Mailing/Fulfillment - Postal Trends

The Nielson study found that the printed envelopes were opened and their contents read by 84.5 percent of recipients, which made them the most opened advertising option (vs. standard envelopes—75.6 percent, self-mailer—71.4 percent and wrapper—71.2 percent).

Winkler+Dünnebier GmbH and Kern AG have agreed to expand their long-standing relationship, which has until now been limited to the sale of specific products, into a global market and technology alliance. Both companies will now be able to offer interesting possibilities for a forward and backward integration along the mail value chain.

Unions and some lawmakers say the U.S. Postal Service's plans to close plants and post offices would turn customers away and hasten the service's downward spiral. Now their campaign has been buoyed by revelations of a survey that the Postal Service commissioned —and then dismissed and pushed to make secret.

The survey, budgeted to cost up to $435,000, shows closures and cutbacks would cost $5.2 billion in lost business and result in a 7.7% drop in mail volume.

The Postal Service says the survey—conducted last summer—was “seriously flawed”…a new survey showed the Postal Service losing $1.3 billion in revenue.

Flats Sequencing System machines continue to run much slower than their target speeds and aren't getting any faster. But they also aren't breaking down as often as they were last year, according to a presentation Megan J. Brennan, USPS's Chief Operation Officer, made at a recent Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) meeting.

From October through mid-February, the average number of pieces sequenced hourly ranged from 7,000 to 10,000 per week, well below the target of nearly 12,000. Throughputs so far this year have stabilized in the range of 8,000 to 9,000 per hour with a slightly downward trend.

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.

Rep. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., announced on Friday that she intended to introduce legislation reducing the salaries of the postmaster general and his immediate subordinates to the level of Cabinet secretaries. The legislation would overturn the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which authorized USPS executives to be paid salaries of up to 120 percent of the vice president’s annual compensation, plus bonuses. Postal officials, however, argued because USPS functions like a company, it is important for executive salaries to remain competitive with the private sector.

TAG (Targeted Account Generator) uses online microsites to provide an individualized product offer, which the consumer is then incentivized to share across social platforms. “It offers a means to integrate digital, print, transactional and social channels,” says SourceLink Chief Marketing Officer Pat O’Brien.

Tom Carper, the Senator for Delaware and a leading voice in Congress pushing for major postal reforms, said that it was “unclear” why the Postal Regulatory Commission was expecting to take until this summer to produce its advisory opinion on USPS downsizing plans. At a hearing of the  Senate regarding the nomination of Tony Hammond to return as a postal commissioner, Carper said if the Commission cannot produce even preliminary findings by May, it could find itself sidelined as USPS looks to begin plant closures as soon as possible.

The Commission is scheduled to take until mid-July to take in testimony.

In preparation for this issue's feature article on database management, we came up with the most vague question possible to ask printers: How do you add value to your customers' jobs through database management?

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.