eCommerce Analytics

In RRW Consulting’s Direct Marketing Blog, Nancy Arter mentions that, in order to properly embrace Green Marketing, direct marketers need to “prove it” to their consumers via their business practices. Otherwise, she says, a green message rings hollow. As an example, Arter states that catalogs and coupons need to be printed on recycled paper as proof to the consumer that your company practices what it preaches.

Well, I’ll take it three steps further. I would argue that Green Marketing means sending as few catalogs as possible to achieve the same revenue targets, regardless of what type of paper those catalogs are printed on. So am I advocating that catalogers move all of their operations online? Hardly. That would be fiscally irresponsible. Catalog sales, after all, are still going strong. And there are demographics that ecommerce will never reach; demographics that include catalog devtoees who will not soon, if ever, buy from the web.

But the shrewd direct marketer should see the greening of marketing as an opportunity to prune their mailing list by using customer data best practices. Current data mining techniques make it possible to predict which customers will never buy from you again, regardless of what types of advertisements and enticements you send them. So why send those customers catalogs at all? We recently ran a study and found that we could save a multi-channel retailer a projected $47,000 a year by using customer models to identify the customers unlikely to buy again. Our recommendation: save the recycled paper by pruning those customers from the mailing list.

Direct marketers who parse their catalog lists using the powerful data mining capabilities available can make a solid case that they are listening to consumer opinion while trimming their own fat. Now, more than ever, direct marketers have the tools at their disposal to send less catalogs while still achieving the same marketing lift. And they can tout their sustainable practices back to their customers. Now that’s a marketing organization that will see green.