KBM Group

Tired of reading about what a tough year it’s been for so many businesses across the board? Frustrated with your own results? Scared about the economy? Whether or not you’re struggling as much as others, here’s a little tonic: our annual best-of feature, in which we’ve pulled what we believe to be the 50 best and most implementable tips of the year from Catalog Success magazine as well as our weekly e-newsletter, Tactics & Tips. There’s nothing fancy here. Each paragraph is taken from a particular story that’s referenced, so you can turn or click back to reread the full story or act on

Many database marketing programs lack focus, proper execution, segmentation and adequate testing. With this in mind, Arthur Middleton Hughes, vice president/solutions architect at KnowledgeBase Marketing, reeled off nine mistakes direct marketers make when it comes to database marketing during a session at the DM Days New York conference, June 10-12. He also proposed some solutions. Here follows his list: Mistake #1: The lack of a marketing strategy. “Building a database is easy, but making money with it is hard, and most people don’t know that,” Hughes said. Solution: Collect data on your customers’ purchases, demographics and lifestyle; build a database that permits ad

As the average lifespan for Americans continues to grow, so too does a very marketable audience for catalogers and direct marketers — seniors. The Baby Boom generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) comprises more than 80 million Americans, roughly 42 percent of the U.S. population. This demographic should have marketers salivating. Consider these numbers: * seniors control 77 percent of all personal assets in the U.S. and half of all discretionary spending ($750 billion); * they own 40 million credit cards; * they buy 48 percent of all the luxury cars sold in the U.S.; and * they spend

"The difference between database marketing (DBM) and customer relationship marketing (CRM) is that one, DBM, is proactive and the other is reactive. It's a push/pull scenario. You use DBM to get customers, and CRM to react to customers. You need both DBM and CRM to do direct marketing right. One won't replace the other." —Richard Tooker, vice president/solutions architect, KnowledgeBase Marketing

In your database, identify your best -- or “gold level” -- customers, and treat them like the treasures they are to you. “Let them know you appreciate their business, and try to get a bit higher average-order size out of them,” suggested Arthur Hughes, vice president and solutions architect at marketing services firm KnowledgeBase Marketing, during his two-day session “Database Marketing From the Ground Up,” held at DMA05 in Atlanta last week. Some profitable strategies to try with your high-value customers: exclusive newsletters, loyalty programs, personal letters and phone calls. Hughes offered an example of such a program: A manufacturer of building products, whose merchandise is

By Scott Shrake How housefile analysis helps The Parable Group's Christian booksellers use catalogs to drive retail sales It was one of those "Aha!" moments, says Jim Seybert, vice president of marketing for The Parable Group, a company that 330 independent Christian booksellers nationwide turn to for catalog and retail marketing expertise. Seybert continues: "An early eye opener for me about the power of housefile analysis came several years ago when the folks at KnowledgeBase Marketing [then known as Dynamic Marketing] gave us some lifestyle summaries of who our stores' customers are and what they look like." Among