• TIP ONE

The customer is not always right.

Database marketing has altered our methods of selling and taught us to more closely examine the products or services we sell as well as the customers we want to sell to.

The goal of successful database marketing is to acquire and retain profitable customers.

Yet not all customers are profitable or loyal. Many can be unprofitable and some can even be unpredictable and a problem to deal with.

Too many organizations today, focus on quantity over quality of customers. Quantity of business should never be the only benchmark for excellence, sustainability or profitability.

• TIP TWO

Paper works.

Paper plays a big role in branding and in response because of its tactile nature.

Paper comes in different weights that are usually determined by weighing 500 sheets (one ream) of paper of a standard size. The standard size of bond paper is 17" x 22" and the standard size for offset paper is 25" x 38".

A recent test mailing I did of 65,000 pieces with half on textured stock vs. half on plain white stock resulted in a 24% gain in response for the textured stock.

The colour of a stock also plays an important role. In a test of white vs. cream stock, the cream stock out pulled the white by 46.25%.