When in the holiday season is it too late to remail catalogs to you house files or prospects?
Two multichannel merchants agree that holiday remails should be done by the first week in December to avoid being lost in the clutter. But tools cataloger Garrett Wade and food gifts merchant Chukkar Cherries both say there are other ways to remind your customers that it’s time to buy.
Pete Segal, senior vice president with Garrett Wade, says because it is not a gift-based merchant, his company can still prospect with catalogs right up to the end of the season. “Many of our customers are buying for themselves, as well as for others, during the holiday season,” Segal says.
Though Segal suspects Garrett Wade could get incremental sales from certain segments with re-mails done later, it will rely on other ways of getting the message out to their customers.
“Our other contact with house files this year will be e-mail, which will continue probably until mid-December, depending on our response rates,” Segal says. “And of course we will use paid search, organic search, and other advertising on the Web.”
Chukkar Cherries, meanwhile, will prospect with e-mails up to the last minute in hopes of generating extra holiday revenue, says Holly Oten, an inside salesperson for the merchant.
“With e-mails we have more flexibility,” Oten says. “We consider it too late to do prospecting with catalogs after the first week of December. But with e-commerce we can prospect up to the last minute for the holiday dollar.”
Oten says the merchant’s e-mail prospecting will go on until Dec. 18, which is about 24 to 48 hours before the last shipping window for gifts to be guaranteed by its carrier to arrive by Christmas.
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