Management

Jim Garlow, director of advertising and marketing operations for technology products and services provider CDW, shares his feelings on matters ranging from why it’s important to be a knowledge source in the tech market to growth tactics for startup catalogers and much more. Catalog Success: Why is it important for CDW to be viewed as a reference source in the tech marketplace? Jim Garlow: We send our account managers through rigorous training because our target audience consists of IT purchasers and chief information officers, both of which are very tech savvy. They know they want somebody on the phone who knows what they’re

Catalog Success: How did you break into the catalog business? Mike Stopka: It’s kind of a romantic story. Now we’re going back almost 20 years. Professionally I was a consultant and I traveled all over the United States in the 80’s, when I was in my 20’s and early 30’s — working in financial institutions, doing feasibility studies. Very strong on the spread-sheet skills. With that said, with all that travel I had free tickets, so we used to go to Europe every year. This is when the dollar was strong. It was like cheaper than going to vacation in Wisconsin for an Illinois

In announcing its formal backing of the recently created American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA) on Dec. 18, NEMOA board members are making a bold statement that the half-year-old organization can best represent their 110-plus catalog members’ interests, particularly in postal matters, going forward. Positioning itself as a catalogers-only group, ACMA is also focused on do-not-mail legislation and privacy. “ACMA will represent our specific needs relative to postal affairs, do-not-mail, privacy, environmental [policies] and whatever else comes our way over the coming year,” says Jon Fleischmann, president/CEO of the Potpourri Group and a NEMOA board member. Fleischmann believes potential benefits offered by the ACMA include

Much like the economic state of mind of many consumers today, CEOs polled in a recent survey said they don’t have very much confidence in the state of the economy. Such was the finding of The Conference Board’s Measure of CEO Confidence survey for the fourth quarter of 2007. With a measure of 39, the confidence of chief executives reached a seven-year low (a reading of more than 50 points represents more positive than negative responses). The last time the measure fell below 40 was in the fourth quarter of 2000, when it stood at 31. Here are some more findings of the report:

There’s that old Bob Dylan song about times a-changin’ that I won’t bother to quote further. But it seems to hold true moreso year after year, and 2008 is no exception. So while some of us continue to exchange “happy new year” greetings with one another, I’ll send along one last new year’s greeting with what I believe to be the top five actions you should act on, examine or just ponder to bring your catalog/multichannel business in sync with the times. 1. Get your matchback system working smoothly at once. Assign someone in either your marketing or operations departments to do nothing

Over the past few months, we at Catalog Success have been hard at work to further develop a hefty well of research data for our readers. In October we launched the Catalog Success Latest Trends Report, a quarterly series of original benchmarking research we’ve been conducting with the multichannel ad agency Ovation Marketing. In the coming months, we’ll also be running a series of mail volume charts provided by several catalog co-op databases. Like the Latest Trends surveys, these will run in the IndustryEye section of our print magazine. And for the past year or so, we’ve been running a regular reader poll.

HOW DID YOU BREAK INTO THE CATALOG BUSINESS: With a thorough knowledge of computers. A former middle-school science teacher, Ann Killeen was introduced by a friend to Jerry Machado, who was then founding the Storybook Heirlooms catalog (now closed). In discussing working together, the two came to an understanding: “I said to Jerry, ‘I like computers,’ and he said, ‘OK, you’ll be the director of IT.’” Eight years later, after helping Storybook Heirlooms grow from a start-up company to a $30-million operation, Killeen had become fully immersed in the catalog business. She moved on to other catalogers, including Tzabaco, Boudin Bakery, Real Goods and

We bring you our exclusive new Catalog Success Latest Trends Report, the second quarterly joint venture with multichannel ad agency Ovation Marketing. This one focuses on the key issues in the catalog/multichannel business. As with our inaugural report last October, this survey contains a statistical analysis of a questionnaire we sent to the Catalog Success e-mail list in November. The responses came from 80 B-to-C and 45 B-to-B catalogers. You can click on the separate B-to-C and B-to-B charts below, as well as the cumulative chart. Some percentages don’t quite add up to 100, due to rounding.

Tax-savvy multichannel marketers know “nexus” isn’t a new hair product or a high-priced automobile. The term “nexus” (derived from a Latin word meaning “to connect”) refers to the amount of contact an out-of-state retailer must have with a state before that seller is legally obligated to collect sales tax from customers. The Supreme Court’s landmark Quill v. North Dakota decision in 1992 made clear that, under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, the nexus standard requires an in-state physical presence on the part of the retailer. In other words, mail order sales alone will not subject a remote seller to sales or use-tax collection

The management of catalog businesses large and small depends on order curves. Yet order curves are affected by several different factors — mail delivery, the weather, time of year, etc. — all of which affect delivery times. This month, I want to touch on the factors that affect these curves, because your actions have the most influence over how soon orders start flowing after the initial mail date and when order levels will peak. Typically, orders start flowing in seven to 10 days after the initial mail date based on a normal five-day mail distribution pattern. If the initial mail date is