Your Catalog Advocate!  

Having been on board with American Catalog Mailers Association for two weeks now, I’ve started to get my feet wet; wet enough to launch a new, periodic correspondence I’ll be sending out to all of you regarding all things to do with the ACMA.

It’s not a newsletter, not a blog, not an editorial…it’s basically all of these and none of these.

This being my inaugural journal, I’ll make it highly personal to give you a sense of where I’ve been and what brought me to ACMA. Thereafter, it’ll get more into the issues that concern you most—namely, the key details related to your primary selling tool, the catalog—and other matters of importance to the ACMA and its members.

Why I’m Here

Some may wonder how I could have engineered the rebranding of Catalog Success to All About ROI last year and now wind up here. If you read my editorials in the last issues of Catalog Success last spring before it morphed into All About ROI, you’ll see I was preaching to catalogers that they should focus more intensely on the web and not consider themselves only catalog marketers anymore.

I never said the catalog was dead, but I wanted you to focus more on the web moving forward or you’d be left behind. My joining ACMA doesn’t mean I see some new rejuvenation in catalog marketing. Your numbers don’t lie: Countless studies show that print catalogs are still the primary sales drivers for companies that have traditionally relied on them. Done properly, the channels work together. More and more orders are coming in via the web, but the print catalogs are spurring most of those orders. What’s more, your most loyal customers are those who receive your catalogs; web customers can be fly-by-night. You demonstrate credibility with a catalog. Bottom line: The print catalog isn’t going away, but neither are the challenges.

With my background dating back to 1986 in this business, I’m determined to be there for you with this organization to ensure that you can continue to mail your catalogs in concert with the web and other non-catalog alternatives.

Postal Ain’t Sexy

For a good portion of my reporter days at the former Catalog Age magazine (now Multichannel Merchant), I had the postal beat. I attended many Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) meetings in Washington. My challenge then was to come back from these meetings to brief our readers on the key issues related to catalog mail. Dry stuff to say the least--highly technical and detailed.  But I sunk my teeth into it, and got to realize how crucial postal matters were and still are to catalog mailers. Now I’ll be back at it, though our president & executive director Hamilton Davison (hdavison@catalogmailers.org) will remain our primary postal guy.

As for me, I’ll be focused primarily on organizing ACMA’s National Catalog Forum in Nashville, April 13-15, communications, membership support and development for the near term. Speaking of our Forum, we’re putting the programming together right now, and it’s something you won’t want to miss. Key officials from the U.S. Postal Service and the Postal Regulatory Commission will be speaking. You will also have valuable interactions with your own peers, some of whom also will be speaking.

You need to be there not only to learn ways to mail catalogs more efficiently, but also to meet these key Washington decision makers, and push for the changes you want for your company. Prior attendees have gotten the drop on their peers because they learned more about what was coming down the pike faster and in more depth than those who didn’t attend.

That’s what ACMA is all about: making important changes that benefit the industry where individual companies acting alone cannot be as effective. We need more catalog executives to get in the faces of the key postal decision-makers to let them know what catalogs mean to your business, the future health of the USPS, and the economy and society in general. There is absolute strength in numbers and a roomful of catalogers makes a loud statement.

If you’re cutting back on conference attendance this year, think twice before you write this one off. Prior year attendees told us it was a “must attend” gathering of the industry. While other conferences’ attendance plunged last year, nearly all returned to the ACMA Forum in 2009 when the stock market and economy were in free fall. 

One of the Only Remaining Catalog-Focused Conferences

What’s more, with the Annual Conference for Catalog & Multichannel Merchants (ACCM) being repositioned as a retail event this year, ACMA’s National Catalog Forum is now the only event focused on catalog advocacy and strategy. Don’t miss it. It's specifically targeted at C-level catalog/multichannel executives and marketing people who want to look after most catalogers' number one concern: postal rates. We'll have other catalog-intensive sessions as well, and the event coincides with the National Postal Forum, also being held at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville.

And if you're put off by paying upwards of $250-$300 a night in fancy conference hotels, let us know. We’re looking to get a block of rooms at one of the limited-service hotels located near at half the cost or even less for this event. But we can only do this if we get enough of a commitment from attendees, so please email me right away if you’re interested at pmiller@catalogmailers.org.

For more information about the Forum, please go to our site, http://www.catalogmailers.org/. Even if we don’t get enough people to warrant a block of rooms, there are several that offer attractive (regular) rates. For a list of all the hotels in the area (including one that costs just $79.95 a night!), scroll to the bottom of that page. The online registration will be available shortly but if you’d like to register before then or would like more information, please email me.

Why You Must Join ACMA

As ACMA approaches its third anniversary in April, it has become a much more important organization for companies whose primary marketing vehicle is the print catalog. There are plenty of other trade groups out there. Some are struggling for direction right now; others are terrific. Regardless, none specifically focus on your needs in Washington and advocating for those things that hit your bottom line.

Before I arrived, Hamilton, aided by the tremendous contributions and input from a number of our members, had already helped secure last year’s postal “summer sale” while helping keep this year’s catalog postal rates steady with no rate hike. But for ACMA to continue to fight for your cause, we need your involvement, your input, and most of all, your membership, to grow. With all that’s going on in the DM, retail and online worlds these days, what better time for you to join?
If you’d like to join or just get more involved in your cause, again please feel free to contact me directly or go to our site (http://www.catalogmailers.org/) to register for your membership. Support of ACMA generates real ROI and that is a statement you can take to the bank!

O.K., onto my next new task. I apologize for the lengthy debut of this journal promise to keep my future ones shorter!
 
Best,
Paul Miller
Vice President & Deputy Director
American Catalog Mailers Association
pmiller@catalogmailers.org
914-669-8391
                                                                        # # #
 
About the American Catalog Mailers Association:
ACMA is a Washington-based not-for-profit organization specifically created to advocate for the unique collective interests of catalog mailers in regulatory, public and administrative matters where the shared impact transcends individual company interests. ACMA participates in rulemaking and other proceedings of significance where a single collective voice increases influence and effectiveness. Membership is open to any party with significant interests in the catalog industry. More information can be found at http://www.catalogmailers.org/.
 
Contacts:
Paul Miller, vice president & deputy director, 914-669-8391, pmiller@catalogmailers.org
Hamilton Davison, president & executive director, 800-509-9514, hdavison@catalogmailers.org