10 Things You Need to Know Before the Merge/Purge Begins
Ken Lane of Hathaway & Lane offers a list of 10 things that all mailers need to know before they send their lists off for merge/purge....
The Changing Mailing Landscape: 2007 Postal Rate Case
Catalogers and multichannel retailers are facing a number of key issues in the marketplace. But the one issue that is currently on the minds of all who mail flats and catalogs is the huge postage increase scheduled to be implemented May 14. Unless the Postal Rate Commission reduces its proposed increase to flats mailers (which, if it occurs will most likely not happen until sometime after May 14), most flats mailers will see postage increases that will exceed 20%....
Advanced Thinking on Matchbacks
The myriad offer and order channels used today present multichannel marketers with a growing problem: How to effectively allocate marketing budgets to the promotions and channels that drive demand. ...
Adjust Mailing Volume by Reducing Depth
We have all discussed at great length the negative effects of the recent postal increases. Now we have to get over it and move forward with adjusting our mailings to the new cost structure. One tactic you can use to offset your postage increase is to adjust mailing volume by reducing depth. This is really Circulation 101, but it is the first place to start. ...
Four Ways to Grow Your E-mail List: Get Offline Customers to Go Online
How much does it cost to acquire a new customer? Whether it's $5 or $500, expanding your relationship with an existing customer is always more profitable than acquiring a new one (although maybe not as exciting as running a sexy TV campaign or whatever you do to attract business)....
How to Interpret Contribution Analysis Data
One of the first steps in a contribution analysis is to combine information from your profit and loss statement with the end-of-season key code report you run from your mail order processing system. The number you need to derive from your P&L is what is commonly called the contribution margin (contribution to overhead or fixed operating expenses and profit)....
Track Down Those Unaccounted Movers
Each year, companies that rely on direct mail campaigns lose millions of dollars on a seemingly uncontrollable problem: unaccounted for movers and inaccurate mailing lists. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) reports that 14.2% of the public moves to a new address each year. Of these movers, approximately 10 to 20% never report their new address to the USPS. ...
With NCOA, It's OK To Procrastinate
How close to your mail date do you run your lists against the U.S. Postal Service's National Change of Address (NCOA) file? You may want to wait even longer. Find out why Jim Leone thinks procrastination is key to a better mailing....
Harnessing the Power of Predictive Analytics
Direct marketers constantly wrestle with the never-ending challenge of maximizing campaign response rates to generate more revenue. ...
List and Data Strategies: Tips for Capturing More Data
The Internet has led to new ways of obtaining marketing data about customers, but old-school methods still work well too. In fact, best practices in capturing information usually require using a combination of strategies to maximize completeness and recency of data, says Scott Cone, vice president/client leader of Lanham, MD-based database marketing company Merkle. Here's advice from experts on how to effectively gather information and flesh out the data you have....
Eight Steps to Optimizing Circulation
The past holds the keys to the future – through looking at the past, you can determine what works and what doesn’t, and then make educated decisions about how best to move forward. This may seem like a simple statement, but often marketers get caught up in current operations and do not look carefully enough at past performance, procedures, and processes to create the most informed plans to grow circulation profitably....
For more Best Practices in List Management, check out Multichannel Merchant's List and Data Strategies
