The Modern Online Buyer

We looked at a Great Catalog buyer (Many More Contacts, Many More Pages).

We looked at a Good Catalog buyer (Tons of Options).

How about a Modern Online buyer?

What is the right strategy for this customer? There are choices, but there is a clear theme. Let's analyze all choices where annual profit > $1.35.

• 1 Contact at 136-200 Pages.
• 2 Contacts at 56-152 Pages.
• 3 Contacts at 32-96 Pages.
• 4 Contacts at 32-64 Pages.
• 5 Contacts at 32-48 Pages.
• 6 Contacts at 32-40 Pages.
• 7 Contacts at 32 Pages.
• 8 Contacts at 32 Pages.

If you want to employ a frequency-based strategy, you mail 7-8 contacts at 32 pages.

If you have an 80 page catalog (on average), profit is maximized/optimized at just 1 contact.

Do you understand the difference in strategy?

• 1 Contact at 80 Pages.
• 7-8 Contacts at 32 Pages.

I'll take the latter strategy every day of the week.

99 out of 100 catalogers do not employ the latter strategy. That's a problem.

What have we learned?

Best Catalog Customers:

• We typically send many mid-sized catalogs.
• We should send a TON of mid-sized to large catalogs.

Good Catalog Customers:

• There are dozens of optimal strategies, from some contacts with many pages to many contacts with few pages.

Typical Online Buyer:

• We should send some contacts with few pages.

All three strategies are different than what the typical catalog brand executes.

What the typical catalog brand executes sub-optimizes profit across all customer segments.

Are you ready to do something different?

Send me an email (kevinh@minethatdata.com) and tell me what you learned from this series, ok? Did you learn something that enables you to be ready to do something different?