Whitehorse Press, a publisher of books and catalogs for motorcycle enthusiasts, is using Rapid Insight Analytics software to target its direct mailings.
Rapid Insight helps Whitehorse to analyze and segment all of its in-house data by specifically weighted variables, allowing the company to send its quarterly catalogs and other materials only to the most likely buyers. With previous analytics systems in place at Whitehorse, users had found it difficult to assign objective weighting to recency, frequency and monetary variables.
“Our objective was to apply statistical correlations against our house list to predict which of our house list customers would be most likely to respond to a new mailing,” said Dan Kennedy, founder and president of Whitehorse Press. “We wanted Rapid Insight to help us trim off the bottom end of the customer base, who are less likely to buy. Mailing costs have been climbing steadily, and that is a huge part of our operating expense, so if we can eliminate those that are less likely to buy, that will help us improve operating margins.”
Kennedy added that Rapid Insight’s ease of use and low cost helped make it an obvious choice for the business.
Whitehorse mails four catalogs per year, to around 250,000 names from both its in-house list and rented lists. Rapid Insight is, so far, only used on the in-house list, making it applicable to about 500,000-600,000 names per year. The company is working with Rapid Insight to use analytics on rented lists in the future.
