Content: Sherry Chiger Charts: Lisa Santo
If circulation trends are an indicator of economic health, then the catalog industry may finally be on the road to recovery. Among the respondents to this year’s Catalog Age Benchmark Survey on Lists, half expected to increase their overall circulation this year, up from 43% of those polled for the 2002 survey. Another 11% said they’d be cutting circulation, down from 16% the previous survey.
But the recovery will likely be a lengthy one, if you compare this year’s results to those of not just the previous survey but also the study before that one, conducted in 1999. Of the catalogers that participated in the 1999 survey, an impressive 77% had planned to boost circulation during the coming year. Catalogers, it seems, still have a long way to go to return to those heady levels.
| Consumer catalogers | 41% |
| B-to-b catalogers | 88% |
| Sales less than $10 million | 90% |
| Sales at least $10 million | 36% |
| Consumer catalogers | 31% |
| B-to-b catalogers | 42% |
| Sales less than $10 million | 46% |
| Sales at least $10 million | 22% |
| Consumer catalogers | 54% |
| B-to-b catalogers | 44% |
| Sales less than $10 million | 58% |
| Sales at least $10 million | 42% |
List management
In the two and a half years since Catalog Age conducted its previous Benchmark Survey on Lists, the percentage of consumer catalog respondents that rented or exchanged their house file names has increased notably — and the percentage of business-to-business participants that did so decreased appreciably. Among this year’s consumer catalogers, almost 60% rented or exchanged their house file, compared with 45% in 2002 and 40% in 1999. But a scant 12% of this year’s b-to-b catalogers rented or exchanged their names, down from 21% in 2002 and 20% in 1999.
Among respondents that rented their house file, revenue from list rentals appears to have inched up. Eighteen percent said that list rental revenue accounted for more than 2% of their overall revenue; in 2002 only 7% of respondents said the same. Meanwhile, 23% of this year’s respondents described their list revenue as “too low to quantify,” compared with 32% in the previous survey. Twenty-one percent of this year’s participants raised their base rental charge during the past year, while 3% decreased it.
When it comes to offering volume discounts on their house files, 51% of the catalogers that rent out their names said they did so — a statistically insignificant increase from 49% in 2001. But the mean volume at which they offered discounts has jumped to 64,113 names from 52,925 in the previous survey. The current level is still below the mean volume of 67,000 names among respondents to the 1999 survey, however.
| Consumer catalogers | 83% |
| B-to-b catalogers | 66% |
| Sales less than $10 million | 67% |
| Sales at least $10 million | 88% |
| Consumer catalogers | 76% |
| B-to-b catalogers | 41% |
| Sales less than $10 million | 48% |
| Sales at least $10 million | 76% |
| Mean list test order size | ||
|---|---|---|
| Consumer catalogers | 26,592 | |
| B-to-b catalogers | 35,119 | |
| Mean list continuation order size | ||
| Consumer catalogers | 63,907 | |
| B-to-b catalogers | 92,100 | |
Name acquisition
The percentage of consumer and b-to-b catalogers that didn’t rent names for prospecting barely budged since the previous survey. This year 31% of the consumer catalog respondents and 42% of the b-to-b respondents said they didn’t rent outside names, compared with 28% and 41% in 2002.
But the popularity of renting e-mail names has waned during the past few years. Whereas 53% of the consumer respondents to the previous survey had said they rented only postal addresses, this year 58% said the same. On the b-to-b side, 42% rent only postal addresses, up from 34% in 2001. None of this year’s business catalogers said they rented only e-mail lists, compared with 1% in the previous survey. Among the consumer catalogers, the percentage that rented only e-mail addresses remained at 1%.
When asked if they were mailing to more or fewer outside names this year than last year, 43% of the consumer catalog respondents and 44% of their b-to-b counterparts said that they planned to mail to more outside names. A full 50% of respondents with sales of less than $10 million said the same, compared with 38% of larger catalogers. One-fourth of the respondents with sales of at least $10 million expected to cut back on prospect mailings, as opposed to just 12% of the smaller catalog respondents. Likewise, 12% of the b-to-b participants said they’d be mailing to fewer outside names, compared with 21% of the consumer catalogers.
Among the respondents that rent lists for prospecting, the percentage that handled brokerage exclusively inhouse varied appreciably by company size and type. Among respondents with annual sales of less than $10 million, 27% handled all brokerage themselves; among participants with sales of at least $10 million, that percentage dwindled to 11%. And while 39% of b-to-b respondents handled all brokerage inhouse, only 7% of consumer catalogers did.
On the other hand, 74% of the consumer respondents outsourced all their brokerage to a list firm, compared with 26% of b-to-b mailers. And whereas 66% of respondents with sales of at least $10 million outsourced all their list brokerage, only 52% of the smaller catalogers did.
E-mail marketing
Spam legislation and consumer concerns about privacy have clearly affected catalogers’ e-mail marketing strategies. A mean 55.4% of respondents’ marketing e-mails went to house file customers who had specifically opted in, up from 44.5% among respondents to the previous survey. A mean 16.4% of marketing e-mails went to went to Website visitors who weren’t buyers but had opted in, down slightly from 18.9% in 2002. Customers who had provided an e-mail address but did not specifically opt in accounted for a mean 13.3% of respondents’ e-mail circulation, compared with 21.1% among those previously surveyed.
Compiled lists accounted for 4.3% of e-mail circulation overall; not surprisingly, though, the means differed greatly between consumer catalog respondents (1.6% of their marketing e-mails) and b-to-b respondents (10.4%). Bear in mind, though, that 92% of the consumer catalogers and 82% of the b-to-b mailers didn’t send any marketing e-mails to names from compiled lists. Similarly, none of the b-to-b participants and only 3% of the consumer catalogers sent e-mails to names rented from and exchanged with other catalogers.
| Recency | 85% |
| Dollar amount | 76% |
| Gender | 64% |
| Frequency | 63% |
| Geographic | 61% |
| Age | 29% |
Methodology
On April 22, Primedia Business e-mailed an invitation to participate in an online survey to 3,693 Catalog Age magazine subscribers, selected on an nth-name basis. Specifically targeted were subscribers indicating job function as president/owner, vice president, marketing management, or list management. The invitation contained an embedded URL linking the respondent to the research Website where the Catalog Age Benchmark Survey on Lists questionnaire was located. Respondents were offered a chance to be entered into a drawing for one of four $50 gift certificates to Amazon.com. A follow-up e-mail was transmitted on April 28. Of the 3,130 deliverable surveys, 136 usable surveys were completed, for an effective response rate of nearly 4.4%.
| Consumer catalogers | 33% |
| B-to-b catalogers | 68% |
| Sales less than $10 million | 58% |
| Sales at least $10 million | 31% |
| Consumer catalogers | 18% |
| B-to-b catalogers | 43% |
| Sales less than $10 million | 32% |
| Sales at least $10 million | 19% |
| Consumer catalogers | 46% |
| B-to-b catalogers | 95% |
| Sales less than $10 million | 74% |
| Sales at least $10 million | 46% |
Interested in the complete results from our Benchmark 2004 on Lists?
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