Do we need six-day delivery? Do we need five? I’m not sure, but I AM sure that we do need a USPS system—including rates—that are economically sustainable and predictable. In that scenario, we lose the uncertainty; we and our mailing customers can finally make reasonable and credible projections of business volume and cash flows.
We’ve all seen the signs for years. Three pieces one day. Five the next. Mondays, now that’s another story...10 pieces in my mailbox this week. While our e-mail inboxes are bursting from perpetual overload (I’m lucky if I keep mine under 100), our physical mailboxes become emptier and emptier.
Clearly, the USPS must take steps to relieve uncertainty and ensure long-term financial viability of printing’s primary distribution channel, and $2 billion per year in savings seems like a good step in the right direction.
I’ve always been a proponent of clean mailing lists. Why would you want to ship your or a client’s direct mail piece or catalog to anyone that is not remotely interested? So, as we approach the New Year and resolutions are bound to be made:
The stakes are high for our industry, with 65 percent of all print distributed through the USPS system. What would happen if the system shuts down? Within the next year, that is a real possibility and we must not continue to ignore it. Postal reform means different things to different people, and the ticking we hear is either the countdown of the clock…or the countdown of a bomb that could explode our industry.
Even though I didn’t get the opportunity to visit all of the finishing system exhibitors at GRAPH EXPO 2012, I did see enough to form some opinions on current trends and developments in the industry. While digital printing was once again the central focus of the show floor, finishing remains key in creating quality, exciting products across the board.
Direct mail isn't going away. Even your sub-par direct mail piece gets much more attention than the best Web ads. And well-targeted, intelligently personalized pieces do really well. Amazingly, a majority of direct mail still consists of your plain-vanilla envelope.
Welcome to my everything-is-backward, what-are-we-coming-to, bizarro blog this week. Ever since the Senate passed the postal reform bill that delays elimination of Saturday delivery by two years and slows the shutdown of mail processing facilities, it seems like everything is the exact opposite of what I would think.
A recent edition of The Week came with a letter from the editor concerning mail delivery. A lot of readers value their traditions and were upset that they’d no longer be able to count on receiving their copies by Friday.
It’s commonplace for consumers to oversimplify the matter and categorize all mail as “junk.” I believe we, as marketers, are partly to blame. The lack of creativity and strategy when it comes to many direct mail campaigns is disheartening.
