Billing statement marketing: Strategy for a nontraditional retailing channel

Jodie Evelyn Monger, Purdue University

Abstract

The primary goal of this study was to illuminate the billing statement marketing strategy by applying principles from the better known areas of catalog shopping and other retailing strategies used to increase sales (i.e., cross-selling, bundling, complementary goods). Billing statement marketing strategies have received little empirical and theoretical examination in academic literature. Since there is no published precedence to examine the strategy of offering products through billing statements, examining other successful sales strategies of product combining provides a logical framework. To investigate the acceptability of combining products for a billing statement, customers of a credit card company were contacted using a mail survey. The participants were asked to rate the acceptability for the credit card company to sell each of the 31 products. Results of this study supported the existence of a relationship between attitude toward the credit card company and attitude toward the company selling the various products, a relationship that ultimately influenced purchase behavior. A categorical modeling (CATMOD) procedure was used to statistically examine the effectiveness of demographic variables versus attitudinal variables at predicting the acceptability of products grouped for billing statement stuffing. The CATMOD procedure was used for several reasons. One, the predictor variables were ordinal in nature as opposed to interval or ratio. Two, the CATMOD procedure allows for a direct comparison of the goodness-of-fit for the demographic model compared to the attitudinal model. The groups of products that were tested for acceptability were constructed using a Q-sort procedure with a separate sample. The Q-sort was used to operationalize definitions for grouping products together. Two definitions were applied: one-stop shopping and related uses. Nine groups of products were tested for acceptability. The cumulative results indicated an ability to predict acceptability of product groups using the attitudinal and demographic variables. Therefore the results suggest that different predictor variables, sometimes attitudinal and sometimes demographic, are necessary to evaluate the acceptability of products for a statement stuffer strategy. It was important to recognize that no one model was consistently the best at predicting, indicating a need for companies to consider the use of different models when targeting different segments in direct marketing efforts.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Feinberg, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Marketing

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