Here's the "Great Eight":
- Audience.
- Awareness.
- Acquisition.
- Welcome.
- Anniversary.
- Optimization.
- New Merchandise.
- Winning Merchandise.
Run your comp segment analysis. If you see this, you have an Acquisition problem.
Fifteen months ago, something changed. The counts of new + reactivated buyers reversed, and since then new + reactivated buyer counts have been in decline. This is an Acquisition problem. Somebody decided to cut back on acquisition spend.
This is what an Awareness problem might look like.
Of course I'm exaggerating here - but on average, the numbers consistently trend down. This is what catalogers have run into - they've gone to the co-op Pez dispenser too many times and there isn't a lot of candy left.
Awareness Problem:
- Customer Acquisition counts have trended negative (maybe 2 out of 3 months, on average) for several years.
Acquisition Problem:
- There is an "inflection point" where somebody made a decision to spend less and as a result metrics look bad.
What does co-op mean in regards to catalog marketers?
ReplyDeleteA co-op represents a "co-operative database". The cataloger sends purchase transactions for the 500,000 customers who have bought from the brand to the co-op, at no cost to the co-op. The co-op combines those transactions with transactions from other catalogers, de-dupes the file, and then makes available the "best" unique names at a cost varying between $0.03 and $0.07 per mailing for one-time use. If the customer buys from a catalog, the cataloger gets to keep the nae. If the customer does not purchase, the customer is available to rent for one-time use once again.
ReplyDeleteThe algorithms used by the co-ops have a self-fulfilling prophesy ... they spin 62+ year old customers to catalogers (because the cataloger generally has an older customer base - causing the co-op brand to optimize response for older customers), and by default, they age the catalog brand quickly.