What I can’t figure out is why they send me big, heavy, expensive catalogs in the first place, since I never purchase from them and they don’t influence my purchase behavior – I just throw them out. I suspect (largely based on our friend Kevin Hillstrom’s work) that a faulty matchback – no control groups used – is to blame.

What does influence my behavior somewhat is the direct mail pieces Office Depot sends like clockwork – I can always expect another discount right on time. They should build some variability into that program, methinks – they’re giving up margin dollars they don’t really need to give up on these cyclical, repetitive puchases of office supplies.

Of course, if they were using controls, they’d know that…

Very nice re-targeting example! Will have to remember that.

I also really liked another example that John Squire shared at the NCDM conference last year. A client of his, some fisher supplies catalog retailer, added a cover letter to their catalog mailings. That cover letter apparently highlights relevant sections in the catalog to each recipient. According to John, the content of the letter is personalized based on past online click behavior. Pretty cool I thought! Especially, considering that most email marketers don’t even personalize future emails based on past site behavior!

Yours are some large shoe steps to follow for the idea of integrating online and offline data + marketing methods! Thanks for reading the multi-channel book!
Akin