1 - Why do I care about new customers when my industry obsesses with catering to best customers via omnichannel theory?
Good question!
It goes back almost 30 years.
We had a division that mailed 2 catalogs in a quarter. What would happen to the two catalogs if a third catalog was mailed?
I recommended a strategy ... an A/B test.
Instead of generating $5,000,000*2 = $10,000,000, we generated $4,300,000*3 = $12,900,000.
The new catalog didn't really generate $4.3 million ... it took away $0.7 million * 2 = $1.4 million from the other catalogs.
In fact, the result replicated most of the time.
When we converted the results to profitability, we learned that we weren't making money on all of these new mailings.
One faction of Leaders said the new catalog generated $4.3 million in sales.
Another faction of people, led largely by our test results, said the new catalog generated $2.9 million in sales.
Oh oh.
I was finished!
So I deserved everything that I got.
A Manager showed me a simulation he wrote (this was in 1995) in SPSS.
The simulation tool showed that if a business unit was not as profitable as it should be due to mailing too many catalogs, it could become profitable anyway.
And by late 1998, I was in charge of Circulation/Analytics. We had the same "over-mailing" issue.
I couldn't tell the EVP of the Home Division to mail fewer catalogs, but I could control "who" received the catalogs.
The simulation showed that the strategy worked.
If you want loyal customers in the future, you acquire customers today.
It's been the central theme of my Consulting work since early 2007. Clients have had considerable success following the thesis.
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