If catalogers want to grow, they need to redefine themselves as multichannel marketers.
That was the message Michael Petsky, CEO of New York-based direct marketing investment bank Petsky Prunier LLC, shared with those at the Direct Marketing Association's Catalog on the Road Day in Cambridge, MA, last month.
“Cataloging as a media and an order device is a critical part of the equation, but it's no longer an industry,” said Petsky. “Be a channel agnostic.”
Today's successful marketers are juggling a number of media channels — including catalogs, e-mail, Web sites and e-mail — as well as multiple order mediums, such as call centers, the Web, retail and mail.
One leading cataloger Petsky Prunier works with reports that over a 12-month period, their average buyer who shops from catalogs, the Web and at retail spends $243. In comparison, the catalog-only shopper spends $69, the Web-only shopper $90 and the retail-only shopper $43.
The DMA's Catalog Council is thinking along the same lines as Petsky. Council programming chair George Mello told attendees the group is considering rebranding itself to draw more marketers, rather than vendors, to events.
