Incremental Sales Week

The least understood concept in Direct Marketing (and Retail for that matter) is the concept of Incremental Sales.

Incremental Sales are sales that are generated above-and-beyond what would normally be expected. For instance, you have an e-commerce website that generates $2,000,000 a month. If you maintain the same marketing strategy you maintained previously, you need to do something to create additional sales. The additional sales, above-and-beyond the $2,000,000 you expected, are Incremental Sales.

Why are Incremental Sales important?

Because nearly everybody wants credit for sales that would have happened anyway.

This "lust for credit" causes us to be less profitable than we could be. Our "optimization culture" can do an amazing job of not yielding an optimal outcome!

Tomorrow, we'll begin to explore this important topic.