Riding the Paper Tiger

Lure of E-Mail
Soft Surroundings, for one, witnessed a 50 percent increase in its sales attributable to e-mail marketing this year over last, Woodle says.

To determine efficient and effective means of contacting customers and prospects, catalog or online, Soft Surroundings and others first get a fix on the cost to acquire individual customers and/or orders. “If you look at your whole marketing mix, you rate it by efficiencies,” says Dave Noonan, vice president of sales and marketing at Mountain Gear. “The cost structure of printing and mailing is making it harder to make that pay for itself compared to other options available. And on a cost-per-acquisition basis, e-mail is certainly effective.”