DMA's Directo Council to Discuss Marketing to Hispanics With Congress
The Direct Marketing Association's Directo Council for U.S. Hispanic Marketing will visit members of Congress to discuss key issues affecting marketing to the Hispanic community, such as postal reform and privacy legislation, the association said yesterday.The group of business leaders representing the $348 billion buying market will focus primarily on how the U.S. Postal Service's problems will affect marketers' willingness to reach out to targeted audiences, such as the Hispanic community. Council members are concerned that higher postal rates will trigger reduced targeting of the Hispanic market in the United States.
Directo Council members also will voice their opinions about privacy legislation.
As privacy legislation focuses more on telemarketing, council members are concerned that members of the Hispanic community are unaware of their rights as consumers. During the visit to Capitol Hill, they will encourage legislators to support efforts to educate consumers through a multilingual education initiative that is tentatively scheduled to begin in the fall.
"The Directo Council is concerned that our legislators are not taking into consideration how direct marketing issues such as postal rates, remote sales taxation and privacy legislation affect all audiences," said Brenda Heggs, vice chairwoman of the Directo Council and membership development program manager at the AARP.
This initiative is part of the DMA's State Days on Capitol Hill Program, through which direct marketing executives visit Washington for face-to-face meetings with members of Congress to discuss issues and to educate them about the issues affecting direct marketing.
The DMA Directo Council was formed to educate direct marketers about the U.S. Hispanic market, to provide support in targeting this segment and to promote career and business opportunities for Hispanic direct marketers.
