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.
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
Following the beta launch of the email opt-in service last week, we have had numerous follow-up conversations with companies about using the anonymous email address and mail forwarding system we proposed. It turns out that the anonymous email address introduces several problems that make it unusable for many companies.
As a result, we have modified the email opt-in service so that when you subscribe to email news, you authorize us to provide the specific company with the exact same contact information that they require on their site. This includes your registered email address and in some cases your name, zip code or address. As part of our service, the companies pledge to only use your email address for their email newsletter.
Once you subscribe to a company’s email news, you will start receiving the newsletter in your inbox. If you don’t see newsletter, check your spam filter to make sure that it is not being trapped. You will not receive a copy of the email in your Catalog Choice account.
The email opt-in service is a great way to go paperless with your favorite merchants. For all of our Members who opt-out of the mailorder catalog because you primarily shop online or because you want to help the environment, look for the email opt-in option and give it a try. Thanks to CAN-SPAM, opting out of email newsletters is always a click away.
We just got this email in from one of our participating merchants:
I plan to spend time evaluating our presence on the site and assess the various options available. Catalog Choice has much to offer the merchant and you continue to release new, exciting and innovative ways the merchant can leverage relationships with the customers via multi channels.
Great stuff; I see you guys as a major player in the industry.
The secret to making a voluntary mail preference service work is to work with the merchant community. This note shows that we are having great success with our merchant outreach program.
NOTE: There has been an update to the Email Opt-in Service. We are no longer using the anonymous email address and mail forwarding system described below. Merchants offering email opt-in through Catalog Choice have pledged to never trade your email address. Here is the update blog post.
Today, we launched the Catalog Choice Email Subscription service. Email is a great paper-free way to learn about new products and deals offered by my favorite merchants. Over 60% of Catalog Choice members are making a mail opt-out choice because they want to “help the environment” or “prefer to shop online”. We expect that many of members would prefer to receive product information via email instead of the paper catalog.
But as we all have experienced, once we provide our email address for one newsletter, it can sometimes lead to a flood of unsolicited email. As a result, we have designed our email opt-in service so that our consumer and merchant members can be assured that signing up for email news through the Catalog Choice will not generate unsolicited email messages. Only messages from your chosen merchants will be delivered to the your inbox. We guarentee it.
Our approach is simple and elegant. If you have ever used Craig’s List to sell something, you are aware of the anonymous email address they provide: example: sale-abcde-123456789@craigslist.org. Any messages sent to this address are forwarded to the poster’s real email address. Our system is similar. When you subscribe to email news through Catalog Choice, we generate a unique catalogchoice.org email address for the specific Member and Merchant relationship. Email messages sent by the merchant are delivered directly to your inbox by Catalog Choice as though the merchant directly emailed you. If any of our email addresses are inadvertently sold or traded and an email is sent to a Member from a Merchant that you have not subscribed to, our system will capture and destroy the unsolicited email before it reaches your inbox.
For merchants who have activated the email opt-in service, we provide Members a one-click email subscription on the merchant’s mail preference page. As shown below, the Email Subscription section is highlighted in green. You sign up by selecting the Subscribe button.
Once you subscribe, we generate and deliver the unique email address to the merchant. Soon thereafter, you will start receiving their email news delivered right to your inbox. The timing of the emails is dependent solely on the frequency of the Merchant’s email newsletter.
Back in 2007, before we launched Catalog Choice, I often dreamed of a time when it would be as easy to opt-out as it is to opt-into catalog mailings. Today I saw the future at Crateandbarrel.com – they added an “opt-out” link to the footer of their consumer website.
As soon as I saw the link, I called the head of marketing at Crate&Barrel to learn more about what caused them to add this link. He indicated that they made this change because their customers asked for a more convenient way to find their email and mail preference forms.
I asked, “Are you afraid that you will lose customers if it is too easy to opt-out of your catalog mailings?”, echoing the concerns many companies have expressed to me. He answered, “If we don’t do what our customers want, that will cause us to lose them. Even if we don’t send them catalogs in the mail, they are still our customers.”
Crate&Barrel is the first website that I am aware of that makes it convenient for a customer to voice their choice about how often they receive catalog mailings on their consumer site. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. provides a convenient link on the home page of their corporate site. If you know of others that have a link to their mail preference form on their home page, please list the URL in the comments. Other leading merchants have developed online forms where consumers can opt-down or opt-out of catalog mailings, but it remains difficult to find these forms. Crate&Barrel is the first merchant to put the link on their home page.
This reminds me of a story a seasoned catalog marketing consultant told me. She said that years ago merchants did not recognize the value of making it easy to return items that we bought through their catalog. Once merchants started making it easy to return items, more people bought merchandise through catalogs and the web. I believe that we are seeing the beginning of the same sea change in mail preference. Since it is expensive to mail catalogs to households and there are convenient online shopping tools for anyone who has a computer and access to the internet, it is time to make it convenient for consumers to state their mail preferences. Congratulations Crate&Barrel.
Any company interested in providing a convenient online form that allows consumers to communicate their mail preference can contact Catalog Choice to learn about our hosted mail preference service. Offer consumers the same preference options at Catalogchoice.org and your website. We can provide this service running within your website without any development costs on your part.
Catalog Choice COO April Smith is attending the 2009 NEMOA (New England Mail Order Association) Spring Conference in Boston this week. NEMOA was the first conference April attended last year and at that time it was still difficult to convince mailers of the benefits of Catalog Choice. This year everything has changed. April will be meeting with many merchants already participating in Catalog Choice and others who will soon be activating their account.
If you are one of the several hundred mailers at NEMOA, make sure you introduce yourself to April and she will be happy to tell you about all the great new services we have for mailers. We continue our dedication and focus to make Catalog Choice a premiere service for catalog mailers and consumers.
Based on the huge turn-out we have had over the past two weeks for our Webinars, we are very encouraged by the attention that mailers are paying to honoring consumer mail preference requests. There is one more webinar scheduled for next week – if you are interested contact me at chuck (at) catalogchoice.org.
On the heals heels of the launch of our Messaging System, Other World Computing has prepared their “thank you” note to Catalog Choice Members. Below is the message OWC will be sending to the CC Members who have chosen to no longer get their catalog in the mail. The message provides direct links to their website, an invitation to find special deals, a link to their informative blog and a description of their paper selection process for the catalogs that they produce.
Thank you for taking the time to let us know that you do not wish to receive the Other World Computing Catalog by mail. We appreciate your joining with us in our efforts to conserve resources.
Many of our customers prefer to simply use the OWC home page for all their shipping needs:
http://www.macsales.com/When we do mail catalogs to customers, we only use FSC ( Forest Stewardship Council ) certified, 30% Post Consumer Waste paper, that actually has a high cost premium over “virgin” paper. OWC also uses only the highest % soy based inks available that deliver the best drying/appearance results. As such, we have been authorized by various governing organizations to display eco-friendly logos in our catalog.
For you online convenience, the latest in OWC special deals, visit:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/specials/The OWC Hot Spot, for OWC and Apple News, can be found at:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Customized_Pages/Framework.cfm?page=hotspot/hotspot.htmlAnd finally, to read OWC staff thoughts on products, projects, the state of the industry, tips and tricks, and more, see: http://blog.macsales.com/
This is a great example of how one merchant makes it easy for consumers to select their shopping channel of choice and how together, the consumers and marketers can collaborate to preserve money and natural resources.
This week we introduced a major enhancement to the Catalog Choice service that we refer to as Mail Preference Activity messages. When you log into your account, you may see a list of messages on your dashboard. Each message corresponds to activity related to your mail preference request and the status labels that we assign to each request. Many of the messages are direct correspondence from the Merchant regarding your request. Others are messages from Catalog Choice about your request. We have designed the system so that we never have to release your real email address. As described below, you can have the Preference Activity messages delivered to your inbox if you choose.
When a Participating Merchant downloads the file that contains your request, we post a message indicating that the Merchant has ‘confirmed’ your request. Once they have processed your request, they will have an opportunity to send a ‘Thank you’ message that we will post in your activity feed. Look for these acknowledgment messages in your feed in the weeks and months ahead. Click the View link to read the message from the merchant.
We designed the Preference Activity system to work with all of the merchants represented in Catalog Choice. As we have noted in the past, we contact Merchants who are not formally participating in Catalog Choice via email on your behalf. Typically, the merchant will reply via email with one or several of the following responses:
The core of the Preference Activity system are a series of processes that scan the responses from the Merchant, figures out what it says and updates the status of each request. We don’t read all these emails. Rather our system is designed to process several hundred thousand email messages a day. It links each message back to the correct Member and Merchant. We have been testing the system for weeks to make sure that it works properly. The system is flawless at linking the email response to the correct Member and Merchant. The harder part is properly interpreting the content and labeling the status of the request. Our tests show that the system is quite accurate at the labeling the process. However, it is not perfect, so we will be adding a ‘flag’ for Members to alert us to mislabeled messages.
You can see the details of all the messages from a given merchant that relate to a specific mail preference request by selecting the Details link. This will take you to the following page, which is part of My Choices.
Note, that the specific Member’s name has been hidden in this example. In your account, you will see the exact name and address combination associated with the request and the Merchant’s reply. In the example above, there are two messages from the merchant about this request. The first message indicates that they received the request. The second message indicates that they have confirmed that the given name has been removed from the mailing list.
All of the Preference Activity messages will persist in your Catalog Choice account. If you would like to have the messages forwarded to your email inbox, go to My Profile and select the check box shown below.
Over the next couple weeks, we will be running more and more messages through our Preference Activity processor. So if you don’t see any messages in your account right now, they will be there soon. The Preference Activity system closes the loop with the Merchant. With over 16 million requests in our system, that is quite a few conversations to close. We’re quite excited about this enhancement. Let us know what you think.
There are a bunch of great new features and services at Catalog Choice that your company needs to know about. We are holding three webinars in March so you can get be informed.
Three sessions will be presented in March from 1-2 PM (EST):
Wednesday the 4th,
Tuesday the 10th
Wednesday the 18th
Executive director Chuck Teller and managing director April Smith will review all aspects of the service and answer your questions. Join in to learn about how to benefit from the service, tips on implementation, and new services.
To register, please email April at april.smith@catalogchoice.org with the date you’d like to attend, the names of those participating from your company, and phone and email addresses of each participant. We will follow up with you regarding call confirmation and details.
