Doug Hershey

In late November, we surveyed the All About ROI editorial board members and other marketing insiders to gauge their views on the year ahead. At press time on the eve of the 2009 holiday homestretch, with their hopes for a better sales outcome than 2008 looking modest at best, few saw an especially bright light shining by December. Instead, many settled in to make the appropriate adjustments for reduced demand.

Cautiously optimistic is how I’d describe the mood at the Annual Catalog Conference held in San Francisco last month. Cost-cutting tactics have helped many catalogers to weather this economic downturn, although everyone understands that such strategies are not the path to long-term growth — only short-term survival. Catalogers know they soon will have to invest again in their businesses to kick-start the growth trend. I found it encouraging, then, to hear that ad spending related to catalogs is up. It will exceed $15.3 billion this year, up 3.4 percent from 2002, according to a study from The Direct Marketing Association (DMA).