White Plains, NY—The more Ps, the merrier. That was the message preached by consultant Tracy Emerick a session at list firm Direct Media’s annual Client Summit & Co-op on July 17. In addition to the five Ps of traditional direct marketing—product, price, place, promotion, and packaging—catalogers need to address other issues as well. According to Emerick, president of Taurus Marketing, marketers should also consider person, profit, period, process, and promise.
Marketers have to “follow through on all promises made through all channels, such as field sales,” Emerick said. In particular, order-takers should no longer promise that sales reps will follow up on orders or inquiries made through other channels, “because they’ll never show.” He blamed this on the increasing blurring and overlapping of channels and the fact that sales reps don’t get credited for making sales as they have in the past.
As for business cycles, Emerick said that they no longer exist. “You have to automate the process and define it as how the market buys, not by how you view buying.”
In another session, Trudy DeSilets, director of customer information and systems for Seattle-based cataloger/retailer Eddie Bauer, highlighted estimated annual spending figures among Bauer customers by channel. The figures aren’t exact, she cautioned, but rather “a reflection of” Bauer’s actual numbers.
For instance, Bauer customers who bought only via retail or only via the Internet spend less than $200 annually. Those who buy only from the catalogs spend roughly twice as much each year. Customers who shop from both the catalog and the Web but not at the store spend more than $600 annually. But those who buy via all three channels spend more than $1,600 annually.