4 Tips for Successful Remails

Catalog remails enable a mailer to spread out the fixed costs such as creative, photography, copywriting over more than one mailing, according to consultant Michael Grant, principal of Scarsdale, NY-based catalog consultancy Michael Grant Direct. Grant provides four strategies for using remails.

1) Change the cover – Put a new cover on the catalog to help reduce response rate falloff. A new cover will prompt the recipient to open the catalog since they won’t have seen the cover before.

2) Insert new pages – In addition to a new cover, you might change the first few pages or change the first signature of the book. This will also keep remail ‘fresher’ without requiring wholesale modifications to the catalog. Once the recipient opens the book, the new pages will keep them flipping through the catalog –and over your merchandise.

3) Time it right – The closer the remail is dropped to the original, the greater the falloff in response. So if you do your remail just two weeks after the original mailing, you may see response rates at just 50% to 65% of the original drop vs. 60% to 70% you can expect when the remail is three to four weeks after.

4) Mind the curves – Order curves for the remails can be slightly quicker than the original mailing. So capture your orders and build unique curves for the remails. In any case, measure the fall off precisely so that you can better forecast the dollars and orders that the call center will receive.