Mailing catalogs to American households has long been a major component of many direct marketing campaigns. It has been an effective strategy for companies to drive more sales from existing customers and to garner new customers. Over time, however, most any red-blooded American will tell you that the catalog junk mail that comes every day through the mail system is getting way out of control—catalog after catalog storming through the front door like waves of locusts over a field of crops. However, many Americans have found relief from those waves of catalogs—it is CatalogChoice.org.

Like the Do Not Call Registry for telephones, CatalogChoice.org is a nonprofit free service that lets a person reject unwanted direct mail and catalogs—an effective “do not mail” list. As recently stated on the Catalog Choice blog, “Within three months we’ve become a community of nearly 400,000 strong, opting out of more than five million unwanted catalogs—that’s about 60 million catalogs in a year.”

It doesn’t take a genius to see how damaging this can be to the direct marketing campaigns of thousands of companies—a true direct marketer’s nightmare. What can companies and direct marketers do to counteract this? First of all, not everyone hates receiving catalogs in the mail, even unsolicited catalogs—to such, it is not a swarm of locusts, but sunny rays of opportunities for fun and discounts. Direct marketers need to do a better job of identifying their true customers who like receiving the different catalogs, then focusing their efforts on that group of customers. Also, a way to tie catalog mailings to online store offerings and discounts would provide more value to a customer, who would then be more inclined to keep the catalog and receive more.

An opt-out list should be better managed (like many companies do with email lists), allowing existing catalog customers to easily opt-in or opt-out of their inclusion on company direct mail mailing lists. In a response to Catalog Choice, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has taken a number of steps to improve and make more accessible their own opt-out services for mailing lists. Even so, the DMA needs to be careful and act quickly, in order to avoid the legislation enacted by the US government regarding the Do Not Call Registry.

While the mailing of catalogs may be reduced over time, I think the long run will show that it will not go away. As long as people live in dwellings with mailing addresses, I believe there will always be a profitable market for catalog mailings, whether it be large or small. It just needs to be done in a smarter, more responsible way.