USPS Innovations that matter to marketers
The Postal Service is certainly thinking outside of the box these days. They have rolled out or announced three new programs that we believe could have a significant impact on multi-channel marketers who build their campaigns around direct mail. That is probably you. Share Mail Alternatively called Wave Mail and Alternate Postage, Share Mail is a postal program that allows prospects to address a reply piece and send it to another address without affixing postage. The secret is a unique intelligent mail barcode on each piece that identifies the piece as share mail, along with unique facing identification marks – the FIM E. You can think of Share Mail as something like Business Reply Mail that can be addressed by hand. You can even include a picture in the indicia. What fun! Postage is charged back to a mailer CAPS account when the IMb is scanned, and the mailer has the option of paying a lower rate on all of the coded pieces, or a higher rate on just the scanned pieces. There is a registration process, assignment of a special Mailer ID (MID), and mail piece review and approval involved in the process, and users have told us it is not an automatic – the Postal Service is being very particular about designs. A marketing agreement with USPS is required, and the whole process takes 2-3 weeks if all goes well. We have seen a number of mailers adopt this option for their voter registrations and early voting mailings, where a reply is being sent to a government office. Did we mention that this is very trackable? Consider it mentioned. USPS Intelligent Address Got an email address for someone, but no postal address? No problem – with their new Intelligent Address product the Postal Service will create an Intelligent Mail barcode that will allow the piece to be delivered without an address, just a name and barcode.
Very little has been released as to the mechanics of the product – how it works, what it costs – but it has been tested at the district and area level, and national tests are planned for the coming month. The marketing implications are interesting – look for more announcements from USPS to come. Informed Delivery OK, we have talked about his one before, but Informed Delivery continues to steam forward, with a phased national release scheduled for 2017. SnailWorks is in Maryland, and as such we have begun to live with the product. It has been released in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and the New York City area. Every morning, enrolled participants get an email from USPS that includes a black and white image of all of the letter-size mail pieces to be delivered that day. So far it has been pretty accurate, and pretty interesting. Some personal observations:
- I look at it every day – it’s compelling. I don’t think it’s my mailing-nerd status that drives me – I just want to see what’s in the mail;
- Visible coupons caught my interest. Even on my phone I get a good view of the mail pieces. I could easily read the offers that would be waiting for me;
- On days with no compelling mail in my mailbox, I am less likely to care about looking through the mail when I get home;
- Some mail was not delivered. A woman who used to live in my house had a First-Class piece from a gastroenterologist. Presumably my carrier knew she didn’t live there anymore – the piece wasn’t delivered, but I saw the outside of the mail piece. I hope she’s feeling OK…
Today only about one percent of the households in the test area are enrolled, so Informed Delivery doesn’t have much of an impact. As USPS rolls this out and publicizes it to consumers, it could have a big impact. It may impact how you design mail, and you would be wise to consider placing clickable images on the USPS email – this is available today for free. One Final Thought We can’t help but notice that all new Postal Service products are “Intelligent” and “Informed.” If you read this far, now you are too! If you want to know more about participating in any of these programs, reach out to us – we’ll help you make it happen!