Lett Direct, Inc. held their first conference on February 18/19 in Washington D.C. The guests and content were amazing.

Hamilton Davison from the ACMA spoke about postal, tax, and privacy. It was interesting to learn what measures the post office is taking and how we (as catalogers) can impact legislation and reform. Catalogers can certainly have an impact by writing and talking to local government representatives.

Tammy Wood from MyBuys.com taught us how to boost online business through the use of tracking and analytics. Omni-channel marketing allows us to follow customers through the entire purchasing process. With these tools we can drive more revenue and across all our various platforms.

Greg Lett took us through the evolution of web marketing. Greg and his team provided tactical strategies for paid search and search engine optimization, as well as digital analytics. It was interesting to see how catalogers can drive results with such small changes in their strategy.

Michael Campion, the director of business development at Eyemagine, discussed ways to bridge the gap between traditional catalog sales and eCommerce. A strong catalog certainly supports eCommerce. His presentation was blazing fast and covered a tremendous amount of information. One of the key take points he made was that having a responsive design website was critical in today’s age of mobile devices.

I was asked to present on the topic of Technology to the audience. I was able to cover mobile strategies, websites, apps and postal incentive programs. With all the competition in our market one way to stand out from the crowd is to make sure you’re taking advantage of technology. Deploying mobile optimized website is something everyone should have to accommodate your consumers using mobile devices. You’d be surprised how many people are now using these devices to research and shop products they are interested in buying. A mobile app is just another way to keep your brand in front of our customer. And, with all the challenges you face with postal increases we believe it smart to take advantage of postal incentive programs being offered to help reduce costs and stay competitive.

Jerrell Lewis from iBehavior talked about how they can help maximize your relationship with co-op databases. We learned what can be done to get the most value out of your mail lists to grow your business.

Trista Rothgerber, Vice President, CLI, Inc., taught us what really is driving orders. Analyzing incoming orders helps determine what customers are really interested in buying. The key to success is to have a unified campaign analysis system. We learned how shared order credit is important to drive order allocation decisions.

The last presenters were Aaron Taub, David Goldschmidt (from Midland Paper), and Molly Foshay (from Sappi Paper). They reviewed paper cost saving strategies as well as some really interesting uses of technology including augmented reality and QR codes.

The folks at Lett Direct did an amazing job bring together their customers and suppliers for a really informative conference. Everyone walked away actionable items and a better understanding of our market. THANK YOU Lett Direct for two great days of fun and education.