A Direct Marketing Agency - Helping Brands Acquire and Retain Customers

No, not the number of days in the year, but the number of millions of catalogs Victoria's Secret mails in one year. That's right, 365 million, or 1 million catalogs mailed, on average, each day. Sounds like a ridiculous amount, right? I read this stat in a recent TIME article where they blasted Victoria Secret for mailing irresponsibly - both from a quantity standpoint as well as by their lack of recycled paper content in their catalogs.

I did a little research and found that their buyer list, which is available for purchase, has a current 12-month buyer count of 4.87 million responsive, direct mail order customers. They likely mail these customers monthly, if not bi-monthly, and the best customers even more often, especially preceding the holidays. Let's say they mail the 12 month-buyer file an average of 25 times a year - that equates to 121 million books (this does not seem excessive when you consider that mass media campaigns reach customers multiple times on a daily basis.) Throw in mailings to older buyers, inactive buyers and requesters, then add in prospect mailings (which likely accounts for over 60% of their mailing plan to maintain and grow their business), and suddenly the number of 365 million doesn't seem so large.

From a recycled paper standpoint, they should increase their recycled paper content dramatically. As a high profile, major player in the direct marketing world, Victoria's Secret does need to be more responsible and set forth a good example for other direct marketers who use catalogs in their marketing mix.

Should they reduce the amount of mailings and therefore reduce the total amount of paper used? I would say not necessarily. They are savvy marketers - they know that multi-channel marketing using direct print, web and retail is a recipe for success. They know that marketers who use three or more channels to sell their goods increase the lifetime value of the customer by five-fold.