This week a client lamented that his customers are growing older, and he intends to target younger prospects with his future catalog mailings. This “Ponce de Leon syndrome” is frequently expressed to me, and in fact, has led many direct marketers to disastrous results as they purposely pursue younger customers with their existing offers, or Read More Do You Really Want to Go Younger?!
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3 Tips for Improving the ROI on Your Email Marketing Efforts
What’s the return-on-investment (ROI) for each of your organization’s marketing channels? According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing delivers a higher ROI than any other online or offline channel. And not by a little – by a lot! See the chart below – email marketing is delivering more than four times the ROI of Read More 3 Tips for Improving the ROI on Your Email Marketing Efforts
KNOW PAIN. KNOW GAIN. 10 Ways Brand Leaders Win by Leveraging Customer Pain Points – Part 2
Last week, we discussed the evergreen topic of customer pain points (click here to read part one). Today we continue that discussion with the second part of my 10-point plan to leverage these pain points in creating meaningful, relevant and engaging brand experiences. 6. Think Like a Publisher. Harry Potter may have started out as Read More KNOW PAIN. KNOW GAIN. 10 Ways Brand Leaders Win by Leveraging Customer Pain Points – Part 2
KNOW PAIN. KNOW GAIN. 10 Ways Brand Leaders Win by Leveraging Customer Pain Points – Part 1
“Customer pain is the ultimate renewable resource,” Jon Burgstone writes in Breakthrough Entrepreneurship. In this fast-paced world of change and flux, one thing remains for certain: the subject of customer pain points is an evergreen topic for all brand leaders, merchants and creative strategists. Those of us who make it our work to diagnosis these pain points Read More KNOW PAIN. KNOW GAIN. 10 Ways Brand Leaders Win by Leveraging Customer Pain Points – Part 1
Don’t Put All Your Reactivation Eggs in One Basket
One of the biggest assets a mature direct marketing company has is their house file, and within that house file are pockets of lapsed customers, normally thought of as 12+ or 24+ month buyers. Through RFM segmentation, scoring, NaviStone® and/or house file modeling, companies are able to identify which of these customers qualify for postal Read More Don’t Put All Your Reactivation Eggs in One Basket
KPIs Are Critical to Successful Merchandising and Inventory Management
Every business needs to monitor key metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can easily be measured yet can quickly provide the overall direction of where the company is going, or if a part of the business may be going astray. KPIs are merely a way to separate the “winners” from the “try agains;” and Read More KPIs Are Critical to Successful Merchandising and Inventory Management
A Simple Secret to be a Successful Merchant
What makes a successful merchant? Creativity? Brand awareness? Strong analytics skills? Or perhaps simply luck? While I am sure luck plays into any situation, it is the combination of the other factors that determines a merchant’s success. Although I am not a merchant in the creative sense of the word (I joke that I find Read More A Simple Secret to be a Successful Merchant
Name Your Price, How to Set Correct Pricing Strategies
Again this year, as I reviewed the catalogs arriving in my mailbox and shopped on my favorite websites, I was completely baffled by product prices that seemed completely irrational. They reminded me of a client where I observed similarly abstract prices. When I asked about the prices, she informed me that she simply doubled whatever Read More Name Your Price, How to Set Correct Pricing Strategies
Be Careful with In Home Dates around World Events
Over 25 years ago, I was having dinner with a wise COO of The Sharper Image when he remarked that we were in for a bad year of sales. When I asked why, he responded, “it’s an election AND an Olympic year”? He had tracked the performance of all the various catalog companies he had Read More Be Careful with In Home Dates around World Events