European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 4, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Buying by mail by Sid Moody associated press in the late 1940s, construction of an underpass i Washington . Effectively sealed off Spencer Howell s Novelty shop from the outside an buying  keep on eating he broke the blockade by placing an and in House & Garden offering tubes of whiskey Flavoured toothpaste. He sold 100,000 before the year was out. A bottle opener in the shape of dentures sold even better. Spencer Howell had rediscovered a sales tool As ancient As the babylonians direct mail. Instead of waiting for the customers to come to you go to them. Some 6,000 to 10,000 Catalon retailers the figure varies do just that 11.8 billion Cata logs a year according to Trade groups. They Range from titans such As . Bean in Maine to lands end in Wisconsin to Sears Roebuck and co. Anywhere to Larry Selman in Santa Cruz Calif who Sells Glass paperweights from a $15 Catalon including a Toadstool shaped antique you can have for $27,000. The average american Home gets 50 Cata logs a year. A burdened letter Carrier delivered 324 Cata logs to this writer Between last labor Day and thanksgiving. Last year 88 million americans 51.2 percent of the adult population bought something by phone or mail. Direct mail has had a 15 percent annual growth 30 percent for upscale Cata logs since 1970, compared to 5 10 percent for store sales. This is 8.3 percent of the nation s general merchandise sales. Direct mail is a High tech almost scientific business which undoubtedly has the brains to overcome april s 30 percent third class postal hike by becoming even More so. Little of this would have been possible without the computer the credit card and the 800-prefix Telephone number. And above All the mailing list. The mailing list stems from four of the More mundane items on this part of the planet the phone Book census reports zip codes and your car registration. Mailing list compilers can get More info from these Bare numbers and names than a biblical Exegete could from the dead sea scrolls. Donnelley marketing one of the big compilers says it has More doctors of philosophy interpreting the data than the neighbouring Stamford Conn Hospital has doctors of Medicine. Babylonian Cata logs came on a uniformed Clay tablets. After Gutenberg invented movable Type Aldus Mantius of Venice had a Catalon of books he published of greek and latin authors. Ben Franklin who else put out a Catalon of 600 books in 1744. American colonials bought everything from lace cuffs to Musket balls by mail from the Mother country. But Montgomery Ward is the direct father of today s direct mail. His 1872 Catalon promised Farmers savings of up to 40 percent by eliminating the middleman for items ranging from harnesses to parasols. The first compiler was not far behind. He probably was Lester Martin clerk of Story county Iowa who discerned that the registries of Henry Ford s new tin Lizzie were not Only Farmers but the wealthier of the Breed. Such names might mean Money. Martin got rights to the names and opened the m and f mailing co. With his brother in Law. Reuben h. Donnelley another visionary bought them out in 1917. This vision comes True daily at Donnelley s computer operation in Lincoln neb. There the names and addresses from the nation s 2,700 Telephone books Are laboriously converted to computer language says Dick Vincent Donnelley s director of marketing services. An average directory takes six weeks to computerize. But what s in a name not a whole lot until those computers Start comparing notes with other computers. Census data for instance Tell How Many people live at a phone address. It gives particulars on value of Home income. The name begins to take on some flesh. Compare those results with motor vehicle registrations compiled by the . Polk co. Of Taylor Mich. Two cars at the same address maybe mom works. An re somebody goes camping. Station Wagon kids. Sports car a Carefree Young in heart if not in fact a spender. Add some input from zip. Admittedly these can be misleading says Larry Heely a mailing list executive at direct Media in port Chester . The same zip code in Chicago contains the wealthy living in High rises along the lakefront and the decidedly unhealthy Only a few blocks Inland. Zips Are not homogeneous says Bill Weisshaar at Donnelley s computer facility in Nevada Iowa. So some firms like Caritas in Chicago dissect who lives where within a zip and divides the United states into 250,000 neighbourhoods. When i got out of College i moved into an apartment with Orange crate furniture and tacked posters on the Wall for decor says Dave Chambers of Caritas. I be moved up and away but the new tenant probably still has Orange crates and tacked posters. Birds of a Feather flock  All the easier then to identify the flock. This computerized database from National sources about half the states will sell vehicle registration lists is then inspected rejected and detected As closely As a 280-Pound woman discus thrower from behind the Iron curtain. Almost everybody buys mailing lists from everybody else to try to find out who John and Jane Doe Are behind the door at 000 main st., Centerville and just what it is they want to buy. Do they subscribe to the new yorker upscale. Money Magazine Strong evidence of Loose change. National geographic travellers armchair or actual. Field & Stream and live in Rural Colorado and own a camper John and Jane Are going to hear from Eddie Bauer and Orvis. If they buy a sleeping bag and a Fly Rod . Bean and Norm Thompson won t be far behind. Word in direct mail through list renting moves fast. It s mind boggling How Many sources of data there Are Chambers says. Credit card applications. Mortgage Loans. Alumni directories. Charitable donations. Building permits. Voting lists computers Cross reference All this to draw a profile. Many hospitals sell lists of new mothers. That s grist for the baby Cata logs. And in time grist for Kitchen appliances toys Back to school Wear Home computers brides and eventually particularly if the addressee has had there Are As Many As 10,000 Catalon retailers the figure fluctuates in the United states ranging from titans such As  bean in Maine to land s end in Wisconsin to Sears Roebuck and co. And a dealer in California who Sells Glass paperweights at left getting out . Bean Cata logs which Are stocked in a massive warehouse. The same phone for 30 years empty nest Cata logs. To keep All this straight lists Are continually subjected to merge purge eliminating duplications merging the newly born and purging the newly departed since even direct mail cannot reach beyond the grave. Omaha steaks International say will take a hint from this list one from another and make a very educated guess As to who s entertaining a lot having first of course Cross checked with the vegetarian list. Maybe it will be a Jaguar owner in an upscale zip code with a bouncing new mortgage on a showplace address who subscribes to gourmet and gentleman s quarterly and recently bought a Crystal table set from Bloomingdale s by mail. When a customer makes his first Purchase we generally Don t make Money says Omaha president Fred Simon. But if we give him Good service and a Good product he becomes a member of our family. It s a process of  you test test test says Dick Vincent. If you use a tool list for golfers you la lose your shirt. You use a lot of Little Sample mailings. You Don t go for broke on one mailing or you will. The thing about direct mail is that it is measurable. You spend x dollars for a mailing and you get y Back. In face to face retailing you can make a lot of mistakes before they catch up to  to help avoid database generalities Donnelley periodically sends out questionnaires to the Public with free coupons to entice a return. More food for the computer. Success in direct mail is not assured. Reasons for failure Are emphatic. If you rent 20 lists and 19 bomb you know you sent your Catalon at the wrong time or it was Lousy Heely says. It won t be because you rented duds. For reasons related to the Golden Rule list renters Don t Trade off Lemons. A list of heavy buyers Means higher fees to the renters. The More people buy the More their habits desires and depth of pocket becomes known and targeted by More Cata logs. To the Ever growing number of two earner families this Means broader chances for convenience shopping. No traffic jams on the Way to the mall or parking hassles once there. No tugs of War at bargain counters. No Sassy or dumb clerks. Instead the Catalon House has a Friendly knowledgeable voice at the end of an 800 number to answer any problem and assure the customer he or she in t buying a Blind pig in a Blind poke. It s a lot less expensive to keep the customer Happy than to try to find a new one says Lisa Caugherty of the direct marketing association in new York a Trade group. This is no More than Ben Franklin guaranteed when he a assured his customers who live Remote by sending their orders and Money to the said b. Franklin May depend on the same Justice As if  a Catalon buy is an act of Faith based on a picture of something seen but never touched. Buyer satisfaction is deferred. If you Don t receive the goods promptly the perceived need for it goes away and the emotional Reward goes away too says Jovon Tucker a new York Catalon consultant. So one of the first commandments of direct mail is thou shall fill orders promptly if not sooner. Years ago entry into direct mail was almost As easy As Licking a stamp. Lillian Vernon Katz a 24-year-old housewife scraped up $2,000 in the Early 1920s, placed $495 Worth of ads for Matching purses and belts and a photos the Day of the Dinosaur Cata logs like Montgomery Ward s recently abandoned Are Over she says. Cata logs today Are aimed at  mass marketing is dead pronounced Vincent. Now it s database. Magazines have a lot of wasted circulation. To is too  this is both an Opportunity and a Challenge for the mailing list. Fred Simon of Omaha steaks Aims at a Broad Market of buyers of High Quality average Catalon purchases Are somewhere Between $35 and $50. A paperweight Catalon has a far narrower focus. Caritas helps by breaking Down zip codes into categories. It tells you where to find such socioeconomic groupies they identify As Money and brains furs and station wagons pools and patios Young influential towns and gowns academics in non direct mail is a sales tool As ancient As the babylonians. Ben Franklin who else put out a Catalon of 600 books in 1744 american colonials bought everything from lace cuffs to Musket balls by mail from the Mother country. Offered to Monogram them free. Lillian Vernon did $115 million in sales last year. Richard Thalheimer started up his sharper image Catalon by writing Clever copy and offering oddball items such As a suit of 15th Century Armor for $2,450. Gary Comer a former and copywriter started lands end As a yacht supplier then tacked downwind to become one of the biggest clothing mailers. Omaha steaks was a local food supplier until 1952 when Fred Simon s father heeded friends requests to mail meats to their friends. The Stampede was on. Mom and pop still might just conceivably Start a Catalon today Over the Kitchen table. But they better have $500,000 up front and be Able to sweat it out for two years says Larry Heely. It s a very crowded mail Box says Jovon Tucker. She helped . Carroll an Irish tobacco company spend Over $5 million with the help of marketing psychologists and All the Sci i of Madison Avenue to prepare their recent debut into direct mail with an up up scale Catalon full of enticing photos of wares to equip your own Buckingham Palace by. Iss5ibfii�43ss2lis7s5�m metropolitan area god s country Well educated Frontier Type Coalburg and Cor town Terre haute and Lima Ohio surrounded by Rich Farmland and peopled by solid Blue Collar citizens raising sturdy Tom Sawy Erish children in decent front porch houses. They la also Tell you for a Price where to find shotguns and pickups Norma Rae Villes and tobacco roads. At the Brush of a computer Button Heely brings up data on woodworkers Supply of new Mexico 62,833 Catalon purchases in the last six months 173,930 for 1987. An average list rented for one time use with the owner s veto Over Content goes for around $80 per thousand names. Throw in another $10 if you want a breakdown As to gender a recency of Purchase. Of that the broker who mediates Between landlord and rented gets about 20 percent the manager who has been handling the list gets 10, the renter pays maybe $3.50 to run off his list. The rest is Gravy in his pocket. Lists and listers pinpoint like a b-1 bomb sight. They can Tell you that there is a correlation Between someone with a propensity for elective surgery and the amount of Cash and spare time the Cutee has. Computer modelling applying a myriad of demographic and lifestyle overlays on the primary database Are producing what Tucker Calls a Young  it has to be to marry the tastes of an endlessly varied buyer and an endlessly fanciful seller. Where but in America could american express otherwise sell 6,000 busts of King Tut How else could you find buyers mailing and phoning for every kind of fitness machine stereo Woofer subliminal weight control tapes two ounce bottles of Quail scent to train Bowser to the Hunt a 24-room purple Martin House with guard rails for baby Birds $289videotaped Tours of Highland games in Scotland or civil War battlefields $29.95 music Box dolls that play thank heaven for Little girls a real steam launch for $61,500, 42-Inch-High stuffed leather Rhin Sceri $495 plus $12.95 shipping fur Coats Mutual funds who Are these customers who hold 600 million credit cards and once flooded . Bean with 100,000 phone Calls in a Day and what Are the Cata logs that impel them to lick Stamps and dial phones it is the merchandiser s dream to identify the Core group of 20 percent who buy 60 percent of the nation s goods says Vincent. The 20 percent is not always whom you might expect. Catalon buyers Are not sit by the fire thumbing a Catalon Couch potatoes. More Likely they Are working couples with limited time to shop. They Are yuppies but also Over-50s, who have some discretionary income now the kids have gone. The upscale could Well be Semi Rural who Are 1,500 Miles from Nieman Marcus. . Bean s primary constituency is suburban. Rural Folk can buy lumber jackets and Gas lanterns Down at the general store. The Market is potentially anyone who can dial a phone. In 1967, 653 businesses had 800 numbers and handled 7 million phone Calls. Today there Are 535,000 toll free numbers 6.3 billion Calls to them and even an 800 number for information on 800 numbers. Today s Catalon is Only a Distant relative to yesteryear s Sears version that was a Backhouse fixture banana Republic s is a safari through suburban Bush clothing together with a written one from some exotic trek. Patagonia has Rock climbers and sky divers scrambling Over the pages of its sportswear implying that Here is the garb of real he persons. Garrett Wade s handsome tool Catalon elevates photos of hammers saws and wooden planes almost to Fine Art. Cata logs Are first and Foremost a photographer s medium says Jovon Tucker. But it has to be More than a pretty picture. It has to have a tone and personality not just Ticky Tacky  the creative part gets More attention but it s Only 20 percent of Success says Chambers. The Rule of thumb is that 40 percent is the right product and 40 percent is the  Tea it Page 14 the stars and stripes monday july 4,1988 the stars and stripes Page 15