Special Report Lists

Tactic #2: Use a model to help refine your mailing strategy to cut unwanted circulation.

Printing and postage are big cost outlays for a catalog. A model can help you cut such costs by reducing unwanted or unnecessary circulation.

WearGuard-Crest, a large business-to-business (b-to-b) mailer in the uniforms supply industry, was able to do just that using Unica's Affinium Model, part of the Affinium Suite for Enterprise Marketing Management. WearGuard-Crest has used Affinium to build what it calls "response-spend likelihood" models, which help it to target only those individuals likely to buy from a catalog. It's based on past purchases, region and other demographics. The cataloger reduced its direct mail costs by $2 million last year without a reduction in response volumes, says Kelly Fiedler, director of product marketing at Unica.