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Every year we devote this newsletter to our annual checklist to help you get ready for the upcoming Holiday season. We have added several new ideas this year that worked well for our clients and friends last holiday season.
We hope this list gives you a few ideas to help make Holiday 2008 the best season in your company’s history.
If you have any questions about the list, or you want to talk about new ways to grow your food-by-mail company, please drop me a line.
The next few issue of the FBMIU will discuss more ways to increase traffic to and sales from your website. After that, we will cover trends and results we are seeing throughout the Fall/Holiday 2008 selling season for food mailers
I would love to hear from you if you have any experiences—from sales trends and catalog delivery times, to online techniques that are helping you sell more food—you would like to share with our other readers.
If there is a topic of particular interest to you, please let us know. We will try to cover it in a future edition of the Food-by-Mail Industry Update.
Warmest regards,
Tony Cox
President
The 5th Food Group and Catalog Solutions, LLC
5th Food Group
Preseason Holiday Checklist
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I have a written, documented plan to achieve my sales, profit and name-flow goals.
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I have a plan to beat the plan.
My mail plan maximizes the number of buying opportunities from my most profitable house file segments.
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All lists in all mailings have a unique key code, so we can accurately track list performance.
I have segmented my house file to eliminate unprofitable names from the mailings. I have run my names through NCOA and other list hygiene procedures, so I am not wasting money mailing catalogs to bad addresses.
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I am testing at least one additional mailing to “best buyers” to maximize their profit contribution.
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Our web site is updated with all of the new prices, shipping rates and graphics from the new catalog, so we have a “common voice” across all channels.
We have a written game plan for our e-mail campaign including offers, subject lines, and transmission dates. We will only send e-mail to customers who have asked to receive our promotions. We will use e-mail to preannounce catalog mailings, and to promote Christmas delivery cutoff days to last-minute shoppers.
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My mail plan is based on a thorough analysis of my historical response data. I did not make any arbitrary mail/don’t mail decisions this year.
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I am testing special offers to reactivate old or lapsed buyers.
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New programs are in place to convert more inquiries into buyers.
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We will mail a catalog to new inquiries within three days from the date they requested our catalog.
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We will follow-up the first catalog mailing to new inquiries with a remail four weeks later.
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My mail plan is designed to bring in enough new buyers this season to meet my growth needs next year. Moreover, I know how many new buyers I need this year to make my numbers next year.
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I have run the numbers, and I know exactly how much I can spend to acquire a new customer and generate my desired ROI. I am mailing to every list that meets my ROI criteria.
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I have run a pro forma profit and loss and cash flow forecast on this mail plan. I know what I will do if sales are 15%, 20%, or 25% above or below my projections.
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I have contingency plans for cash requirements, inventory, personnel, equipment and packing supplies based on my “15%, 20%, and 25% over-and-under plans.”
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I have used my mail plan and historical order curves to developed forecasts of the number of phone, Web, e-mail, fax, and mail orders I will receive each week.
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I have enough computer terminals and phone lines to handle the peak weeks as indicated in my weekly order forecast.
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Based on my weekly order forecasts, I know how many seasonal employees I will need. And I know when to hire them.
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I have access to enough seasonal personnel to answer phones, respond to e-mail requests, and pick, pack and ship orders. I have a small “bonus” plan in-place, so most of my seasonal hires last through Christmas.
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Seasonal phone reps are trained in our customer service policies, know how to enter orders into our computer system, are familiar with our products, and they understand the importance of getting customer key codes on each order.
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We have developed an up-sell phone script to improve our average order size.
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We have developed special offers to stimulate a self-purchase when gift buyers call to place an order.
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We have developed a list of “gifts under $50, gifts under $75, and gifts under $100” to offer to callers who do not know what to order.
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We will ask all callers if they have a friend who would like to receive our catalog.
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We will ask all callers if they want to join our e-mail list to receive special offers and announcements.
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All outgoing packages will have a customer survey card, a “send a friend a catalog” card, and food prep instructions (when applicable).
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I will communicate to customers via the catalog, other mailings and e-mail our cutoff date for Christmas delivery.
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We have scheduled a reminder mailing in early December to announce and reinforce our Christmas delivery cutoff date.
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We will read our key code reports weekly, and make on-the-spot adjustments to our mail plan, if necessary.
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If we do not print a separate spring catalog, we printed enough catalogs for a couple of spring 2009 mailings to our best buyers and all new customers. We also have enough catalogs for new buyers and inquiries that we receive between now and the time we print our fall/holiday 2009 catalog.
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We have alerted all relevant publications (Press Releases) about new products we are carrying. All publications will receive our new catalog and other news-worthy information.
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Once again, we have confirmed in our minds that we are not crazy to be doing this one more year. In spite of all the work, we know the food-by-mail business is a nice way to make a living.
ABOUT 5TH FOOD GROUP & CATALOG SOLUTIONS
5th Food Group helps specialty food companies grow and make more money by developing, managing, implementing and analyzing their mail-order and online marketing programs.
We are the only catalog/Internet marketing firm that works exclusively in the specialty-food industry. Helping smaller companies or large companies with small mail-order or Internet divisions is what we do best.
Visit us online at www.5thFoodGroup.com to download a copy of our free booklet, The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Catalogers, and for information on our fully guaranteed introductory program called Jump Start.
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5th Food Group