eBook and Free Download Results

Thought you might want to see how different types of content are consumed by you, the loyal MineThatData reader.

Free Content:  A Few Observations About Modern Catalog Marketing

• 2,500 Blog Subscribers, 2,700 Twitter Followers
• I Project 700 Individuals Will Read The Blog Post
• 110 Downloads

Gliebers Dresses:  Catalogs on Trial, $0.99 via Kindle/Nook

• 2,500 Blog Subscribers, 2,700 Twitter Followers
• I Project 700 Individuals Will Read The Blog Post
• 59 Clicks to Amazon, 6 Clicks to Barnes/Noble
• 24 Requests for a Free Copy (recall the 48 hour free copy offer last week).
• 20 Purchases in 4 Days (Projects to Sales of 200 to 500, life-of-book).

Digital Profiles eBook:  $95.00 via Kindle/Nook

• 2,500 Blog Subscribers, 2,700 Twitter Followers
• I Project 700 Individuals Will Read The Blog Post
• 9 Clicks to Amazon, 0 Clicks to Barnes/Noble.  5 of 9 clicks outside of United States.
• 2 Purchases in 3 Days (Projects to Sales of 10 copies, life-of-book, based on prior tests at a $75 price point).

Most of the advice you read suggests that free is best.  This analysis demonstrates that folks will pay for content.  Clearly, there is an "elasticity" between free and $95, isn't there?  But that's why we analyze this stuff.  You are probably building this kind of intelligence into your marketing strategy, right?

By the way, if we evaluate short-term benefits on sales generated, then 2*$95 > 20*$0.99 > 110*$0.00.  Just saying ...

Most important ... pay attention to the "funnel", or what I call "low probability" events.

• 2,500 blog subs and 2,700 Twitter followers. 
• About 200 actions from at least 3,000 and probably closer to 3,500 unique individuals.
• Around 25 purchases.
• Maybe 6% of individuals take action, with maybe 15% of the 6% (about 1% of the total audience) purchasing something.

These low-probability events are not well understood by marketers who don't focus on math.  They reflect the modern reality of a digital world.  I repeatedly hear that "new media doesn't scale", be it mid-media like search or e-mail, or new media like social / mobile.  Scale isn't as much an issue as the fact that new media is a "low probability event".  When it works, it scales times ten.  For the other 99% of us, this is the outcome we must be satisfied with.

Growth Opportunities: Pay, Permission, Probability

In the eBook (Amazon Kindle, B/N Nook, $0.99), the Executive Team struggles with the concept of improving a business that has not grown in eight years.

Frequently, I talk about how much easier it is to grow by finding new customers than it is to grow by improving customer retention (i.e. loyalty).  Out on Twitter, the pundits beat me up over this concept, but in the real world, there's the harsh reality that it is terribly difficult to find ways to measurably improve customer loyalty.

That bring us to the concept of new customers.  Catalog marketers have an enormous advantage over nearly every other discipline, in that catalogers actively rent names at $0.06+/- a pop from Abacus.  This allows the cataloger to control exactly how many new customers are acquired, on an annual basis.

To me, there are three ways to manage customer acquisition.

1. Pay for the opportunity (catalog list rental, television advertising, paid search, etc).  Older marketers, those who honed skills prior to the advent of the internet, adore this discipline.  Getting one of these marketers to think different is very hard.
2. Permission.  Think Groupon ... you give Groupon your email address, making you a prospect.  They have the permission to send you daily email offers, and eventually you bite, becoming a Groupon customer.  In rare cases, this methodology "blows up", and you go from zero to a billion in a year.  In most cases, you don't fundamentally increase sales in the short-term, this is a long-term proposition.
3. Probability.  This is what new media advocates promote.  They suggest that you attempt viral, social, or mobile strategies that "spread the word", helping you grow.  I call this "probability" because the probability of success is low.  You can follow every best practice in the book, and you improve your chances of success from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 950.  But when you have success, you leap-frog the competition.

Marketers trained in "pay" have a very challenging time with permission or probability.  Those trained in "probability" determine that "pay is dead".


In this eBook, we consider these three methodologies without ever directly referencing them.  Ultimately, it's not that we are "catalogers" or "mobile marketers", it comes down to an issue of what we believe is the most effective way to acquire new customers.  Where do you stand?  Pay?  Permission?  Probability?

Narrow, Deep Skills

Without directly mentioning it, I spend a lot of time discussing the concept of "narrow, deep skills" in the eBook (Amazon Kindle, B/N Nook, $0.99).

Narrow, deep skills are a marketing problem.

• "He's only a search person, he knows nothing about the business."
• "She's only an email marketer, she knows nothing about the business."
• "He's a 57 year old catalog guy, what could he possibly know about modern digital marketing?"

Social media is probably the worst.  The disconnect between making quarterly sales and profit numbers and having "conversations" with customers couldn't be greater.  In no way does this make social media wrong, it's simply an issue of "narrow, deep skills".


If you have ten employees, one will take the initiative to learn about other areas of the business.


The other nine employees need leadership.  They need somebody to teach them, not "how" to do search marketing for instance, but the concepts surrounding why the business needs what the business needs.


In the eBook, Libby Benson is the Social Media Director.  Nobody spent any time with her, explaining what happens if catalog marketing is removed from the marketing mix.  To Libby, you just have conversations with customers, and the sales follow.  Nobody is mentoring this individual.


You are an EVP or CEO, so you have the responsibility to teach your employees why your business works they way it works.  Help your employees understand why you can't eliminate certain areas of your business without dire consequences.

BREAKING NEWS: Catalog Presentation Download

Why don't you click below and download this catalog presentation I've been sharing as I make my way across the country.

• A Few Observations About Modern Catalog Marketing

In the presentation, I discuss trends I'm observing and the impact these trends will have on catalog marketing, moving forward.  In particular, I spend considerable time on how mail/holdout tests will be used to ultimately save ad-dollars, allowing catalogers to compete with companies offering free shipping 24/7/365.

When you're done reading the presentation, please forward it to a friend/co-worker/colleague.  

Contact me for you own customized project.

Hillstrom's Digital Profiles: An eBook

Sometimes, I get feedback that goes something little like this:

• "I'd like to apply Digital Profiles to my business, but I cannot afford your consulting services.  How can you help me?"

Today, I offer you a solution.

For $95.00, you can download a new eBook, called "Hillstrom's Digital Profiles".

• Download the free Kindle eBook reader here.
• Hillstrom's Digital Profiles:  Amazon Kindle, $95.00.
• Hillstrom's Digital Profiles:  B/N Nook, $95.00.

In the eBook, you'll get all of the tools necessary to create your own Digital Profiles.

• A 40mb dataset that you can practice creating Digital Profiles with.
• The SPSS code that creates Digital Profiles.
• My commentary on the programming and analysis process.

Yes, I am ready for your next question.

• "Are you insane?  I have to pay $95.00 for this?  This is 2011, stuff is free everywhere on the internet.  Why can't you give this to us for free, or for a reasonable cost like $0.99?"

If that's your question, then keep the following in mind:

• Every detail to create your own Digital Profiles, except for the SPSS code, has been published on this site.  Simply search for Digital Profiles, and you have all of the content you want for free.  Is that a bad thing?

• In the comments section, list all of the vendors who give away all of their trade secrets for free on a blog.  Whatever work I do for clients, I always publish details of the analysis, for free, on this blog.  I hope that is acceptable to you.

Get your corporate credit card out, and purchase the eBook.  Download the code, download the dataset, and create your own Digital Profiles.  Then apply what you've learned with your own data!

Gliebers Dresses: Catalogs on Trial eBook

Ok, it is time for our experiment to begin!

Gliebers Dresses:  Catalogs on Trial is now available as an eBook ... a 70 page eBook that explores how our favorite Executive Team defends a business model ... the catalog business model.

• Amazon Kindle, $0.99.
• Barnes/Noble Nook, $0.99.

I can hear the complaints right now.  "I don't have an ebook reader, why can't this be in print?"

• Kindle for the PC, Free Download

You read my daily missives digitally, not in print, right?  You don't complain about blog posts not being in print.  So download the Kindle program for your PC, pay $0.99 (cheaper than $7.95 or $19.95, more money in your pocket), and read the eBook!

During the next two weeks, we'll chat about the themes in the book, and how the themes relate to your business.

Dear Catalog CEOs: USPS

The USPS is offering to return a fraction of postage costs to big brands spending $250,000,000+ a year on advertising, if they use direct mail and it fails to deliver an acceptable ROI.

And then there's you, the $50,000,000 annual net sales business, fighting for survival, dealing with the possibility of significant rate hike at some point in the near future.

What you think of the message being sent to big brands who don't use this channel, and of the message being sent to small brands who have used this channel for decades?