Geographic Differences

This is a map of the Northern Great Plains and Northern Rocky Mountain states.

Orange zip codes represent customers who are responsive to traditional direct marketing. Green zip codes represent customers who shop via e-commerce.

Notice the big difference between the Great Plains states and the Rocky Mountain states!

We have a lot of marketing challenges in the future, given that so much of marketing is becoming "pull" marketing (the customer pulls the information they want, using the channels they wish to use). One of the advantages we have is data. We control what we push, and we don't have to push something to an individual who doesn't want information pushed to them.

If we want to test a new merchandise line in an e-mail campaign, there's no reason we couldn't select the "green zip codes" in the map above, coupled with responsive e-mail subscribers who have a propensity for the merchandise we're sharing with the customer. We don't have to annoy the customer in North Dakota.

Take advantage of geography --- it is going to be a part of our multchannel, multi-platform future.