Cambridge, MA–On balance, 2003 was “a year of unfulfilled expectations,” said Ben Perez to attendees of the DMA Catalog Council’s 12th Annual Catalog on the Road Conference, held here Feb. 12. On the bright side, Perez, president of Peterborough, NH-based list firm Millard Group and the event’s cochair, said that so far 2004 is looking better and will continue to improve.
But catalogers competing in a multichannel world have to do their part by improving the shopping experience, whether through catalogs, stores, or the Internet, he noted. As for drumming up business, “there is no better traffic builder than your catalog.” Thanks to increasing competition from the Internet and from major retailers, “more than ever, the customer is in charge.” You may be doing everything right, Perez added, “but customers are simply not as loyal.”
In another session, Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president-government affairs for the DMA, warned marketers to “be careful if the FBI comes looking for information on customers.” Volunteering information about customers could create privacy problems, in that people may think you are going to turn everything you have on them over to the Feds. This could discourage customers from providing information or, worse yet, from shopping via direct channels at all.
Don’t obstruct justice, Cerasale said, but follow procedures and make the authorities get a subpoena. “Remember Northwest,” he told attendees, citing the airline that had furnished information on its customers for six months after 9/11 and is now paying for it with bad press and potential legal action.