April Smith and I will be at the Annual Conference for Catalogs & Multichannel Merchants (ACCM). We will have a booth in the Exhibit Hall – #709. What better way to meet the catalog mailers we are working with and those that we want to add to participating merchant list.
We will be announcing our Premium Services program at the show. The Premium Services are designed for mailers who honor mail preferences through Catalog Choice and want to initiate new paperless marketing programs.
Catalog Choice was profiled on an evening news story about reducing junk mail. There is a good two-minute video and an accompanying article. The reporter, Sue Kwon, did a great job pointing out the difference between participating merchants (Coldwater Creek and Crate&Barrel were mentioned) and those who have yet to formally agree to accept our requests. We are continuing our discussions with Macy’s and Victoria’s Secret and hope that they will be participating in the near future.
On Earth Day, the Catalog Choice servers were working overtime. It is a good thing we are always buying our carbon offsets. Thousands of households across the United States became members of Catalog Choice. Inspired by Earth Day programs across the country, people flocked to Catalog Choice to take responsibility for reducing unwanted mail.
The above map show the distribution of visitors to Catalogchoice.org on April 22nd. The highest concentrations correlate, for the most part, to overall population density in the country. Consumers from every State of the Union used our service yesterday.
Clearly, Earth Day was inspiring for many. Let’s make everyday an Earth Day. Do your part to stop waste and go paperless by using Catalog Choice and telling your friends. Sharing the word is easy with our Invite a Friend service.
Earth Day 2009, read more about it here and here, is a time to reflect and celebrate. Millions of people around the world will do things a little different on Earth Day to preserve resources and lighten their footprint on the Earth. Lots of us will ride our bikes to work, eat locally-grown food, print fewer documents, and take stock of all the resources we use to get our jobs done.
At Catalog Choice, we are celebrating Earth Day by making it easier for consumers and merchants to reduce the amount of unwanted mail in their mailbox and go paperless. We are celebrating the accomplishments of our one million members and 500 catalog partners who together, in just 18 months, have:
These are significant accomplishments for our community. These are saving that don’t materialize if we take the easy way out and just recycle or throw away unwanted catalogs. These savings require our members to record their mail preference for each catalog title and our merchant partners to integrate our preference file into their mailing processes. While it seems easy, there are lots of moving parts that need to fit together to make the process work. Today, we are celebrating the fact that we have used the power of the Internet and human ingenuity to removed over 85 million unwanted catalogs a year from the mail stream.
For Earth Day’s sake, let’s do more to develop processes that make our world more resource efficient. In the world of direct marketing, let’s improve channels of communication between consumers and companies so that companies can get their marketing messages to the people who want them as efficiently as possible.
Read how merchants and industry partners view our service … in their own words.
“Tiffany & Co. joined Catalog Choice to demonstrate our commitment to respecting consumer wishes and to the environment. It certainly doesn’t hurt that this decision will help us to reduce costs, but our greatest focus is reaching consumers in the ways they most want to be reached. This is a decision based on customer service and the customer experience with our company.”
-Michael Kowalski, chairman, Tiffany & Co.“We love catalogchoice.org! It is a perfect fit with our overall philosophy of sustainability and respecting our consumers’ wishes on how we engage them throughout the year. We recently had a customer who called our call center and requested that we stop sending our annual catalog for the next three years as she was taking an assignment in Europe. We had the perfect solution for her, Catalog Choice. This gave our customer total control not only for our catalog but potentially for other catalogs companies that she would of needed to contact. And the great thing is when she comes back to the U.S. she can opt back in to our annual catalog. She was thrilled. In 2008 we referenced catalogchoice.org on the back cover to allow our customers an easy and reliable way of opting out of our printed material distribution. In return we gained additional productivity in our call center where our Design Associates were more available to assist customers with orders over opting out for future mailings. This during our busiest time of year. We also monitor the comments customers give for opting out of our catalogs. We love the fact that over 50% have done so for environmental reasons. With our web site becoming a more frequently used tool it only makes sense that customers have the option of their preferred method of engagement with our company. Catalog Choice is one of the many ways we capture this. Thank you Catalog Choice for your services!
-John Schroeder, Business Intelligence Manager, Room & Board“I think it’s a nice option for our customers because they can come to one place and they can manage their subscription preferences with multiple retailers, like REI.”
-Tom Vogl, VP of Marketing, REI“Best consumer-to-catalog company process I have seen to respect consumers’ wishes to be removed from mailing lists. Working with an intermediary like this allows businesses a measure of control in that process.”
- Chris Fisher, Gaiam“Catalog Choice helps us further our goal of giving consumers a convenient, trusted and free way to express their mailing preferences. Their user friendly service and commitment to consumer privacy make them an ideal partner for our industry.”
– Pat Connolly, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Williams-Sonoma“We have spent months investigating the issue of how to best address emerging consumer preference requests. Our conclusion is that Catalog Choice is sincere and focused on reducing unsolicited catalogs, waste that places a burden on catalogers and catalog customers alike.”
-Hamilton Davison, executive director, American Catalog Mailers Association
We have collected a handful of testimonials from our members that we want to share. We welcome your comments in the blog.
“What a great idea this is! Tell businesses that this is actually excellent advertising for them. I investigated and found a whole bunch of new catalogs that I am interested in while browsing through your list. I have bookmarked their websites, so I can browse their products online.”
-Catalog Choice member
“I shop 95% online. In less than 90 days I’ve opted out of 303 catalogs that weighed 120 lbs. My on line shopping will not diminish, just the waste. Thanks for a terrific site!!!”
-Catalog Choice member
“Thank you for helping! In three months I’ve gone from 51 catalogs to fewer than five stragglers, and seen your “confirmed” labels grow from single digits to almost half of the total as (I suppose) more merchants joined Catalog Choice. For the rest of the merchants, your “My choices” page and notes feature at least helped me keep track of those I contacted personally…The decrease in my daily mail volume is striking. Tell your merchants that the success of this effort will lead me to keep Catalog Choice bookmarked as a way of adding catalogs once the flood has ceased.
-William from Washington, DC“I joined Catalog Choice last year after being inundated year after year with un-asked for catalogs at the holiday time. I wanted to let you know that this year, I have received a FRACTION of the amount of catalogs that I normally get. THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!”
-Debbie from Villanova, PA“I definitely will support merchants who participate in this service. The reason I will go to these merchants first is that I support anyone who is concerned about making our world better. We are living in a time where we need to cut down on waste. As our life is simplified (in this case by removing waste), it allows for more free time to do the things we enjoy… which can mean shopping and browsing online. I visit your website and have hundreds of catalogs at my fingertips and can browse and shop without having my mailbox cluttered where there’s so many that I don’t even look at them. They go straight to the recycling bin, because it’s overwhelming. It’s easier to just put them in the recycle bin than to start sorting through. Now I can just visit the catalog I’m in the mood for when I go to your website. Thanks for this service, and I hope the merchants know we really appreciate them listening. It certainly doesn’t mean I will not shop with them. I
will shop with any merchant online which is more convenient, and I’m happy to be doing something to help our environment, and working with others who have the same interest.
-Donna from Norridge, IL“I definitely see the difference–and I’m thrilled!!! Catalog Choice is a tremendous service for the environment! Since I’ve been using your site to decline catalogues, I’ve seen a dramatic decrease in unwanted catalogue mailings. I could not be happier to see my mailbox emptied of wasted paper by the tons.”
-BrendaThank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!! We have noticed a significant reduction of catalogs in our mailbox. You are providing a wonderful service.
-Carol and Jim
Yesterday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution requesting establishment of a Do Not Mail Registry and urging both the California State Legislature and United States Congress to establish a Do Not Mail Registry. The full text of the resolution is here.
The resolution calls for, among other things, the establishment of an effective, user-friendly system to voluntarily stop the receipt of unsolicited direct mail:
The San Francisco resolution reflects strong consumer sentiment regarding the issue of unwanted mail. According to the Resolution, 89% of likely voters nationwide voiced support for a Do Not Mail Registry in a 2007 national poll commissioned by Zogby International.
Hundreds of companies know that honoring mail preferences is a fundamental part of good business practices. That is why they work with us to listen to consumers. And consumers are not content with the time consuming process of contacting each company individually. That is why consumers use our secure service to deliver their requests.
The DMA notes in a press release today regarding the San Francisco resolution:
Do Not Mail programs are unnecessary as individuals already have many existing options available to manage their mail including the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service (MPS) at http://www.dmachoice.org/.
The key question about the “existing options”, of which Catalog Choice is one of the largest, is whether we can obtain sufficient participation and compliance from direct mailers?
Our system makes it easy for each member of Catalog Choice to know which company is honoring their choice and which ones are not. Collectively, we have insight into how 1,000 direct mailers are managing 15.7 million requests submitted by over 1.2 million consumers. For many mailers, the results are excellent. They regularly download the requests through their secure Merchant Account and make sure that consumers registered in our service will not be included in their mailings. There are also many mailers who are not formally working with us, but are honoring requests emailed to their customer support team. All in all, we estimate that 75% of the requests entered through our service are honored in a timely manner.
Improved mailer participation in mail preference services such as Catalog Choice is key to addressing consumer sentiment regarding unsolicited mail. Catalog mailers, if you are not participating in the mail preference services available to you, then your actions undermine the solutions that your trade association is calling out as the reason that Do Not Mail programs are unnecessary. Indifference to or rejection of effective mail preference solutions, such as Catalog Choice, sends the wrong message to the consumer and ultimately works against the collective interests of the catalog industry.
We have made it incredibly easy for any mailer to collect and honor mail preference requests. We have gained the trust and support of over 350 catalog mailers by providing quality, innovative services that meet the needs of both consumers and mailers. Best of all, there is no cost to establishing a Merchant Account with Catalog Choice – we are the only free solution for both consumers and the industry.
