Perreault−McCarthy: Basic
Marketing: A
Global−Managerial
Approach, 14/e
- Behavior Dimensions of
the Consumer Market
Text © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2002Behavioral Dimensions of the Consumer Market 181a. If you were Debose, which of the two lists would you
buy based on the initial spreadsheet? Why?
b. For the most profitable list, what is the minimum
number of items that Submag will have to mail to earn
a profit of at least $3,500?
c. For an additional cost of $.01 per mailing, Submag
can include a reply card that will reduce the percent of
consumers who forget to send in an order (Percent
Lost—Selective Retention) to 45 percent. If Submag
mails 25,000 items, is it worth the additional cost to
include the reply card? Explain your logic.
For additional questions related to this problem, see
Exercise 6-3 in the Learning Aid for Use with Basic Mar-
keting,14th edition.mailing—although the precise percentage varies from
one mailing list to another.
Selective perceptioninfluences some consumers who do
open the mailing. Some are simply not interested.
Others don’t want to deal with a subscription service.
Although the price is good, these consumers worry that
they’ll never get the magazines. Submag’s previous expe-
rience is that selective perception causes more than half
of those who read the offer to reject it.
Of those who perceive the message as intended, many
are interested. But selective retentioncan be a problem.
Some people set the information aside and then forget to
send in the subscription order.
Submag can mail about 25,000 pieces per week.
Shandra Debose has set up a spreadsheet to help her
study effects of the various relationships discussed above
and to choose between the two mailing lists.