For My Catalog Readers

If you are required to cut back on marketing spend (at the very time when you need to maintain marketing spend to keep the wheels on the bus), you need a plan.

For my catalog readers:

• This is not the time to cut back on customer acquisition ... the opposite of what you are being told. You will need the new customers when things return to normal.
• This is EXACTLY the time to cut back on mailings to average/marginal customers. Across my sims it is obvious that nearly every catalog brand is over-mailing average and marginal customers.
• If a customer has clicked through an email campaign in the past month, cut back on catalog mailings and ramp-up on personalized email campaigns.
• If a customer has purchased via email marketing in the past year, cut back on catalog mailings and ramp-up on personalized email campaigns.
• If a customer has purchased via any type of social activity, cut back on catalog mailings as you already have a mostly free channel to "engage" the customer in.
• Most "digital" customers are less likely to purchase in the future ... and their transactions are likely 50% or more "organic" (i.e. not driven by catalog marketing). Have your marketing analyst carefully assess the viability of catalog marketing to this audience.

If you don't have a process to evaluate the bullet points above or don't have the bandwidth to do so, contact me right away and we'll get busy, ok??  (206-853-8278 ... kevinh@minethatdata.com).

Finally ... for catalog readers ... it is really important to measure File Power each week. Every Monday morning you absorb transactions from the week prior, you assess how far response is from normal, you plug in response efforts by week through mid-summer assuming things continue "as-is", and you forecast weekly / monthly sales as a consequence. This is where leadership and a forecast/simulation environment become so darn important.

P.S.:  You were born to be a Leader at this unique time in history ... you've got this!!!!