IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orinte/v33y2003i1p50-66.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimizing Rhenania's Mail-Order Business Through Dynamic Multilevel Modeling (DMLM)

Author

Listed:
  • Ralf Elsner

    (Rhenania Group, 56061 Koblenz, Germany)

  • Manfred Krafft

    (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Institut für Marketing, Am Stadtgraben 13-15, 48143 Münster, Germany)

  • Arnd Huchzermeier

    (Wissenschaftliche Hochschule für Unternehmensführung (WHU), Otto-Beisheim Graduate School of Management, Burgplatz 2, 56179 Vallendar, Germany)

Abstract

Rhenania, a German direct mail-order company, turned its catalog mailing practices around within one year and consequently moved up in market position from number 5 to number 2. A dynamic multilevel modeling (DMLM) approach uses elasticities to determine the optimal frequency of catalog mailings, a customer-segmentation approach allows for optimization of mailings, and a recency, frequency, monetary-value (RFM) segmentation in combination with a chi-square automatic interaction detection (CHAID) algorithm determines when customers should receive a reactivation package—as opposed to a catalog—to optimize mailing efficiency further. The DMLM approach was so effective that Rhenania acquired two competitors (one a subdivision of Springer Verlag).

Suggested Citation

  • Ralf Elsner & Manfred Krafft & Arnd Huchzermeier, 2003. "Optimizing Rhenania's Mail-Order Business Through Dynamic Multilevel Modeling (DMLM)," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 33(1), pages 50-66, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:33:y:2003:i:1:p:50-66
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.33.1.50.12719
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.33.1.50.12719
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/inte.33.1.50.12719?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deb Campbell & Randy Erdahl & Doug Johnson & Eric Bibelnieks & Michael Haydock & Mark Bullock & Harlan Crowder, 2001. "Optimizing Customer Mail Streams at Fingerhut," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 31(1), pages 77-90, February.
    2. Bitran, Gabriel & Mondschein, Susana, 1997. "A comparative analysis of decision making procedures in the catalog sales industry," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 105-116, April.
    3. Gabriel R. Bitran & Susana V. Mondschein, 1996. "Mailing Decisions in the Catalog Sales Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(9), pages 1364-1381, September.
    4. G. V. Kass, 1980. "An Exploratory Technique for Investigating Large Quantities of Categorical Data," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 29(2), pages 119-127, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. A. Prinzie & D. Van Den Poel, 2005. "Constrained optimization of data-mining problems to improve model performance: A direct-marketing application," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 05/298, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    2. Hayk Manucharyan, 2020. "How do managers actually choose suppliers? Evidence from revealed preference data," Working Papers 2020-12, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    3. Duncan Simester & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Erik Brynjolfsson & Eric T. Anderson, 2009. "Dynamics Of Retail Advertising: Evidence From A Field Experiment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(3), pages 482-499, July.
    4. Duncan I. Simester & Peng Sun & John N. Tsitsiklis, 2006. "Dynamic Catalog Mailing Policies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(5), pages 683-696, May.
    5. Bose, Indranil & Chen, Xi, 2009. "Quantitative models for direct marketing: A review from systems perspective," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 195(1), pages 1-16, May.
    6. Scott A. Neslin & Thomas P. Novak & Kenneth R. Baker & Donna L. Hoffman, 2009. "An Optimal Contact Model for Maximizing Online Panel Response Rates," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 727-737, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ralf Elsner & Manfred Krafft & Arnd Huchzermeier, 2004. "The 2003 ISMS Practice Prize Winner: Optimizing Rhenania's Direct Marketing Business Through Dynamic Multilevel Modeling (DMLM) in a Multicatalog-Brand Environment," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 192-206, June.
    2. Blattberg, Robert C. & Malthouse, Edward C. & Neslin, Scott A., 2009. "Customer Lifetime Value: Empirical Generalizations and Some Conceptual Questions," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 157-168.
    3. Bas Donkers & Richard Paap & Jedid‐Jah Jonker & Philip Hans Franses, 2006. "Deriving target selection rules from endogenously selected samples," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(5), pages 549-562, July.
    4. Coussement, Kristof & Van den Bossche, Filip A.M. & De Bock, Koen W., 2014. "Data accuracy's impact on segmentation performance: Benchmarking RFM analysis, logistic regression, and decision trees," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 2751-2758.
    5. Verhoef, Peter C. & Venkatesan, Rajkumar & McAlister, Leigh & Malthouse, Edward C. & Krafft, Manfred & Ganesan, Shankar, 2010. "CRM in Data-Rich Multichannel Retailing Environments: A Review and Future Research Directions," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 121-137.
    6. Strobl, Carolin & Boulesteix, Anne-Laure & Augustin, Thomas, 2007. "Unbiased split selection for classification trees based on the Gini Index," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 483-501, September.
    7. Hache, Emmanuel & Leboullenger, Déborah & Mignon, Valérie, 2017. "Beyond average energy consumption in the French residential housing market: A household classification approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 82-95.
    8. Philipp Afèche & Mojtaba Araghi & Opher Baron, 2017. "Customer Acquisition, Retention, and Service Access Quality: Optimal Advertising, Capacity Level, and Capacity Allocation," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 19(4), pages 674-691, October.
    9. Ghosh, Atish R. & Qureshi, Mahvash S. & Kim, Jun Il & Zalduendo, Juan, 2014. "Surges," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 266-285.
      • Mahvash S Qureshi & Mr. Atish R. Ghosh & Mr. Juan Zalduendo & Mr. Jun I Kim, 2012. "Surges," IMF Working Papers 2012/022, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Tomàs Aluja-Banet & Eduard Nafria, 2003. "Stability and scalability in decision trees," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 505-520, September.
    11. I. Albarrán & P. Alonso-González & J. M. Marin, 2017. "Some criticism to a general model in Solvency II: an explanation from a clustering point of view," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 1289-1308, June.
    12. Schwartz, Ira M. & York, Peter & Nowakowski-Sims, Eva & Ramos-Hernandez, Ana, 2017. "Predictive and prescriptive analytics, machine learning and child welfare risk assessment: The Broward County experience," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 309-320.
    13. Yousaf Muhammad & Dey Sandeep Kumar, 2022. "Best proxy to determine firm performance using financial ratios: A CHAID approach," Review of Economic Perspectives, Sciendo, vol. 22(3), pages 219-239, September.
    14. Durango-Cohen, Elizabeth J., 2013. "Modeling contribution behavior in fundraising: Segmentation analysis for a public broadcasting station," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 227(3), pages 538-551.
    15. Serrano-Cinca, Carlos & Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Bernate-Valbuena, Martha, 2019. "The use of accounting anomalies indicators to predict business failure," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 353-375.
    16. Osman Taylan & Abdulaziz S. Alkabaa & Mustafa Tahsin Yılmaz, 2022. "Impact of COVID-19 on G20 countries: analysis of economic recession using data mining approaches," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-30, December.
    17. Archana R. Panhalkar & Dharmpal D. Doye, 2020. "An approach of improving decision tree classifier using condensed informative data," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 47(4), pages 431-445, December.
    18. André Lhospice & Mireille Meissonnier, 2004. "La responsabilité du banquier fondée sur l'octroi de crédit excessif," Working Papers 0303, Groupe ESC Pau, Research Department, revised Dec 2004.
    19. Wagner Kamakura & Carl Mela & Asim Ansari & Anand Bodapati & Pete Fader & Raghuram Iyengar & Prasad Naik & Scott Neslin & Baohong Sun & Peter Verhoef & Michel Wedel & Ron Wilcox, 2005. "Choice Models and Customer Relationship Management," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 279-291, December.
    20. Herbert Castéran, 2004. "Synthèse des approches probabilistes de la Life Time Value et premières propositions d'extension," Working Papers 0302, Groupe ESC Pau, Research Department, revised Dec 2004.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:33:y:2003:i:1:p:50-66. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.