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As a marketing tool, insert media are attracting new interest for their cost-effectiveness. The absence of postage and hefty rental fees means inserts can be created, produced, and delivered for pennies apiece. What's more, the shaky economy has led to decreased response for many catalogers, notes Dan Plunkett, Senior Vice President of marketing at Transaction Media, Inc. While many catalog marketers have been able to offset sagging response with Internet sales, some predict online growth will start slowing. “The Internet has helped maintain their growth,” Plunkett says. “But sooner or later every medium seems to plateau.”

A panel discussion at the Harvard Club of New York, moderated by Dan Plunkett, Senior Vice President of marketing for Transaction Media, will focus on how to revitalize stale offers and develop creative and media plans that will inject new life into tired programs. Panelists Joanna Degennaro, assistant director, Bookspan; Peter Mendelson, senior vice president of marketing, Gerber Life; and Steve LePera, media director, Mantis, will share exciting new ways to increase customer lifetime value, improve response rates, and reduce costs.

Concise creative: Another reason some catalogers balked at using insert media may have been the need to create new collateral. The maximum size for a package insert is typically 5-1/2" × 8-1/2"; catalog blow-ins and bind-ins are postcard-size. As a result, “mailers have to be more concise in their creative,” says Daniel Plunkett, Senior Vice President of Transaction Media, Inc. “Catalogers should use the fundamentals that have made them successful but do it on a miniature scale.” If you use value pricing as your differentiating feature, be sure to emphasize that on your insert creative. If you pride yourself on speedy service, call attention to that. For catalogers used to having multiple full-size pages to tell their story, adapting to the space limitations
of a card deck or a statement stuffer can be challenging. Nonetheless, experts say, try to use a paper stock, type fonts, and colors that tie in with the creative of your catalogs and other marketing materials.

The first advantage is cost. At about one tenth the cost of direct mail, it can be tested without much risk. In fact, one can test 50,000 pieces in a program at less than a 5,000-piece list test. Compared to direct-response television and direct mail, the cost of creative deployment is far less expensive, as well. The most important fact here is efficiency. Response is not proportional to cost and, in fact, many marketers find that they achieve a lower advertising-to-revenueratio with this medium. Dan Plunkett is Senior Vice President of Philadelphia, P.A. agency Transaction Media, LLC. He can be reached at dplunkett@transaction-media.com or 610 444 3518
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