Business View Magazine - September 2016 31
your calls?” Reinmuth asks, rhetorically. “We have the
best service providers within our membership to help
service those marketers,” he continues. “We have
some of the most cutting edge people in technology. If
you have a product and you want to sell it, there is no
better association that can help you sell that product
through any means necessary - and can also guide you
how to do it in the most ethical manner.”
Another important activity of the
Association is advocacy. ERA works
on behalf of its members by mak-
ing sure that key lawmakers in
Congress and regulatory leaders
at the FTC in Washington are pro-
vided with the proper information
from industry professionals - guar-
anteeing that their voices are being
heard and heeded on Capitol Hill.
“We have our own advocacy group
within our Association and that is
what a big piece of membership
dues goes to,” says Reinmuth. “We
have a government affairs fly-in ev-
ery year in D.C., where we have the
Federal Trade Commission come
out and speak to our members and
talk about legislation.”
Reinmuth says that while direct marketing via TV is
still one of ERA’s major areas of concern, it’s only one
of the marketing methodologies in which the Associa-
tion specializes. “We are definitely moving into digital,”
he states. As part of its attempt to reach out to those
direct marketers who only market via digital channels,
ERA has recently instituted what Reinmuth calls the
Digital Road Show Series.
“The Digital Road Show Series is our focus to bring our
intellectual property to the digital crowd and apply it
to what they’re doing,” he says. The first Digital Road
Show took place in Austin, recently, and had four spon-
sors – one was a large coaching and seminar com-
pany; one was a media buyer; one was one of ERA’s
founding legal firms; and one was a payment proces-
sor. “We’re going to do four of them a year around the
country, anywhere where there’s a hotbed for digital.
And that’s going to be a big focus where we take the
Association.”
As a non-profit association, ERA is governed by a Board
of Directors, and run by a staff of ten who manage all
advocacy, membership, sales, and marketing efforts.
As the Association continues to be the eyes, ears, and
voice of the direct response industry, Reinmuth says
that he would like to see ERA become “the one focal
point where people can come for omni-channel mar-
keting; the one repository for anybody that is looking
to sell their products online, through TV, through the
mail, or any kind of medium - and get advocacy, as
well. We want to be the place where people can go for
all of that.”
