Business and Marketing

In her Postal Forum keynote, the Postmaster General unveils a plan to make it a more compelling player in a digital world.

PMG Megan Brennan

The digitalization of the U.S. Postal Service is officially underway. Better use of data for the benefit of direct mailers and citizens alike was the common theme driven home by the Postmaster General, CMO, COO, and VP sales of the Post Office during the opening keynote address at the National Postal Forum in Anaheim.

In this annual State of the Mails address, first-year PMG Megan Brennan declared her mission to establish the Postal Service as a data-driven marketing channel fully in sync with an increasingly digital world. “Our industry has a big role to play in the digital future,” she said, adding, “We have to continually innovate to make mail more interactive, compelling, and sophisticated” in combination with digital methods.

Brennan laid out a three-point plan for her “Mail Revolution”: 1) bridge the gap between physical and digital methods and empower mail to begin the interactive experience for consumers; 2) increase the transparency of mail through enhanced tracking and real-time reaction capabilities; and 3) “hyper-personalize” mail, using customer data and the Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) to make mailings more targeted and real-time.

The Postal Service is stepping up testing of a program called Real Mail Notification that relies on all three legs of the new digital stool. Using scanning technology and customer data currently in place, the Postal Service sends alerts to peoples' mobile devices that their mail has been delivered, showing them the front of an envelope. Recipients have the ability to interact with the mailing on their devices, and marketers have the option of delivering additional offers to spur mobile interaction.

A test of Real Mail Notification that recently concluded in Virginia found that nine out of 10 people clicked on their digital mail, producing a tenfold increase in response rate for participants, according to Brennan. “This has the potential to be a game-changer,” she said.

During his turn at the podium, former CIO and now acting CMO, Jim Cochrane, said that the Postal Service's charge for big mailers is “speed to value.” Noting that some 90% of mail volume now uses IMb technology, he said that the technological platform to accomplish this goal is in place. “We want to increase insight to create a bulls-eye on customer behavior, that tracks to the website and knows whether a customer is interested in shirts or shoes,” Cochrane said. “We want to personalize content so that when mail is integrated in a multichannel way, there is a multiplier effect.”

VP of Sales Cliff Rucker recited a litany of statistics intended to illustrate a theory that digital-only marketers underestimate the power of direct mail. He claimed that 45% of consumers read catalogs before purchasing online, and that 38% had catalogs open in front of them when pressing the buy button. “Digital marketing by itself isn't enough to drive the results companies expect,” Rucker said.

Of course, to deliver on Brennan's data-driven imperative, the Postal Service has to deliver the mail on schedule. A story appearing in today's Omaha World-Herald reported that non-local delivery times have declined significantly since the second phase of the USPS's Network Rationalization was implemented in January. Only 63% of non-local deliveries were made in three days in the first quarter of this year, the report said, compared to 84% during the same period in 2014.

During today's keynote COO Dave Williams admitted that it has taken a few months to get back up to speed following the implementation, noting that delivery schedules were simultaneously changed for all the 450 million pieces of mail handled on a daily basis. “We are getting to a point of knowing the time of day of the delivery,” he said. “We have to have predictability.”

Deputy Postmaster General Ron Stroman concluded the session by presenting the annual Partnership for Growth award to the Mailers' Technical Advisory Committee, which marked its 50th year of cooperating with USPS on the implementation of advances such as plant automation and the ZIP Code.

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