Important News From MTAC, Coronavirus Front
March 26, 2020   Dave Lewis

We have lots of bits of news from MTAC, and the ID and IV programs, so here they are: MTAC Goes Virtual! The generally festive MTAC meetings in Washington were replaced by a series of webinars on a variety of topics, including promotions, COVID-19 response, and the usual MTAC micro-stuff.  Participants were enriched by the soothing sounds of what I believe was Beethoven while we waited on hold for meetings to get rolling, but all in all it was an effective way to meet under trying circumstances. Informed Delivery with no mail? One idea suggested by USPS was allowing mailers whose plants were unable to operate to create Informed Delivery campaigns in lieu of mail, for a small fee.  This is just a suggestion at this point, and while we appreciate the Postal Service trying to help industry cope in these difficult times, this struck us as a very, very bad idea.  This was probably the industry’s greatest fear of ID – that the USPS might be tempted to replace some mail with it.  Slippery slope, bad door to open. Informed Delivery Promotion Rules Posted The 2020 Informed Delivery Promotion rules have been posted on Postal Pro.  They are largely the same as last year’s.  Fortunately, there are no prior year thresholds to overcome.  Design and approval requirements are pretty much unchanged.  Registration starts July 15, and the promotion runs September 1, 2020 through November 30, 2020.  Election mailers take note!  This is the easiest 2% discount you’re likely to find.  Read all the rules here: https://postalpro.usps.com/2020_Informed_Delivery_requirements PCC’s Go Virtual No doubt you read with great amusement our SnailWorks on the Road article last month.  We are not on the road.  We’re barely allowed to walk our dog on the road.  No PCC’s.  No AAPC.  No National Postal Forum.  But we are starting a series of online PCC presentations – our first was for the Baltimore PCC on March 19, and our next is for Sacramento, CA on April 9.  Need a webinar for your PCC or customer meeting?  Contact us and we can set one up.  Your crowd, our wisdom and barcode jokes.  Hot topic du jour:  Measuring Response During a Pandemic Crisis. ID Campaigns for Packages Begins in May In the kind of Big Deal category, starting in May, package shippers will be able to add an Informed Delivery ad to their deliveries.  We’re still learning the mechanics of the process – packages have their own barcoding protocol – SnailWorks hopes to be able to add this functionality in upcoming months. Mail Delivery Notification Pilot Ready to Start Well here’s an interesting new thing:  Informed Delivery subscribers will soon be able to opt in to get an email notification when their mail is delivered.  “Yo. Your mail is here.”™ is scheduled to go into pilot soon, and is not really called “Yo. Your mail is here.”™ But it is a new incentive for consumers to sign up for Informed Delivery. Seamless Acceptance Sort of Pushed Back…A Little If you are a Full-Service mailer, you will be on Seamless next year.  The requirement for DMU’s got pushed back a little bit – from March 2021 to May 2021, so really no resting on that transition.  Good news is that If you don’t know what a DMU is you almost certainly aren’t one.

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