Stephen Lett

Steve Lett graduated from Indiana University in 1970 and immediately began his 50-year career in Direct Marketing; mainly catalogs.

Steve spent the first 25 years of his career in executive level positions at both consumer and business-to-business companies. The next 25 years have been with Lett Direct, Inc., the company Steve founded in early 1995. Lett Direct, Inc., is a catalog and internet consulting firm specializing in circulation planning, plan execution, analysis and digital marketing (Google Premier Partner).

Steve has served on the Ethics Committee of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and on a number of company boards, both public and private. He served on the Board of the ACMA.  He has been the subject of two Harvard Business School case studies.  He is the author of a book, Strategic Catalog Marketing. Steve is a past Chairman of both the Catalog Council and Business Mail Council of the DMA. He spent a few years teaching Direct Marketing at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

You can contact Steve at stevelett@lettdirect.com.

With the help of The Dingley Press, we conducted a study to determine how many catalogs it prints that still include some type of order form. We found that almost half of our fairly large sample size have no inside ink-jet or order form insert, but they do have an order form printed on-page in the catalog. Another 18.5 percent use a bind-in order form. In summary, 71.5 percent of the catalogs we surveyed use an order form; only 28.5 percent have eliminated the order form entirely.

Access Technology Solutions Direct Selling Services 34 Randall Decker (801) 420-9225 www.accessts.com Associated Global Systems Fulfillment 62 Sales (516) 627-8910 www.agsystems.com B&W Press Printer/Specialty Mailer 23 Paul Beegan (978) 352-6100 www.bwpress.com Belardi/Ostroy ALC, LLC Lists 22, 39, 60 Andrew Ostroy (212) 924-1300 www.belardiostroy.com BowTie Inc. Lists 6 Kristina Grubb (949) 855-8822 x3420 www.bowtielists.com Brown Printing Printer 41 Jill Tobin (212) 782-7857 www.bpc.com Catalogs America Printing BC Dan Sayin (727) 864-2000 www.catalogsamerica.com Catalyst Direct Marketing Lists 32, 65, 67 Fred Litzky (201) 405-1414 www.catalystdm.com Chilcutt Direct Marketing Lists 52 Jane McCoy (405) 478-7245 www.cdmlist.com Commerce Register Service Bureau 48 Bob Schweighardt (201) 445-3000 www.comreginc.com Creative Automation Direct Marketing 55 Bob Rajan (800) 773-1588 www.cauto.com Cyber City Teleservices Telemarketing Services IBC Erv Magram (201) 487-1616 www.cctll.com Datamann Software 24 Kathy Reagan (802) 295-6600 www.datamann.com Direct Tech Inventory Management 21 Jack Mahaffey (402) 895-2100 www.direct-tech.com DM Transportation Group Transportation Management 56 Bill Wilson (717) 258-0611 www.dmtrans.com DoubleClick Performics Search/Affiliate Marketing 35 Robin Simkins (312) 739-0682 www.performics.com Dydacomp Development Software 8 Rob Coon (973) 237-9419 www.dydacomp.com Edith Roman Associates Lists 3 Kevin Collopy (845) 731-2684 www.edithroman.com Endicia Mailing Software 57 Sales Department (800) 576-3279 www.endicia.com Foster Manufacturing Production Equipment 6 Ted Borowsky (800) 523-4855 www.fostermfg.com Iverson Language Associates Translation

This past year has seen a small, niche food purveyor begin its slow rise out of anonymity. Mackenzie Limited, a catalog of primarily high-end imported seafood, has struck two interesting deals. It acquired the consumer mail-order business of a domestic seafood supplier, and it signed a licensing and fulfillment deal with a seafood restaurant chain. Here’s the inside story on a catalog company that’s emerging onto the industry’s radar screen. Baltimore-based Mackenzie Limited today is owned by the father-daughter team of Walter Cederholm and Laura McManus. Cederholm is a retired quality control specialist in the nuclear power industry and works at Mackenzie only

This month we bring you our first-ever Catalog Success Buyers’ Resource Guide. We trust that you’ll use this volume year-round to find new product and service pro-viders, including consultants, creative agencies, list managers and brokers, contact center solutions, payment processors, database marketing solutions, e-mail marketing and e-commerce providers, and much, much more. As if a Buyers’ Resource Guide weren’t enough meaty editorial for one month, we’ve also included two must-read features we think you’ll find particularly helpful at this time of year. Curt Barry’s article on reverse logistics may help you devise a streamlined and efficient workflow process for those inevitable

The catalog industry is filled with many remarkable individuals—from energetic entrepreneurs to skilled and insightful veterans. In this issue, we profile five of them: the distinguished winners of the first annual Catalog Success Catalogers of the Year awards. Candidates were either self-nominated or nominated by their colleagues, and the winners were chosen by a distinguished panel of judges. To be sure, the selection process was no easy task. Many terrific professionals were nominated, including pillars of the catalog community. And after reading their stories in this issue, I think you’ll agree that this year’s winners are a deserving group of catalogers.

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