C. Clint Bolte & Associates

Six thousand strong gathered in our nation's capital September 19-22 to participate in the National Postal Forum. The most number of attendees in four years came to network with one another, to attend more than 100 workshops (68 new topics), see the latest innovations from well over a hundred trade show vendors, and enjoy a few days of early fall in Washington DC. The various sessions were broken down by product symposiums, such as periodicals, package, and remittance mail as well as eleven different tracks to include mail center management, College & University, mail marketing, production, technology, nonprofits, and printing to name a few.

Attendees received a rousing welcome to the early Monday morning general session by the President's own United States Marine Corps band and presentation of the nation's colors. In his opening remarks Postmaster General John E. Potter said, "Today, the mailing industry appears focused on the mega-customer. But, we all know that the largest growth segment in the American economy remains the small and mid-sized business." His message and the theme of the conference was how to help small businesses and value-added postal vendors to (1) understand the perceived value of direct mail from consumer's perspective and (2) work with the USPS in leveraging its many existing and evolving programs in growing together. He concluded, "It's time we return to the basics and a simple message to all customers, large and small alike: The U.S. Mail has value. Mail works!"

Implementing this grass roots strategy will not be easy. But ironically, as this article will detail, the printing industry can and should play a pivotal role in its successful implementation while clearly benefiting printers, print associations, and most appropriately mutual customers.

Phase II activities of the Mailing Industry Task Force were reported. Phase I concentrated on internal operations and cost reduction that certainly contributed to the $8.3 billion in cost savings reported by Mr. Potter. Phase II will focus on revenue generation and making the mail more effective. Under Pricing and Payment initiatives included a priority mail flat-rate box proposal ($7.70 for anything that can fit in either of two sizes to go anywhere in US) and Periodicals Co-palletization (titles of <75,000, weigh >9 ounces, <15% advertising and be drop shipped into DADC or DSCF).

Future initiatives include greater flexibility on 2nd ounce first class mailings to encourage insertions and greater design to make paper billings more of a marketing tool and therefore more attractive than electronic billing. Another consideration is cyclical pricing by using discounts and premiums, which would tailor rates to time of the year, month or day of the week. The intent would be to increase mail volumes and level mail fluctuations. Periodical and catalog printers have all tried the carrot of schedule discounting to keep monthlies from always dropping the 28th-32nd of each month and weeklies from dropping Thursday-Saturday. Few affected publishers have moved their drop dates, but with added postal discount incentives the straw on the camel's back could be an I-beam. Mr. John Nolan, Co-chair of the Task Force and Deputy Postmaster General said, "It's not just about new products and services. It's also about the need to focus on innovative ways to use existing, powerful products and services, as well as the postal brand."

The Task Force's new innovation development process - the Innovation Incubator Initiative - was launched in late June at the first ever "Innovation Summit" held at USPS headquarters in DC. The two-day event attracted 30 executives from Fortune 100 companies and produced over 90 concepts targeted for further study and possible development.

USPS technologies now in use and evolving in the near future are truly world class. The use of these technologies coupled with private sector work sharing programs is resulting in USPS staffing levels coming down to 708,000. This is the same as it was 20 years ago. But today the post office is delivering 65 billion more pieces of mail to 48 million more addresses than two decades ago.

Currently there are two bar code technologies in use to automate the sorting of all classes of mail. Seventy percent of the barcodes are being applied by customers or service bureaus and thirty percent by the post office. They are currently sorting 80% of letter mail to delivery sequence with an obvious goal of 100%. The next generation of an 11-digit barcode, called a 4-state barcode, applied to all mail will improve the reliability of this approach while also further simplifying the universal tracing and tracking of mail from entry to destination, hence, the term "intelligent mail." This sophisticated sortation coupled with services provided by specialized logistics vendors is encouraging medium volume mailers to mail drop-ship deeper into the USPS system and closer to the ultimate delivery point. This avoids transfer at intermediary postal facilities. Customers realize more predictable delivery dates and postal savings.

Actually the tracking of mail entry and arrival has been available for several years by means of the USPS Confirm Service. Advance delivery information is available on both outbound mail going to customers and incoming hard-copy reply mail for automation compatible first class mail, standard mail, periodicals, and flats. This allows direct mail solicitations to be synchronized with telemarketing or opt-in e-mail broadcasts. Deliver information on invoices allow more efficient staffing of call centers. Embarrassing miscues for such legal notifications such as insurance cancellation or dunning notices might be avoided and thus improve client relations.