Judy, Jennifer, Jasmine: Happy Birthday!

On January 1, Judy turned 60 years old.  Jennifer is now a 44 year old shopper.  Jasmine is 28, beginning her 29th lap around the sun.  Happy Birthday!!

Remember, there are fundamental truths about these personas, validated across numerous research projects.

1. Judy = MAIL MORE CATALOGS.  Yes ... MORE!  Catalogers should love this!  In almost all of my projects, catalogers are UNDER-MAILING Judy!  Yes, under-mailing.
2. Jennifer = MAIL FEWER CATALOGS.  Instead of 18 a year, maybe 3-9 a year.  Take all of the money you save here, and reinvest it in a new Tablet Commerce Solution, for instance (click here).  Allocate the money online.  Go where Jennifer is.
3. Jasmine = START A NEW BRAND.  Her needs are fundamentally different than the catalog solutions or e-commerce solutions offered by catalog-focused brands.  Stop mailing Jasmine, take your catalog dollars, and reinvest them by focusing on a new brand that meets her needs.

Please click here to get Judy / Jennifer / Jasmine project pricing ... this is a good time of the year to get busy on implementing new ideas that will impact the Fall and Christmas timeframe.

Keep in mind --- Judy is 60 now ... 5 years from retirement ... and Jennifer is just 6 years away from being 50 years old.  Her future trajectory will not be in the social/mobile/local realm, based on the data I'm looking at (though we'll see - your mileage will vary).

Still available for next to nothing on Amazon.com (click here!).

Wall St. Journal Article on Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine

When the Wall St. Journal writes about Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine (not using the names, obviously), folks pay attention.  Click here to read an article from November titled "Shopping's Great Age Divide".

If you're analyzing actual customers transactions from your customer database, you know this article hits on an important trend.  The channels you choose to use in your "marketing mix" attract Judy, Jennifer, or Jasmine ... seldom attracting all three.  Your creative strategy attracts Judy, Jennifer, or Jasmine ... seldom attracting all three.  Your merchandising strategy plays a role as well ... seldom attracting all three.

You get to pick your customers.  Once you pick your customers, the channels that work best are pre-defined for you.  

Judy and the Direct Marketing Success Pyramid

We talk often about Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine, and for good reason.  See, it turns out that "omnichannel" is largely irrelevant ... it is an average of they myriad ways that Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine behave.

In other words, your success strategy has a lot to do with who your customer is.

Take Judy, for instance.  Let's think about our framework, as it relates to Judy.

Merchandise:  Judy is about to turn sixty (60) years old.  Think about that, for a moment. In the next five years, what are the products that Judy will need?  How are these products different than the products that serve Jennifer?

Creative:  Ask yourself if Judy wants to watch a four minute video, then share her thoughts about the video on Twitter or Facebook with her sixty year old friends?  Ask yourself if Judy wants to use an iPhone to navigate through sixteen merchandise categories.  Ask yourself if Judy wants to remember great times from the 70s, 80s, and 90s?  Calibrate creative around the latter.  And oh, by the way, Judy likes "sameness".  How many catalogers have tried to change creative, only to have it fail miserably?  Judy doesn't want change.  Give her what she wants.

Finance:  Judy is the most predictable of our personas, and Finance folks love consistency.  Lifetime Value, however, is going to shift a bit in the next five years, as Judy approaches retirement ... her LTV will likely decline unless the merchandise assortment aligns with her retirement needs.

Service:  Judy is far more tolerant of paying for shipping than Jennifer / Jasmine are.  Judy is also more tolerant of your products arriving in 5-7 days, whereas Jennifer demands to have it in two days via free shipping.  Serving Judy means you have a bit more leeway than serving Jennifer / Jasmine.

Passion:  It is going to be increasingly more difficult to find young workers who have a passion for marketing to Judy.  Just ask any of a number of catalogers trying to hire up-and-coming Managers/Directors these days, they know.  And then we have Executives who are "hanging in there until retirement".  Oh boy!

Excellence:  If it is going to be increasingly more difficult to find young workers who want to cater to Judy (and this is an assumption of mine), it will be increasingly more difficult to find excellent workers.  This is a pain point among catalogers, I keep hearing about the "catalog brain drain" that has happened since 2005.  One Executive told me ... "I have to outsource nearly everything we do, because I can't hire anybody." At some point, this will come back and bite the Judy-centric marketer.

Knowledge:  There are two issues here.  First, we think we know everything about Judy, and for good reason ... we've been marketing to her for thirty years.  This is likely to change when Judy enters retirement, requiring a new merchandise / knowledge framework.  Second, we have to filter out everything we hear about Jasmine, because it isn't relevant when marketing to Judy.  Judy doesn't want engagement via Twitter, and she doesn't want to check in to the Dairy Queen in Louisville via Foresquare.

Vision:  Here's a place where CEOs need to "thread the needle".  We have a 5-10 year window to earn profit from Judy, and then we reach an inflection point where Judy ages and stops spending money.  At that point, the Judy-focused business model is not likely to pivot easily to serving Jennifer, who will have twenty years of Amazon-style service etched into her memory.  Be careful here, folks.

Evolution:  The Judy-focused marketer will need to think long and hard about evolution on two fronts ... first is merchandise ... second is audience.  It is going to take guts to market to Judy while trying to protect the future.  The very activities that Judy is likely to embrace (sameness, memories, retirement merchandise) are the activities that Jennifer will reject.

Chemistry:  It will be difficult to keep teams focused on Judy when the Executives of the future (currently 35-45 years old) will want to have sexier jobs.  It may make sense to have a "farm system" where the Judy-focused cataloger develops Executives who continually leave the company, hurting overall chemistry.

Tomorrow, we look at Jennifer.  Until then, what thoughts do you have?

Good Questions!

Here's an email I received recently:

• "Your work on Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine got me to thinking about a few things.  Specifically, what happens when Judy stops buying merchandise?  I've invested my entire life in the field of Direct Mail.  I believe I am an expert in this area.  But what do I do when Judy stops buying merchandise?  What do I do for a job then?"

And here is another email I recently received:

• "Do you think we can convince Jadyn (the 15 year old that will replace Jasmine in a decade) to love Direct Mail the way Judy loves Direct Mail?"

Ah!  Now we are getting somewhere.

Our industry doesn't want to ask hard questions.

We need to ask hard questions.

I can take us back to Nordstrom, when we decided to kill the catalog.  You want to talk about a mass exodus, well, there was a mass exodus.  With the catalog gone, the work that people loved to do was also gone.  You could make a choice ... you could recalibrate skills to deal with the business as it existed ... you could switch to a new department and start over ... you could leave the company and find a place where the work you loved doing still existed.

People pursued every one of those options.

We can easily answer the second question.  We're not going to train Jadyn to love Direct Mail.  And we're not going to train Jasmine to love Direct Mail.  In 13 years, Jasmine will be in her prime earning years.  Just think what the world will look like in 13 years?

Jennifer has already been trained to trust two parties ... Amazon and Google.

Judy loves Direct Mail.  She has another 5-10 years to spend money.

Given that information, how would you answer the first question?

Conversion Rates: Judy, Jennifer, Jasmine

You remember our lovely ladies:

The first lady is Judy.  She's around 59 years old, and her behaviors tend to be "old-school" ... she buys via catalogs, and while she embraces new technology, she primarily shops via habits derived in the 1980s and 1990s.

The second lady is Jennifer.  She's around 43 years old, and her behaviors are hard to "attribute".  She hunts online for the best products at the best prices, touching many marketing channels.

The third lady is Jasmine.  She's around 27 years old.  Her behaviors are not consistent with Judy and Jennifer.  Social and Mobile are part of her entire adult experience.

We can analyze online customer behavior via each persona.  Here's a query I recently ran ... segmenting customers as of June 30, 2012, measuring online visit behavior from July 1, 2012 to July 31, 2012.  Each persona represents weighted life-to-date transactions for twelve month buyers.

Judy:

• 38,498 customers.
• 18.9% Re-Visit Rate.
• 3.568 monthly visits per visitor.
• 0.674 purchases per visitor.
• 7.3% conversion rate.
• 0.049 purchases per customer.

Jennifer:

• 143,984 customers.
• 24.3% Re-Visit Rate.
• 4.387 monthly visits per visitor.
• 1.066 purchases per visitor.
• 5.9% conversion rate.
• 0.063 purchases per customer.

Jasmine:

• 88,430 customers.
• 28.8% Re-Visit Rate.
• 5.220 monthly visits per visitor.
• 1.503 purchases per visitor.
• 5.2% conversion rate.
• 0.078 purchases per customer.

Notice that Jasmine is far more "engaged" than Judy or Jennifer.  Judy is much less likely to visit the website, and if she visits, she only visited 3.6 times in July.  Jasmine, meanwhile, is 50% more likely to visit than Judy, and will visit every 5-6 days.  Judy is more "purpose driven" than Jasmine, converting at a much higher rate.  Jasmine, however, because of her high likelihood of visit regularity, buys much more often online.

This is something the conversion optimization gurus sometimes miss ... we want Jasmine's behavior, but we optimize for Judy's behavior.  This is exactly opposite of what we should do.  We want more visits at a lower conversion rate, if the net result is a significant increase in total purchases, as it is in this example with Jasmine.

Email Marketing: Judy

Email purchases tend to be focused among Jennifer and Jasmine.


That doesn't mean that Judy doesn't subscribe to email campaigns.  She does!


But the products we offer, and the messaging in the email messages needs to be different to resonate with Judy.


Judy likes sales, and coupons.


Judy likes memories and tradition.


Judy likes "winning product", predictability, reliability.  She doesn't mind hearing about new products either, but there's a balance between learning and buying that must be mastered with Judy.


Segment Judy, then try these strategies, these are the themes that keep coming up in my research.  Email me you don't have the bandwidth to segment Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine, and I'll do it for you!

Compare and Contrast

Think about marketing channels, think about our three customers, and things become much more clear, don't they?


Catalog Marketing:

• Judy = 30+ years of practice shopping via catalogs.  This is her domain.
• Jennifer = Inspiration, but she's going to combine inspiration with the internet in order to get exactly what she wants at a price she's willing to pay.
• Jasmine = Wait, I own a mailbox?

Facebook:

• Judy = On Facebook to see pictures of her grandchildren.
• Jennifer = Likes brands because she gets special discounts and promotions.
• Jasmine = Views Facebook as a utility, an extension of who she is, but would switch if something better came along.

Mobile Phones:

• Judy = Owns a tracfone, or a Blackberry device if professionally employed.
• Jennifer = Owns an iPhone or Android device, browser-centric.
• Jasmine = Owns an iPhone or Android device, app-centric.

Email Marketing:

• Judy = Prefers to not receive email marketing messages.
• Jennifer = Thrives on email marketing, loves discounts/promotions, an avid subscriber.
• Jasmine = Finds email marketing to be "old school".

Affiliate Marketing:

• Judy = Has no idea what they are.
• Jennifer = Loves getting coupons for free shipping.
• Jasmine = Indifferent.

Free Shipping:

• Judy = Used to paying for shipping, appreciates free shipping but doesn't expect it.
• Jennifer = Won't buy unless she's offered free shipping.
• Jasmine = Post-free-shipping, values a $399 handbag for $99 and demands free shipping.

Loyalty:

• Judy = Loves a subset of brands that she has history with.
• Jennifer = Loyal to Google, Amazon, Apple, Verizon.
• Jasmine = Gamification leads to loyalty.

Now, every character crosses over into other categories in many ways, so these are not iron-clad rules by any stretch of the imagination.  That being said, my goal is to get you to imagine different customers.  A cataloger should not expect core customers to embrace an iPad app.  A cataloger should not expect mobile devices to replace e-commerce, or to even expect e-commerce to replace the catalog among customers like Judy.  A cataloger should not expect to generate five million dollars of net sales on Twitter when Judy isn't ever going to get her own Twitter account.

Too often, we fail to account for what I call "audience disconnect".  Data I analyze strongly suggests that different audiences use channels differently.  We have a responsibility to link audiences to the channels we manage.

Retail Alignment

For those who have a retail channel, you don't have much data to tell you if Judy, Jennifer, or Jasmine are shopping retail stores.


You do, however, have data that tells you which direct-channel customers are shopping your stores.


So, segment your direct-channel customer base ... I like to look at 12-month buyers, but include all purchase history, weighted by recency of course.  Once I have everybody coded (Judy, Jennifer, Jasmine), I split this audience by direct-channel only and retail+direct-channel.


Here's an example:


Direct-Only Channel Buyers

• Judy = 28%.
• Jennifer = 22%.
• Jasmine = 50%.

Direct Channel Buyers with 1+ Retail Purchase, Last 12 Months

• Judy = 24%.
• Jennifer = 24%.
• Jasmine = 52%.

This is a very common outcome when a retail brand elects to "integrate" the direct channel with the rest of the business.  It's common to have more "Judy" style customers in the direct-only side of the business, these are often rural shoppers without access to retail.

When channels are not in alignment, you'll see differences that are more substantial:

Direct-Only Channel Buyers

• Judy = 44%.
• Jennifer = 31%.
• Jasmine = 25%.

Direct Channel Buyers with 1+ Retail Purchase, Last 12 Months

• Judy = 25%.
• Jennifer = 35%.
• Jasmine = 40%.

In this situation, Management can elect to better "integrate" channels.  Or, Management can realize that different customers are shopping for different reasons, and capitalize on this opportunity.

If you are trying hard to align channels, then your efforts will bear fruit when the composition of Judy, Jennifer and Jasmine are similar for direct-only and direct+retail customers.

When A Business Focuses on Judy

Back in 2001, our industry made a decision.


We decided to be "multichannel".  


Do you remember the discussions?  They were spirited!  Somebody had to get control of the rogue online team, those folks who worked in another building, or on another floor of the corporate offices, offering 20% off plus free shipping in a battle to monetize eyeballs.


If you worked in retail, you had your retail marketing team take control of the online marketing team.

If you worked in catalog, you had your catalog marketing team take control of the online marketing team.


This homogenized the whole online experience.  We decided that the online folks would toe the company line, they would squelch innovation in the spirit of a "multichannel" experience.  


We ceded true e-commerce to Amazon.  Oh, by the way, have you looked at their market share recently?


Once we made the decision to be "multichannel", we created an e-commerce experience that suited our core audience.


For catalogers, this customer is "Judy".


Look at the graph at the start of this post.  This is such a common story in our industry.  The rate at which we acquire Jennifer/Jasmine to replace Judy is simply too slow.  We keep marketing to our core customer, we keep spending money with the co-ops to acquire more customers like Judy.


Run the query I ran to produce the chart above ... it's a simple rolling twelve month buyer count.  How has your business evolved over the past decade?  Have you significantly increased Jennifer/Jasmine counts, or has your business followed the classic multichannel trajectory?  And if you're following the classic multichannel trajectory, what happens in seven years when a 59 year old Judy becomes a 66 year old Judy?

Observations About Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine

Ok, you've been hearing about Judy, Jennifer and Jasmine for close to a month.  You're going to hear about them more in the future.  My web analytics data on each persona reveals your perceptions about each individual.


In order, you prefer Jasmine first, then Judy, and Jennifer last.  If I put Jennifer in the subject line, you tune out.  This is so reflective of what we read in the trade journals and on Twitter, isn't it?  We're either told that we have to be "multichannel" ... which is ultimately a way of saying "we need to communicate with Judy", or we have mobile/social/local shoved down our throats like a garden hose hemorrhaging water.


The folks who have a passion for Jennifer have a passion for tactics, and for good reason.  Marketers speaking to Jennifer use tools like Google Analytics ... and as we all know, this tool doesn't allow us to do true customer-level research, so we never know the customer, we only know sporadic, channel-based facts about Jennifer.  Facts like the search terms she uses, the affiliates she snaps up a coupon code from, facts like her love for email marketing that results in 1 in 400 people who receive an email campaign actually buying something that generates profit.  When it comes to Jennifer, we only know tactics, we don't know the lady.  It's the great weakness of the "Jennifer Generation" of marketers/analysts.


Many of you love Judy.  I think this is because many of you can relate to her.  This is also a weakness ... many of you help run companies that cater to Judy, you are in her cohort, so you understand what motivates her.  This deep, thorough understanding limits knowledge of Jennifer, and as a result, has some catalog brands on the verge of falling off of a cliff.  Go perform a demographic analysis of your customer base.  Is your average customer 59 years old, or 64 years old?  If your customer is that old, ask yourself what you're going to do in five years when this customer is now 64-69 years old, or in ten years when your customer is 69-74 years old?


I realize that you're hoping that you'll be retired by the time your customer falls off the commerce cliff into retirement, but somebody is going to have to deal with this.  Don't put this problem off for five years, why not start trying to relate to Jennifer today?  I know, you don't have a passion for Jennifer, for this iPad-toting 43 year old professional who desperately wants to purchase with 20% off and free shipping.  You don't have a choice, folks.  Get to know Jennifer, start relating to her before it is too late.  For many catalogers, we're about to cross over into the realm where it is too late.


Your love of Jasmine is more of a curiosity than anything else.  You click on all of the links, checking out the businesses I mention ... whereas you don't click on any of Jennifer's links.  Here's where things get interesting ... the feedback stops after the links are clicked.  In other words, you want to know what Jasmine is doing, you don't necessarily want to take advantage of what Jasmine is doing.  You want to know that she likes buying a handbag for $99 on MyHabit instead of paying $399 at Nordstrom ... but you don't care about creating a business model to compete with MyHabit.  This is important, folks.  I get feedback like "but how do I get Jasmine to buy from my catalog?" or "nobody buys from social commerce" or "we can't sell something below cost" or "this audience isn't big enough to matter."  We won't get Jasmine to buy from a catalog.  And yes, almost nobody buys from social commerce today, and social commerce as defined today won't be what it will be in five years so why invest today, and I realize you can't sell below cost but maybe other companies have figured out different business models that allow them to cobble together a profit (or not), and yes, the audience isn't big enough to matter today, but it will be big enough to matter in five or ten years ... at the same time when the catalog generation retires.


So all of this is interesting, folks.  Your clicks, what you choose to look at, what you decide to focus on, dictate what you get from this series.  Your clicks suggest that you like Judy, you enjoy reading about Jasmine the most, and suggest that many of you really don't understand or have a passion for Jennifer, fueled by a focus on the tools that you use to analyze Jennifer (i.e. Google Analytics).


We end this post with an opportunity for you to share your thoughts ... what do you think of Judy, Jennifer, or Jasmine?  What resonates with you, what doesn't make sense whatsoever?  Who do you like, who don't you like?  What am I right about, what am I off base about?

Calculating Judy

Recall our weighting strategy from yesterday, as it relates to channels:

• Mail Orders = Weight of 0.00.
• Telephone Orders = Weight of 0.15.
• Online Orders Matched Back to a Catalog = Weight of 0.30.
• Search Orders Matched Back to a Catalog = Weight of 0.40.
• Email Orders Matched Back to a Catalog = Weight of 0.50.
• Pure Search Orders = Weight of 0.60.
• Pure Email Orders = Weight of 0.70.
• Online Advertising Orders, No Offline Interaction = Weight of 0.75.
• Pure Online Orders = Weight of 0.80.
• Mobile, Social, Flash Sales Orders = Weight of 1.00.

We'll use this rule for categorizing customers as Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine:

• Net Weighting of 0.000 to 0.333 = Judy.
• Net Weighting of 0.334 to 0.667 = Jennifer.
• Net Weighting of 0.667 to 1.000 = Jasmine.

Here's an example for Judy.  She placed one order in the past year, for $100, over the telephone.  Her net weighting is:

• ($100) * (1.00 for 0-12 month orders) * (0.15 for Telephone Orders) / ($100) * (1.00 for 0-12 month orders) = 0.15.  Because 0.15 is between 0.000 and 0.333, this customer is a "Judy".

Here's another example for Judy.  She spent $100 13-24 months ago via the telephone, and she spent $100 yesterday via an online order matched back to a catalog.  The order from 13-24 months ago gets a weight of 0.50, the order from 0-12 months ago gets a weight of 1.00.  The phone order gets a weight of 0.15, the online order matched back to a catalog gets a weight of 0.30.  Her net weighting is:

• ($100 * 0.50 * 0.15 + $100 * 1.00 * 0.30) / ($100 * 0.50 + $100 * 1.00) = 0.250.  Because 0.250 is between 0.000 and 0.333, this customer is a "Judy".

Get the picture?  Good!  We'll take a peek at "Calculating Jennifer" next.

How Do I Decide Who Is Judy, Jennifer, And Jasmine?

There are two key issues to consider, when deciding how to segment Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine.


Issue #1 = Weighting Dollars:  A telephone order in 2002 is virtually meaningless.  An online order in 2008 has some meaning.  A mobile order in 2012 means a lot.  I like to use the following weighting of historical orders/dollars (these weights are company-dependent ... more Judy-type customers usually causes the weights to be greater ... more Jasmine-type customers usually yields smaller weights).

• Orders 0-12 Months Ago = Weight of 1.00.
• Orders 13-24 Months Ago = Weight of 0.50.
• Orders 25-36 Months Ago = Weight of 0.25.
• Orders 37-48 Months Ago = Weight of 0.15.
• Orders 49-60 Months Ago = Weight of 0.10.
• Orders 61+ Months Ago = Weight of 0.05.

Issue #2 = Weighting Channels:  This one, of course, is important.  Each advertising channel gets a weight.  Now, we can debate the weights until the cows come home, and there isn't a right or wrong answer here, so pick up a broom and do some work.  Here's a starting point for some of you ... my weights are client specific, of course.

• Mail Orders = Weight of 0.00.
• Telephone Orders = Weight of 0.15.
• Online Orders Matched Back to a Catalog = Weight of 0.30.
• Search Orders Matched Back to a Catalog = Weight of 0.40.
• Email Orders Matched Back to a Catalog = Weight of 0.50.
• Pure Search Orders = Weight of 0.60.
• Pure Email Orders = Weight of 0.70.
• Online Advertising Orders, No Offline Interaction = Weight of 0.75.
• Pure Online Orders = Weight of 0.80.
• Mobile, Social, Flash Sales Orders = Weight of 1.00.
• Tablet Orders:  Right now, I don't evaluate these different than online orders, we need proof that these orders lead to different subsequent behavior, different than classic e-commerce.

Tomorrow, I'll show you a series of examples of how to calculate Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine.

Why Won't Jennifer Budge?

Many of you tell me that "social media doesn't work".

Or you tell me that you have an app that generates $225 sales a week, saying the strategy "doesn't scale".

The real issue, of course, isn't social media or apps or whatever the fancy, shiny new tool is.

The real issue is "whether Jennifer will budge or not"?

Remember, I like to think of our ecosystem as a mix of three customers.

• Judy, the 50-64 rural catalog shopping veteran.
• Jennifer, the 35-49 year old online maven who hunts for the best deals.
• Jasmine, the 18-34 year old social shopper who knows that information will "find her".

So, if you want fancy new channels to work, you really have two choices.

1. Recruit Jasmine, in large numbers.
2. Convince Jennifer to become Jasmine.

You're not going to move Judy into Jasmine territory ... at least not fast enough to matter.

Too often, we try to convince Jennifer to become Jasmine.

Too often, Jennifer doesn't want to become Jasmine, she wants to be Jennifer!

Once you code Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine in the database, measure (or, as they say on Twitter, #measure) the percentage of each audience that switches in the next twelve months.

Here's an example:

Look at Jennifer.  Jennifer doesn't want to become Jasmine, heck, she'd rather become Judy!

Look at Jasmine.  Jasmine doesn't even want to be Jasmine, she's more likely to become Jennifer next year.

Customers are willing to try new channels, but sometimes they have a gravity for "moving backwards" to existing channels.  This was very common in the 1995 - 2003 timeframe, when customers tried the online channel thanks to a whopping 30% off plus free shipping incentive, then back-tracked to old-school shopping for a period of time.

I see this trend, over and over and over again.  When you see this trend, it means you have a customer base that does not want to change, they don't want your brand to innovate.  Your customers want things as they always have been.

There are a lot of smart people out there who tell you that you must move into new channels ... or risk becoming obsolete.  It's good advice, until you actually measure customer behavior.  In this example, we demonstrated that customers do not want to change.  When your customer doesn't want to change, you have a whole different set of strategic options to consider.


You'll know what your strategic options are when you code Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine in your customer data warehouse and web analytics solution.  Get busy doing this!!

Sending Catalogs to Judy

You've been introduced you to three types of shoppers relevant to catalog and e-commerce marketers:

• Judy (pictured here), the 50-64 year old catalog-centric customer who enjoys catalogs more than just about any other form of marketing.
• Jennifer, the 35-49 year old online maven, one who may shop from catalogs, in fact, she may do just about anything/everything!  Jennifer, however, doesn't need 22 catalog mailings a year to make a decision ... she's the "decider", and because of this, you can save a lot of money by mailing fewer catalogs to Jennifer.
• Jasmine, the 18-34 year old master of social commerce thinks catalogs are old-school.  As Jasmine likes to say, "if it is important, it will find me".  You're not likely to make a dent sending catalogs to Jasmine.

Let's see what a typical catalog profit and loss statement looks like for Judy, the die-hard catalog shopper.

Judy tends to shop catalogs, then she picks up the phone and speaks to a customer service agent in your call center.  As a result, her sales are highly "trackable".  Judy doesn't shop online much, and if she does shop online, most of her online sales are caused by catalog marketing.  

Judy tends to be a very profitable catalog customer.

Segment folks like Judy in your database, or give me a holler and I'll do it for you!

Judy Won't Use A Cell Phone To Buy Merchandise?

Here's the link for your perusal:  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399565,00.asp


Study Questions:

1. Does it make sense to have three managers in your marketing department ... one that caters to Judy, a 59 year old often-times rural shopper who isn't going to embrace new technology ... one that caters specifically to Jennifer, a 43 year old who will comparison shop at Best Buy before buying at Amazon ... and one that caters to Jasmine, the 27 year old who constantly checks her iPhone for deals from her favorite flash site?
2. If you had three customer persona managers, would you have the courage to market to each customer differently, and would you be willing to reward employees who increase spend among a specific customer persona?
3. What are the odds of convincing Judy to change her behavior and use her cell phone to research merchandise?

Most Popular Series Of The Past Year: Judy, Jennifer, Jasmine

You like Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine!

• Here's Judy.
• Here's Jennifer.
• Here's Jasmine.

Readership is up 40% this week, and clicks through links in the articles are at an all-time high.


We get a lot of conflicting information, don't we?  We're told that if we aren't fully fluent in mobile marketing, we'll become irrelevant.  Well, if our customer is Judy, mobile marketing is largely irrelevant!!


Email marketers tell us to focus on relevant content.  Well, for Jasmine, that might be everyday low prices.  For Jennifer, that might be 20% off plus free shipping, so long as the competition doesn't offer a better deal.  Judy just wants the catalog in the mail box.


Social media experts demand that you have a conversation.  Judy doesn't want a conversation, she wants to be on Facebook to see her grandchild!


In other words, it is important to know who your customer is!  Channels are irrelevant, to be honest, they are the means by which different customers with different interests express themselves.


Given the popularity of the series, you're going to continue to hear about Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine.  When you are ready to have me analyze your customer base, contact me!


Before I leave you, why not take a brief quiz?  Match the persona (Judy, Jennifer, Jasmine) to each brand below.  Once you ace this quiz, think about each business from a marketing standpoint.  How does social, mobile, classic e-commerce, and offline marketing impact Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine at each company?  What would your strategy be for each tactic?

1. Patagonia.com
2. MilesKimball.com
3. Bluefly.com

Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet Judy

Maybe you've heard me talk about terms like "Traditioanls", "Transitionals", and "Transformationals", and you say to yourself ... "geez, I don't get it, at all."


So let's introduce Judy, pictured here.  Here's a few things you should know about Judy:

• She's 59 years old, though people like her are likely to be somewhere between 50 and 64 years old.
• She adores shopping from catalogs, always has, always will.  She reads catalogs in bed.  She is a catalog veteran.  If there were an all-star game for catalog shoppers, she'd be on the starting team.
• She's most likely to purchase over the telephone, and may even send a check through the mail (yes, people still do that).  Even now, seventeen years after e-commerce began in full force, Judy prefers to speak to a live voice, over the telephone, when giving out her credit card.
• Judy has an email address ... AOL or Yahoo! or Hotmail or via her local cable television provider.  She's not much of a Microsoft Outlook user.
• Judy is on Facebook.  She almost has to be, because that's the easiest way for her to see pictures of her grandchildren, or for her to maintain relationships with her "pen pals".
• Judy lives a few hours from the nearest "Galleria", so she's not a big mall shopper.
• Judy will pay for shipping and handling.  She doesn't spend hours looking up free shipping codes online, and has been in a multi-decade habit of paying $12.95 to have products shipped to her home.  Paying for shipping and handling is a habit for Judy.
• Judy likes the consistency of winning products, and she can be stimulated to purchase new products as well.
• Judy has a cell phone, she may even have an iPhone, but she's not likely to take part in flash sales, nor is she likely to download apps.  She just wants to play Hearts on her phone, and likes playing with various ring tones that tell her that her husband is calling.
• Judy owns a desktop computer, and only recently upgraded to DSL broadband. 
• Judy can use an iPad, she takes to it immediately, but doesn't see the reason to spend $600 to purchase one, and there's certainly no reason to buy from an iPad app when you can just pick up the phone and call somebody.
• Judy likes to use email to forward jokes and pictures of Zooborns.
• If Judy buys online, she dutifully plugs in a catalog key code off of the back of her catalog.

We can identify people like Judy, can't we?  We simply dig into our database, find customers who prefer to shop via mail/phone, find customers who live in rural areas, find customers who willing pay for shipping and handling, find customers who enter key codes online, find those with an AOL/Yahoo!/Hotmail account, and we've found "Judy"!  So go do just that, because Judy is exactly the kind of customer who wants to receive more catalogs.

A few things to keep in mind, when crafting a marketing strategy for Judy.

• Judy doesn't want to change.  She's on Facebook to see her grandchildren, not to embrace the future of F-commerce.  You will not get Judy to change channels, sorry.
• Judy doesn't want you to change the creative in your catalog, either.  She's used to what you do, your catalogs are on her coffee table, she knows you, she doesn't want change.

You look at, say, Coldwater Creek.  You visit their Twitter page, and notice that Coldwater Creek, COLDWATER CREEK, has fewer than half as many followers on Twitter as I have.  You say to yourself, if you're a pundit, "my goodness, what a complete social media failure, they don't have a clue."  That opinion is completely, utterly wrong.

No, Coldwater Creek (check Quantcast for proof) has a TON of customers like Judy ... a TON.  Judy DOES NOT CARE about Twitter.  Judy is never going to care about Twitter.  Judy just wants the darn catalog placed in her mailbox on Monday morning.  Social media pundits simply do not understand Judy.

Catalogers have come to embrace Judy, this is the niche that still raves about catalogs.  There is a ton of profit to be had within this niche for the next 5-10 years.  You, the Catalog CEO, have an opportunity to capitalize on this audience.  This is the customer your co-ops are optimizing for.

It isn't hard to identify Judy in your customer database.  It's time to get busy segmenting people like her.  Get this attribute in your database, now!!

Tomorrow, we explore the Transitional customer, whom I call "Jennifer".