Continuity marketing is a method of providing goods or services to consumers that relies on

direct marketing Direct marketing is a form of communicating an offer, where organizations communicate directly to a Target market, pre-selected customer and supply a method for a direct response. Among practitioners, it is also known as ''direct response ...

and continues into perpetuity. Also known as auto-replenishment, this relationship continues until the customer ends it by notifying the marketer.

Overview

The general concept is that a customer places an original order, typically through a

mail order Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as: * Sending an order form in the mail * Placing an order by telephone call ...

offer or online. This original offering is usually heavily discounted and acts as a

loss leader A loss leader (also leader) is a pricing strategy where a product is sold at a price below its market cost to stimulate other sales of more profitable goods or services. With this sales promotion/marketing strategy, a "leader" is any popular artic ...

. Within a prescribed period of time, a subsequent shipment will be delivered to the customer. Thereafter, additional shipments will continue to be sent at regular intervals. If the customer has not indicated which specific product they wish to receive, then the

marketer Marketing is the act of acquiring, satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketing is usually conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or manufacturer. Products can ...

will choose for the customer on the basis of that customer's previous choices. This continues until the customer notifies the supplier of their choices or their desire to discontinue the service. Continuity marketing is a primary distribution method for magazines and book clubs, such as

Doubleday Doubleday may refer to: * Doubleday (surname), including a list of people with the name Publishing imprints * Doubleday (publisher), imprint of Knopf Doubleday, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House * Doubleday Canada, imprint of Penguin Random ...

and

Harlequin Harlequin (, , ; , ) is the best-known of the comic servant characters (Zanni) from the Italian commedia dell'arte, associated with the city of Bergamo. The role is traditionally believed to have been introduced by the Italian actor-manager Zan ...

, and music clubs such as

Columbia House Columbia House was an umbrella brand for Columbia Records' mail-order music clubs, the primary iteration of which was the Columbia Record Club, established in 1955. The Columbia House brand was introduced in the early 1970s by Columbia Records ...

. International Masters Publishers has distributed millions of

recipe A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish (food), dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main r ...

cards internationally in this fashion.

References

{{reflist Marketing techniques