Direct Marketing Association

To our readers, this is a personal and highly opinionated message from your industry publication’s editor-in-chief. We at Catalog Success strive to bring you objective and implemental money-making ideas, and it’s quite rare I’d ever outwardly promote anything, although you’ll notice that in the past few editions we’ve been aggressively promoting an exciting upcoming seminar we’re co-presenting with F. Curtis Barry & Co. (see the Ops Tip of the Week for further details). But I want to take a time-out from our usual efforts to plug something special here that’s also in your best interests. Specifically, it’s an upcoming postal event in Washington,

During a Direct Marketing Association seminar last week, marketers alike tried to wrap their arms around just what New York state’s new Internet tax law means for their businesses. Jerry Cerasale, the seminar’s host and senior vice president of government affairs for the DMA, and the organization’s tax counsel, George Isaacson, provided the 85 members in attendance with answers on what this development means for their industry. Here’s a sampling of some of the tips, thoughts and observations gleaned from the event: * “This is very aggressive, nexus-expanding legislation,” Isaacson said, referring to the law which requires out-of-state online retailers to collect sales (or

Escheat.” The very word sounds sinister, and for good reason — direct marketers beware! But how do state escheat laws, which are often known as “abandoned property laws,” work? And what risk do they pose to multichannel merchants? Defining ‘Unclaimed Property’ Unclaimed property is a liability that a company owes to an individual or other business that has remained outstanding beyond a specified period of time. Every year, billions of dollars of economic entitlements go unclaimed, including obligations of retailers to their customers and suppliers. Depending on the particular state, these include: ● unredeemed gift certificates and gift cards; ● uncashed refund and rebate

Escheat. The very word sounds sinister, and for good reason — direct marketers beware! But how do state escheat laws, which are often known as “abandoned property laws,” work? And what risk do they pose to multichannel merchants? Defining ‘Unclaimed Property’ Let’s start with unclaimed property. This is a liability that a company owes to an individual or other business that has remained outstanding beyond a specified period of time. Every year, billions of dollars of economic entitlements go unclaimed, including obligations of retailers to their customers and suppliers. Depending on the particular state, these include: • unredeemed gift certificates and gift cards; •

Earlier this month, catalogers and other businesses that rely so heavily on the USPS realized a “dream” more than a dozen years in the making. They were “treated” to their first postal rate adjustment under the new postal reform law. Under its new rate-making powers, giving it the freedom to set rates as long as they’re no greater than consumer price index (CPI) levels, the USPS announced the increase for noncarrier route flats, the key catalog category, would be less than 1 percent. The worst news was that it would take effect this spring, just a year after the final postage increase under the

The DMA’s Catalog on the Road conference on Jan. 29, in Cambridge, Mass., turned its luncheon podium over to a true Cambridge brainiac, David Godes, associate professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. He offered some unexpected insight on the school’s research into sales management and word-of-mouth marketing. Most notably, Godes pointed out that word-of-mouth isn’t always a good thing. At the same time, loyal customers aren’t very useful in attracting newer customers to a company or brand. What’s more, the actual transmission of word-of-mouth is more often than not selfish, which, too, doesn’t necessarily help companies. In a study of TV

It’s been nearly 10 years since the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) began requiring all members to follow its Privacy Promise. In 1998, faced with mounting concerns from legislators, advocates and consumers, we unveiled this self-regulatory initiative and aggressively enforced it. Since then, we’ve seen regulators and legislators impose restrictions affecting certain direct marketing sectors, specifically teleservices, health care and financial services, as well as those who market to children or adults online. But the self-regulation put in place years ago has served the mailing industry well. Now it’s time to take that to the next level. At the beginning of my lengthy career in

In this second of my two-part series, I’ll examine how the shape of your catalog and mail quantities effect on U.S. Postal Service processes may influence future rate increases. I’ll also provide some tips for preparing yourself now for these increases. First, I don’t expect the USPS to eliminate the rate distinction between letters and flats. That said, the USPS will continue on the road to having shape reflected in its rate structure. Thus, the weight of a mail piece will continue to be less important than in the past. The increased reliance on shape in the last rate case reduced the effect of

The Direct Marketing Association called a special conference on Dec. 17 at its New York City headquarters to engage its cataloger members in helping take preemptive strikes against a growing number of states seeking to enact do-not-mail legislation. The first half of the more than an hour-long meeting, co-hosted by the DMA’s President/CEO John Greco and Executive Vice President of Government Affairs and Corporate Responsibility Steven Berry, served primarily to remind catalogers of the merits of catalog shopping on society and what catalogers and the DMA do to be environmentally responsible with catalogs. Then Greco and Berry described ways the DMA intends to lead

In the first of a two-part series examining the recent passage of the postal rate-making reform law and its effect on catalogers, this week I’ll provide background on the U.S. Postal Service’s rate-making policy and how the new postal reform law will benefit direct marketers. First, let’s examine why and how catalogers found themselves on the short end of the stick following the implementation of new postal rates last May. Way back in 1990, the USPS asked the Postal Rate Commission (PRC) to recommend postal rates that would begin to reflect the processing-cost differences caused by the shape of the mail. The least