J. Jill

By Alicia Orr Suman The Causes of List Fatigue ... and eight tips on how to beat it List fatigue is top of mind for many direct marketers these days. What is list fatigue, what causes it, and how can you combat it? Reductions in catalog prospecting circulation over the past several years, in conjunction with shrinking list and co-op database universes and an overall weak economy, have led to what commonly is being referred to as "list fatigue." How, you may ask, can a list become fatigued? Jo Ann Alberts, vice president of list brokerage and management

It’s become painful to pick up the business section of the newspaper these days. My once-beloved morning routine now is preceded by trepidation. I find myself asking: What company and/or executive is in the hot seat today? WorldCom, Enron, Martha Stewart, Tyco, Arthur Andersen—once stalwarts in their respective industries—have become poster children for the post-boom era. The result is that fingerpointing has become a new national pastime. Some Democrats are saying the Bush administration hasn’t been hard enough on wayward business executives. Robert Samuelson, who covers the economy for Newsweek, recently wrote that the media is partly to blame. He argues that journalists who

The recent enviable growth of The J. Jill Group (formerly DM Manage-ment) has been one of this year’s catalog success stories. Second-quarter results for 1999 showed that sales were up 31 percent over the prior year, while operating income was up 43 percent. With catalog sales going strong to the tally of $143 million for the first half of 1999, The J. Jill Group has planned new initiatives: an expansion into e-commerce in August 1999 and retail stores in 2000. The Tilton, NH-based specialty women’s apparel direct marketer has gotten much attention for the lifestyle marketing approach to its two catalogs, J. Jill and