clario Analytics President in DMNews

Does the sun revolve around the Earth or the Earth orbit the sun? This question challenged scientists centuries ago. A similar puzzle faces direct marketers today: Do circulation decisions begin with the catalog or the customer?

Since the first direct marketer faced the decision of whom to mail or not mail, circulation managers have lived in a catalog-centric, or vertical marketing, world. In this world, marketers are forced to choose which subset of customers should receive a particular catalog and then repeat the process for each subsequent catalog. Marketers who utilize this strategy consider their catalogs “the center of the universe.”

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Randy Erdahl is President of clario Analytics/Decision Intelligence, Inc.