badge Co. was unable to test-mail a segment of its housefile the new catalog to gauge response efficiently enough, Hodges laments. At $14 million in sales and circulation of less than 400,000 catalogs last year, the company’s size is a liability in this case. With only a 25,000-book mailing of its general athletic catalog to kick off the new format, Hodges reasoned a test wasn’t cost-efficient.