Femail Embraces Mail for Valentine’s Day

Femail Creations has mailed 500,000 copies of its Valentine’s Day catalog, one of five drops it will make this year, for a total of 3 million pieces.

Roughly 100,000 of the catalogs went to current customers. But the firm has increased its reliance on cooperative databases, including Abacus, I-Behavior and Z-24, for its prospecting.

“We are finding them more effective,” said Lisa Hammond, who refers to herself as proprietress of the Las Vegas-based company. “They can do modeling to a greater degree. It’s more specific than ‘Pick female buyers with recency.’”

The Valentine’s Day catalog ran 56 pages, compared with the 64 and 72 pages for the firm’s fall and holiday 2002 books. Each one measures 8-1/4 inches by 10-1/2 inches. Between printing and mailing, the new catalog went into the mail at a cost of just under $1 apiece.

The catalog continues the 6-year-old company’s tradition of showcasing a designated charity and local artist.

It features a plaque designed by Sandra Magsamen which reads, “Our house has many windows to let in the sun and send out the hope.” One-quarter of the sales of the plaque will be set aside for the House of Ruth, a domestic violence prevention center.

The next catalog, Femail Creations’ Mother’s Day, will include an eight-page insert of holiday-appropriate items.

The Christmas book, which will go out with five separate covers, will showcase the firm’s ever-expanding inventory within its 80 pages.

The copy in both the catalogs and on the Web site (www.femailcreations.com) is written in Hammond’s informal, first-person style, although the focus has changed during the six years the company has been in business. Her descriptions now feature less about her dog and child.

“I was turning into the Kathie Lee of cataloging,” she said.

Current product descriptions focus more about why either she or her sister, one of the company’s principal buyers, fell in love with a given item. As she wrote about one product, “I was a shoo-in for the Salsa Goddess [refrigerator magnet], considering I think that chips and salsa are the true breakfast of champions.”

Sometimes customers will suggest merchandise. After Hammond received numerous requests for products with the company’s “Goddess” logo, she began putting it on a variety of items, such as tote bags and hats. They didn’t sell at all.

It turned out that they really just wanted the figure without the company name: A pin featuring her has become one of the catalog’s biggest sellers.

“They do love that logo — a little too much,” Hammond said. “One customer had it tattooed on her ankle.”