E-Mail Priority And Catalog Covers

Matthew has a few questions that he'd like to see if you might be willing to answer. Here are his questions, as e-mailed to me. Please discuss, and leave your answers in the comments section of this post.


What is the importance of catalog cover testing when your company is in Retention mode? I believe that it is necessary to prevent a cover that would bomb from slipping through and going full-scale. But at this point the brand should be established and major changes to covers would/should be unlikely. My point here is that I believe it is often the flagship test of a catalog and receives the most attention. A cover test is not a viable method for generating incremental revenue.

Where would Multi-Channel marketing be if Email came before Direct Mail? Emails win in ROI and Catalogs win in Sales per Mailing so what would be different? Would we be excellent at segmenting our email audience and only blasting to our most profitable customers? Would Catalogs get sent to everyone because of their tremendous Sales per Mailing and Response?


Please use the comments section of this post to offer Matthew your thoughts.