A Chat with August’s Profile, Chris Harris, director, direct response marketing, Becker Group Direct

CS: What’s the biggest current challenge facing catalogers?
CH: Well, certainly from a printing standpoint, cost of paper and postage is a big problem.

CS: Have you done anything in particular at Becker Group to offset these rising costs?
CH: Fortunately with the Web site I can drive a lot of business towards my Web site. And then working on all these variable marketing campaigns, so that I’m actually sending to our clients and prospects, through a variety of different channels, personalized messages to go buy from our Web site.
And frankly, I’m concerned about the issue of taxes and the government getting too involved in trying to regulate and tax the direct response industry, from online sales to cataloging.