Viking Goes One-Up
Viking Office Products is bringing a one-to-one targeting strategy to many of its 157 catalog marketing programs. The $1.7 billion cataloger’s latest test is a personalized “happy anniversary” catalog mailing to customers.
Customers receive the catalog near the anniversary date of their first purchase. In addition to a free gift, they receive individualized offers based on their buying history – and that’s only the start of the customization.
“Our business has grown dramatically since we’ve been doing one-to-one marketing,” said Irwin Helford, chairman of the Los Angeles-based firm, speaking during the general session of the recent Marketing to Business Conference, held in San Francisco.
The anniversary catalog, he noted, is personalized by the customer’s name appearing larger on the cover page than Viking’s own name.
The company does database analysis to select from among the 9,600 products it stocks to offer those that the customer is statistically most likely to purchase. The catalog targets small businesses typically with 20 or fewer employees.
“We put the customer’s name and date of first order in the catalog and a picture showing the product that we think she’s ready to buy,” said Helford. “This has generated one of the highest response rates I’ve seen in 43 years.”
Success follows when the data is used in a way that impresses the customer. To be effective, database marketing needs to be about more than just capturing, sorting, analyzing and summarizing data, Helford advised.
Viking has also tested customized catalogs with photographs of the phone agent who actually spoke with a customer. But, noted Helford, “we haven’t analyzed those results yet.”
“A lot of what we do doesn’t work,” he added, “but we’re learning a lot that will help us build stronger customer relationships.”
Active in international markets, Viking launched a Web site in the United Kingdom in March. The site carries customized promotional offers. Viking was acquired by Home Depot in 1998.
