Catalog Overload: End the Cycle of Recycling
Dragging recyclables to the curb is no fun, especially when the bin overflows with unwanted catalogs. As the 2009 holiday winds down, I look at my stacks of duplicate catalogs from the usual suspects--Pottery Barn, Eddie Bauer, L.L. Bean, Crate & Barrel, Victoria's Secret, and Wine Enthusiast--and wonder why this cycle of recycling still continues today, with data strategies so recognized.
While direct marketing remains an important strategy for these retailers, over-sending unwanted catalogs can negatively impact the customer experience, costs companies money, creates marketing inefficiencies, not to mention there is a significant environmental impact. The production and disposal of direct mail alone consumes more energy than three million cars.
Retailers can better manage their mailings by using merge/purge programs and data hygiene services to dedupe their lists. The USPS also provides a product called NCOALink® which matches a retailers' records on file with the USPS' records.
If you want to take matters into your own hands and stop the barrage of catalogs, you can log on to the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service. If you only want to stop a portion of the mailings, notify companies individually and tell them you want your name removed from their lists.
Looking to 2010, hopefully retailers will start asking consumers whether they want to receive their catalogs. An opt-in option online or at the POS would help curb that dreaded walk to the recycling bin.
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Using POS data, sales transaction data, subscription life style, life stage, data, algorithms and statistics, unwanted, unecessary catalogs should steadidly decrease over time. The cost from printing, mailing, plus a poor customer experience easily overwhelm the cost of implementing such a program. Problem may be that this is a long term cost benefit decision, and many business people, especially retailers, think, operate in a very short term time horizon.
Chet,
Thanks for your comment. I agree that multichannel marketing lifts response, but when it's done correctly. L.L. Bean, for example, only loses money on me. I've never bought anything from that company, yet I continue to receive catalogs.
I recently interviewed Cabela's - one of the largest direct marketers - and through a customer scoring system, the company only sends expensive catalogs to its high-value customers. Everyone else gets a mix of emails or retail flyers. They've done a good job of optmizing their marketing spend that way.
Mila -- shame on 1:1 for suggesting "opt-in" is the way to go for printed catalogs. At least we have recycling options for paper material... I fear if more professionals were to suggest "opt-in" is the way to go (what makes one channel better or worse than any other... that's up to the consumer), it may lead to government taking away our freedom to test multichannel marketing mixes, and letting the rules of the marketplace decide. The truth is that multichannel marketing lifts response in all channels, when done with relevance. Which goes to my ultimate point: permission (opt in, opt out, opt down) is not the delineator between marketing success and failure, relevance is. A Happy New Year of Relevance to All Marketers -- and I know 1:1 will continue to help show us the way.