In A Dying Industry, The Gatekeepers Consume Their Own Customers

Yeah, I got an email message a few days ago.

As linear television dies a slow, painful death, those still using linear television will pay more and more to offset what is being lost ... until the customers that are left say "enough" and move on.

It's no different for my catalog industry readers. I've told many of you privately that the end game for catalog marketing is Amazon paying tens of billions of dollars to mail infrequent catalogs in October.

In many recent video conferences, it's common for the business leader to suggest that "more juice needs to be squeezed from the lemon". That's code for "it's become really hard to acquire new customers". It's a trap ... honestly, it's a bridge ... you generate more from your existing customers to pay for what you are losing in customer acquisition, but the bridge you take maroons you on an island with few choices but to keep getting more from existing customers. What do you do when you can no longer squeeze more out of your existing customers and cannot acquire customers?

I've told you previously about the issue with so many of you accidentally sending me email messages not meant for me ... emails outlining your corporate strategies. It happened again last week. One of my favorites came two years ago.

• An email was mistakenly sent to me from a leading brand in the paper industry.
• The email had an attachment ... a presentation summarizing the past decade and the future as the paper brand saw it.
• The paper brand outlined that demand for "catalog paper" was down between sixty percent and eighty percent in the past twenty years.
• In response, the paper brand consolidated supply, closing plants.
• The presentation outlined how this "strategy" created false demand, allowing them to charge higher prices ... all of which benefitted the paper brand in 2021 when there simply wasn't paper available and demand increased modestly due to the "COVID-bump".

And then these people lie to all of you on LinkedIn ... #PRINTISBACK as they say. It is not back. I have the presentation. I have the receipts. But it is a great example of a dying industry where the gatekeepers consume their own customers.

Man, the stories you've told me about in the past year ... where the gatekeepers treat you the same way that cable tv networks and their service providers treat their customers.

2025 is going to be a wild year, as it becomes even harder to acquire new customers should Google/Facebook continue to perform worse.

P.S.:  We're talking about my "system" here as we wind down the year. There's a reason why you have to have your own system, one independent of the gatekeepers. You are like a 401k manager, diversifying your portfolio. You can't color-by-numbers according to industry best practices. You need your own system, your own way of doing things, one that is not highly reliant upon a small number of partners.