NextAction

Assuming you have the right merchandise, 70 percent or more of a successful mailing campaign is dependent on the lists you use. Proper list selection means the difference between profits or losses on the income statement. This includes the proper use of your housefile and the outside rented lists you use. The specific lists you mail and the quantities of every list included in your plan are important considerations. I will talk about the different types of lists available and what you can do to improve your results. All mailing lists can be classified into three different types: 1. Direct response lists.

By Matt Griffin Now an eight-player field, consumer co-ops widen their offerings. What works best foryour catalog? With five established cooperative databases in the market, and three others trying to make headway in the past year, you might wonder what exactly separates each of these from one another. Whatever sets each co-op apart, the important thing to consider is that constant testing will prove whether the models offered by each company actually work. "Certainly you have to be willing to test the different databases, and you have to be willing to test different models," says Bob Webb, senior vice president of marketing for

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