Abacus

By Gabrielle Mosquera How National Geographic's catalog merchandise upholds the Society's heritage. National Geographic's yellow rectangle is recognized worldwide for its authority and credibility as a source of exploration information. Consequently, the pressure to feature similarly authentic catalog products runs high. But the catalog staff welcomes the challenge. "You have to be willing to follow the process of approval for each item," says Linda Berkeley, president of National Geographic Enterprises, of which the catalog is a subdivision. "You have to be willing to walk away from items that are inappropriate, even if you

By Stephen R. Lett You must prospect for new buyers to grow your business. But prospecting can be expensive. Most catalogers prospect at an incremental loss*. Even so, acquiring new buyers is important to the health of your business. This month, I'll explore ways to prospect cost effectively for new buyers. Why It's Important There's a certain attrition rate associated with a typical catalog housefile. People die, others move, and some become dissatisfied. It's important to add new buyers to your housefile to maintain a certain level of revenue and/or to grow your business. Rule of thumb: The percent increase

By Alicia Orr Suman With fewer hotline names and a scarcity of new rental lists to test, catalogers have been faced with a drought of new names to mail this year. Seeking ways to beef up their mail plans with quality names at the lowest possible cost, more catalogers appear to be tapping into cooperative catalog databases. Catalog co-ops have been around for more than a decade. But only recently have some reached the size and scope needed to become a substantial piece of your prospecting plan—making many catalogers more apt to ramp up usage of this alternative source of

You must prospect for new buyers to grow your business. But prospecting can be expensive. Most catalogers prospect at an incremental loss*. Even so, acquiring new buyers is important to the health of your business. This month, I’ll explore ways to prospect cost effectively for new buyers. Why It’s Important There’s a certain attrition rate associated with a typical catalog housefile. People die, others move, and some become dissatisfied. It’s important to add new buyers to your housefile to maintain a certain level of revenue and/or to grow your business. Rule of thumb: The percent increase in revenue growth will approximate

With fewer hotline names and a scarcity of new rental lists to test, catalogers have been faced with a drought of new names to mail this year. Seeking ways to beef up their mail plans with quality names at the lowest possible cost, more catalogers appear to be tapping into cooperative catalog databases. Catalog co-ops have been around for more than a decade. But only recently have some reached the size and scope needed to become a substantial piece of your prospecting plan—making many catalogers more apt to ramp up usage of this alternative source of lists. “There’s certainly been a greater receptivity to

You have a slew of choices when trying to reach prospects without paying postage, including direct response space advertising, broadcast and other channels. By Denny Hatch It is imperative to determine the lifetime value of customers by source. Robert Hackett, RRD Direct’s vice president of sales, provides the following formula: Lifetime value is a function of frequency of purchase, multiplied by the gross margin, multiplied by the duration of brand loyalty. What can you afford to pay for a new customer? To make that determination, Gary Hennerberg of the Hennerberg Group suggests you take the following steps: --Research customer lifetime value.

You have a slew of choices when trying to reach prospects without paying postage, including direct response space advertising, broadcast and other channels. By Denny Hatch It is imperative to determine the lifetime value of customers by source. Robert Hackett, RRD Direct's vice president of sales, provides the following formula: Lifetime value is a function of frequency of purchase, multiplied by the gross margin, multiplied by the duration of brand loyalty. What can you afford to pay for a new customer? To make that determination, Gary Hennerberg of the Hennerberg Group suggests you take the following steps: --Research customer lifetime value. --Calculate

Multi-buyers, active mail-order purchasers, buy from several, often related, catalogs. But all multi-buyers aren’t created equal. This month, I’ll examine strategies for mailing and re-mailing to multi-buyers; how to maximize this group’s buying performance; the priority multi-buyers should get in your merge/purge; and more. Mailing Strategies Your service bureau identifies multi-buyers each time you perform a merge/purge (the process in which duplicate names are found on the various lists you plan to use for your upcoming mailing). A name you rent also may appear on two or more lists you rent from other list owners. Unless you have a “net-name” agreement with

By Alicia Orr With all of the excitement of the Internet in the past few years, some catalogers have forgotten the most basic rule of direct marketing; that it must first focus on providing customer satisfaction. One company that has not forgotten this is The Mark Group, the Boca Raton, FL-based company that publishes the Boston Proper, Charles Keath and Mark, Fore & Strike catalogs. As company CEO Michael Tiernan projected a year and a half ago: "As e-commerce evolves... ultimately success is not dependent on Web traffic, click-through rates or market capitalization, but on earning customer trust on every single transaction." Today, a

Early in my freelance copywriting career, I was hired by The Bradford Exchange to launch Plate World, a magazine for collectors of limited-edition plates. Started by J. Roderick MacArthur, son of John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur (as in the foundation that bears their name and the people who made zillions selling mail order life insurance), the concept of The Bradford Exchange was to create a kind of stock exchange for collectors’ plates. It persuaded collectors that if they bought plates at the issue price, they stood a chance of making money in the so-called Secondary Market, which is pretty lucrative with some