You're Fired!

Ever had to fire a customer? Bill Cole has.

Cole is president of Randolph, MA-based Bill Cole Enterprises, which direct markets Mylar sleeves, backing boards and other preservation supplies for paper collectibles like currency, magazines and comic books.

Collectors tend to be obsessive and picky about their chosen objects of desire. “It's just something you have to live with,” he said.

But there are limits.

If a Mylar storage sleeve is 7-1/2 inches, Cole advertises it on his mailing pieces, Web site and print ads as “plus or minus an eighth of an inch variance,” because variations are caused by the way the sleeves are machine cut. “We'll get customers who, every single time we send something out say, “Oh, this is a sixteenth of an inch wrong.”

It has to end somewhere, said Cole. “Finally we said to one customer, ‘Sir, we're very sorry but we can't take care of you. We can't satisfy you.’”

Then Cole called up a competitor he was friendly with. “I said, ‘You're gonna get this guy.’ He said, ‘No, I'm not gonna get him. I had the same problem and I sent him to you.’ I said, ‘You son of a —,’” he laughed. Both of us swore we'd never do business with him again. But then he came back and I said, ‘I'll take your business, but this is how it's going to be.’”

Comic-book collectors are Cole's main audience. His company also does business with the National Archives, the Library of Congress, auction houses, paper/currency collectors and dealers, and magazine and postcard collectors. “But I'd say comic-book collectors are the most knowledgeable about preservation,” he said.

Which DM method is the best for reaching collectors? It's a tough call, according to Cole. “We'll promote a special product [with an e-mail blast], and sell very little of the special. But then, our sales start increasing on all our other stuff, because people think, ‘Hey, Bill Cole Enterprises. Gee, I need this or that from them.’ It keeps our name out there. If you don't advertise, people aren't going to come to you.”

About 95% of the company's sales happen online. This, coupled with a winnowing of its in-house mailing list, has helped Cole decrease mail volume. “We're just getting rid of people who've been on the list and haven't bought in four or five years. That means our printing bills have gone down, our postage has gone down and we're targeting an audience that's purchased from us and is more keen to see an ad or mailing piece from us.”

And now, instead of producing catalogs, Cole uses oversized postcards for those more targeted direct mail campaigns. “If you have a 100-name mailing list, and those 100 are collectors who're constantly buying from you, well, it's not the quantity, it's the quality. That's the way we're looking at it.”