They Bake by Night
EILEEN SPITALNY may have mystical help in baking her brownies, but her customer file management is the product of Montville, NJ know-how.
Spitalny, president, marketing and sales of Scottsdale, AZ direct-mail bakery Fairytale Brownies, claims undocumented brownie (a Scots term for the wee folk) labor produces the firm’s baked goods. But the use of Dydacomp’s Mail Order Manager software, which users affectionately refer to as MOM, will allow it to more easily handle the customer file.
This frees her to oversee the company’s 80,000-name customer-and-prospect file, orchestrate seven mailings a year-two catalogs and five postcards-and process orders from several sources, including inbound telemarketing, the Internet, direct mail and walk-in sales.
As a result, the company has stepped up its targeting practices to its database. Previously, customers received catalogs and postcard mailings based on the luck of the draw. A 30,000-piece mailing would include a mix of all 15,000 customers, 5,000 gift recipients, 5,000 most-recent catalog requesters and 5,000 older prospects.
MOM will allow Fairytale Brownies to send out mailings with source codes for the first time. Source code analysis includes turnaround times from information request to order. Various order patterns will be analyzed as well: December holiday buyers, for example, will not receive a full year’s run of postcard reminders and offers. And Spitalny plans to increase her focus on business clients, who use her products as promotions designed to break through the usual clutter.
The company’s Web site (www.brownies.com) has been set up to feed directly into MOM. Previously, Internet addresses ran the risk of being entered into the system incorrectly. Spitalny estimates that her file of 5,000 names currently has at least 2,000 bad addresses.
The additional file management capability has made Fairytale Brownies more confident about increasing its DM budget.
Since the company’s inception in 1992, annual expenditure has stood at 9% of its total revenue. This year Fairytale Brownies plans to double its DM outlay. Part will go to outside list rental; two previous list rentals (15,000 Neiman Marcus names and 15,000 corporate gift givers) had been moderately successful.
MOM has allowed the company to integrate all its channels. Nine computer terminals, most next to workstations at the company’s eight-line in-house call center, are used to enter orders directly into the database. A tenth computer processes orders that will be shipped via UPS. (The company is working on integrating MOM with Federal Express’ shipping system.)
But Fairytale Brownies will also include a data field on the most important crumb of information: customer preferences.
“People will tell you if they don’t like raspberry,” says Spitalny with an audible smile.
