ACMA Forum and A Call To Action
Washington, DC June 27, 2008. American Catalog Mailers Association’s (ACMA) National Catalog Advocacy and Strategy Forum.
Hamilton Davidson, Executive Director, and the Board of ACMA) put together an absolutely effective event for catalogers to have a dialogue with to USPS, Congressional staff, Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) officials and other catalog management.
In a straight forward way catalogers expressed their concerns for rising postal costs, decreased prospecting and response rates and the survivability of their businesses (as well as the industry) if postal costs continue to rise dramatically.
I’m not going to recite a litany of highlights. I want to focus on what I hear we as the catalog industry need to do to bring about change:
1. Three important things: Relationships, relationships, relationships at the local and Congressional level, industry and postal level. It was said many times that unless we inform and relate continually to those with the power for change, nothing will happen. ACMA will be effective at the Washington level. You need to be engaged at the local and Congressional level. Educate your Congressional representative them on what economic benefit you bring to their district in terms of jobs and how a dollar turns in your community. What has been the effect of the postal increases on your costs and profits. Clearly, communicate how fragile profitability is with the increase in costs.
2. Don’t leave it to the other guy. With this whopping postal increase, did you think that other people were taking care of your interests? Are you too busy? Or, you can’t spend the money to work for change? It’s obvious that without significant change, many catalogs will not survive. How about yours?
3. DO NOT MAIL threat. There are 18 states which have legislation – the real threat may be that this fuels a national DO NOT MAIL law much like DO NOT CALL. We need to understand the consumer at a new level and not ignore this threat.
4. Communicate green. Many of us were floored when we realized that we had done nothing to communicate what we had done to show that we are concerned about the environment. Whether it’s the recycling efforts you do at corporate; or communicating the use of soy inks, decreasing the paper weight (which saves tons of paper in many businesses). Put the recycle icon on your catalogs, etc. Let’s be proactive in communicating to the customer our green efforts before others paint us the bad guys as an industry.
I hope you’ll reconsider joining ACMA. They have put in place a foundation upon which to represent the catalog industry in Washington. Call me if you’d like to discuss further.