Options and Considerations Finally, there’s the USPS image to consider. Consumers have long rated the US Postal Service as the nation’s most-admired government entity. If postal banking forces them into the debt-collection business, that reputation may take a beating. Another government entity that collects money from citizens through wage garnishment and repossession is the IRS. They are decidedly unpopular among the citizenry. The USPS could suffer the same fate, turning public opinion against them and encouraging political adversaries to be more aggressive about privatization.
valuable currency today, and the USPS has a ton of it. What if Informed Delivery included opt-in and opt-out buttons for the scanned mail pieces? Would mailers pay the USPS to notify them when a recipient on their list doesn’t want to receive their catalog or other direct mail marketing piece anymore? It seems it would be less expensive to pay the Postal Service for this information and drop names from mailing lists than to continue mailing to uninterested consumers. Informed Delivery might even provide consumers an easy way to provide marketer-requested feedback. Does the
Instead of banking or other retailoriented activities, the US Postal Service should look for ways to monetize the information it is collecting about mail, logistics, or consumer preferences. If the US Postal Service were to get into the banking business, it might consider exploiting its location advantages. The USPS could allow existing financial institutions to lease space in selected post office buildings. Banks would agree with the government about rates, fees, lending criteria, risk assessment, collection, and levels of service. The USPS would collect lease payments, but leave financial operations to the banks. Monetizing Existing Data Instead of banking or other retail-oriented activities, the US Postal Service should look for ways to monetize the information it is collecting about mail, logistics, or consumer preferences. Data is the most
catalog come too often? Is it a duplicate? Has the consumer lost interest in the products? Is there another product category more appropriate? Does the consumer only shop online? Marketers might use information like this to direct their future marketing efforts and would pay a reasonable fee for the data, perhaps on an annual subscription basis. The USPS would automatically collect and transmit the information to subscribed marketers about their mail. After developing the system, costs would be minimal. The USPS can make money by helping mailers be more efficient and by keeping mail relevant. That’s a tough sell because sometimes it means assisting with a decrease in volume, where postage is the primary income source. But aren’t we
heading towards a time when lower mail volume is the new normal anyway? Rather than concentrating only on promotions and projects aimed at preserving or increasing mail volumes, maybe it is time to broaden the scope. A more diverse set of income-producing activities could stabilize the future of the US Postal Service. Data Collection and Transmission Besides mail-related data, perhaps the Postal Service could take advantage of its mobile workforce as data collectors. Delivery vehicles and drivers are in every neighborhood, six days a week. The USPS already equips vehicles with GPS devices that feed data to Informed Visibility. Information about the physical environment in which the postal carriers operate would be of value to other organizations. Data collection and transmission would be billable services. Utility companies, cities, counties, and private companies might have use for meter reading, status updates on road conditions, overgrown trees, or road sign damage. Postal employees would acquire data via cameras, carrier reports, or by tracking route deviations that indicate detours and road construction. It seems to me the USPS could be more vigorous about reacting to the ways its business is changing. It has done this in the past with many automation implementations. Shrinking postage sales will challenge the US Postal Service to earn the revenue it needs to continue providing a much needed service to businesses and citizens. Making money from something other than postage will prevent the USPS from having to raise rates to levels that encourage mailers to lessen their dependence on postal mail. Mike Porter at Print/Mail Consultants helps his clients meet the challenges they encounter in document operations and creates informational content for vendors and service providers in the document industry. Follow @PMCmike on Twitter, send a connection request on LinkedIn, or contact Mike directly at mporter@printmailconsultants.com.
MailingSystemsTechnology.com | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2019
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