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As appearing in The Seybold Report - April 27, 2006

Article prepared by C. Clint Bolte, C. Clint Bolte & Associates, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. For additional information please call 717-263-5768, fax 717-263-8945, or e-mail to clint@clintbolte.com.

Intelligent Mail is Better than Magic at
National Postal Forum 2006 in Orlando

The largest gathering (6,500+) and most number of exhibitors (160+) in seven years assembled April 2-5 to participate in the National Postal Forum. These attendees came to network with one another, attend some of the 138 workshops (95 new topics), and enjoy sunny Orlando, Florida.

Mistakenly too many printers think that this conference must delve into the intricacies of the United States Postal Service mail regulations and other mundane nuances. Hence, the general commercial print owners or their top management group delegate their mailing department head as their sole representative. While attendees can certainly get any type of question answered by either the myriad USPS professional staff and experienced, willing-to-share mailing service providers present, the strategic marketing and product development ideas presented by some of the leading practitioners on the continent is where the big payoff could exist. This article will highlight several of these opportunities and rest assured they are not Disney Magic.

The immediate and on-going use of the Internet by mailers and the USPS was an underlying Forum theme in two specific arenas. First, the success stories of utilizing opt-in e-mail and well designed web sites as complementary and supplementary elements to direct mail in multi-media marketing campaigns was trumpeted by small and large corporate entities alike. Secondly, the USPS has completed the successful testing of electronic operational information flow between their mailing services vendors and themselves to eliminate paperwork and reduce the cycle time of getting the mail to its ultimate recipients. The first has received ample, well-deserved media coverage, but not the second.

This later initiative could be a home run by creating the most substantial degree of hard-core efficiencies experienced by both the Postal Service and printer-mailers since the pony express gave way to the iron horse in the delivery of mail. Ms. Pritha Mehra, USPS Manager of Marketing Technology and Channel Management, participated on a number of panel presentations with mail service providers who had completed successful beta tests of electronic collaboration with the USPS. There are six facets to this electronic information flow; (1) advance notification of mail to come, (2) e-check payment, (3) USPS yard management of vehicles arriving, (4) actual receipt or induction of pallets of mail, (5) client visibility of the mail throughout the processing and (6) client interface with USPS records to keep track of their own account. Many of these are working now. Others have been proven in Beta tests and will be rolled out nationwide over the next eighteen months.

The key attributes of this electronic concept is that the client mailers are working from a self serve model with a PC window into the USPS, no more tedious forms, no more telephone tag and no more hand carrying checks to the USPS.

Advance Notification

Mailers can submit their electronic forms of expected incoming standard, periodical, first class and parcel mail classes by one of three venues: (1) mail.dat, (2) XML-based web services and (3) Postage Statement Wizard. MAIL.DAT has been incorporated by mailers of the largest volumes and frequency as this information is automatically generated by their existing mail presort software. The later two are easily followed by less frequent mailers to create the necessary postage statements. All three automatically schedule appointments for the drop off of the mail by requesting a date and confirmation back of the time. Wizard has completed its testing in Buffalo and will be rolled out in May.

OnLine Account Management

From opening an account, opening permits, electronic payment anywhere, anytime by any method to monitoring account balances can all be done from the mailer's desktop on the USPS PostalOne!^TM System. The current Central Accounts Processing System (CAPS) funds management will give way to electronic funds transfer in the future under PostalOne!^TM.

Yard Management

From ease of appointments to hand off of assets this new technology will expedite the check-in and check-out process. The Pittsburgh and Northern New Jersey bulk mail centers have proven the concept. Other BMCs will be rolled out in 2007.

Induction

With no more paper 8125 forms an electronic manifest coupled with unique bar codes applied to each pallet or mail container by the mailer eDrop Ship and Parcel Electronic Verification Systems will expedite entry of the mail into the mail stream.

Visibility

End to end visibility is enabled by the PostNet or 4-State bar codes applied to each piece of mail and a mailer's subscription to the Confirm Service^TM. USPS plans to provide additional enroute scanning points as well.

Client Feedback

Following the initial submission of postal statements for mail to be inducted, there can be changes and updates, which can be facilitated through PostalOne!^TM. The ease of induction appointments, preliminary postage estimates, processing confirmations, postage transactions and payment receipts in a near real-time electronic feedback will improve customer service to mailers.

Printer-mailers wanting to take advantage of co-mailing and co-palletizing discounts have been ear-marked as the first vendors to work out the final minor glitzes in this well thought electronic interface network. The easier postal documentation and faster mail acceptance, verification and induction are expected to pull 12-24 hours out of the mail delivery cycle time. Publisher representatives expect this benefit to allow more late breaking advertisements to be included in the periodical as well as the most current updated address corrections to be entered into the mailing list.

In expounding on the highlights of the USPS' past year, Postmaster General John E. Potter remarked that the total $11 billion of debt on its balance sheet has been paid off, an unprecedented six straight years of productivity increases were experienced which allowed the postal service to reduce 100,000 career positions over that time period.

Despite billions of dollars in savings from operations, another rate adjustment will be requested in 2007. It could be filed as early as next month. While no figures are available, the expectation is to keep this increase at no more than the inflation index. Additionally a collective bargaining agreement will be on the table to be negotiated with the postal unions representing the 700,000 employees.

USPS Senior Vice President for Intelligent Mail and Address Quality Charles Bravo announced that the new 4-state barcode would start September 1 for letters and in early 2007 for flats. While it will not immediately replace the familiar Postnet bar code, it will be more valuable to Confirm Service^TM users as the 4-state barcode will have 31 digits. This will allow Confirm clients to increase their unique postal piece digit identifier from 6 to 9 digits, a 50% capacity increase. This means that each client can trace up to a billion pieces of mail in the postal system at the same time. Both Prudential and American Express thoroughly tested this new bar code last fall with positive results. In addition to providing mailers with some interesting marketing opportunities to better dove tail the integration of multiple media elements of campaigns with their mail component, it will provide the best yet report on actual postal service performance throughout the country.

This past year PIA/GATF awarded the USPS one of its Technology Awards on behalf of the printing industry for its Confirm Service^TM. While a number of large financial institutions have been using this capability since its inception in 1998 and the new 4-state barcode will add even more user capacity, the low overall acceptance of the capability by main stream businesses would suggest that it might be a technology looking for a market.

MERLIN and mail quality issues were addressed by Wanda Senne of World Marketing, Inc. Production quality checklists were compiled by Ms. Senne and other early MERLIN users. It was announced that Bowe Bell + Howell will be coming out in late 2006 with a portable Envelope Reflectance Measurement (ERM) instrument. This will allow mailers to determine barcode readability quality before being subjected to the MERLIN tests. This will ensure optimal deliverability and full proper postal discounts. The unit was shown in the BCC Software booth for attendees to test the unit and fill out a survey. Pricing has not been finalized yet but the unit may be offered as a one time capital purchase of about $5,000 or on a subscription basis depending upon the number of reflectance tests run each month.

As an outgrowth of the USPS' first Strategic Transformation Plan a small group of postal professionals were assigned the task of setting up a collection point to receive and to facilitate the evaluation due diligence for ideas and innovations presented by companies, entrepreneurs and creative individuals to the post office. Since its formation four years ago 2,500 ideas have been placed in the hopper, 400 ideas last year alone. Each innovation is given its own webpage within the USPS so that managers of various divisions can assign their own representative to the team for evaluation and development. Thomas Cinelli, USPS Business Initiatives Manager, commented, "A number of them (product concepts) have reached the patent application stage and are currently under nondisclosure." Idea submission can be made at usps.com/innovations.

Mailing Training Institute organized by The Bennett Group, Inc. announced the formation of the Mailing Industry Executive Business Administration (MIEBA) Program. Comprised of 34 major instructional topics to be presented by a proven faculty of nine experienced mail services managers and consultants in both the classroom and on the production floor. The eight-day program (64 hours of instruction) will require a $6,400 tuition per attendee with its first session to be held July 11-19 in Rochester, New York and monthly thereafter. Mary Ann Bennett, Principal of the Bennett Group, expects the new program to be well received particularly by printers as many of them are looking for a fast educational track to allow them to prepare viable business plans to expand into mailing services. Call 877-743-3379 for more detailed information and listing of curriculum.

A daylong symposium was presented on "Marketing to Hispanics." Panelists comprised of various advertising agency executives and marketing gurus presented a series of case studies. Tremaine Spencer, Associate Director of Advertising for SBC/AT&T offered three pitfalls to avoid in any multi-cultural marketing effort; (1) Don't simply translate an offering into Spanish. Have it reviewed for appropriate colloquialisms. (2) Measure the return on investment of your efforts. (3) You must have a community presence to be received as sincere.

NPF '06 Photo captions:

John E. Potter, USPS Postmaster General, addresses the National Postal Forum '06 in Orlando on the $5 billion of savings realized during the Postal Services first Strategic Transformation Plan.

PMG Potter and James Miller, Chairman of the USPS Board of Governors, discuss their desire to keep the soon-to-be-requested 2007 postal rate hike below the rate of inflation.

Article prepared by C. Clint Bolte, C. Clint Bolte & Associates, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. For additional information please call 717-263-5768, fax 717-263-8945, or e-mail to clint@clintbolte.com.