Dear USPS,
We the business mailers, nonprofits and marketers are here to help you! If you help us, we’ll help you become profitable. Does this sound like a pretty good deal? If so, here are a few simple suggestions to help get you moving in the right direction.
I’d like to start out with some positive feedback. The 2011 launch of Every Door Direct Mail was a baby step in the right direction. However, even with the introduction of this simplified bulk program, there is still substantial room for improvement. Here’s where I think improvement is needed:
Simplicity: The EDDM website uses “postal speak” and offers marketers the opportunity to target by carrier route. Do you know which carrier route that you live in? Most people don’t. In fact, most people refer to the neighborhood or community that they live in by name. Until the USPS can provide a product that offers users the ability to target people by neighborhood, they will continue to alienate a large audience of prospective customers.
The EDDM site offers the ability to target an address using a USPS-generated map, but in my experience it’s still very confusing to determine exactly where you are mailing with any level of confidence.
The best solution that I’ve found to this is to make a small, one-time investment in a carrier route map of the specific county, zip code or state where you will be doing your marketing. These maps can be purchased instantly online at Maponics.com.
I personally use maps from Maponics.com to confirm that I am targeting the correct neighborhoods for my clients. For anyone attempting to do-it-yourself, I think these maps are indispensable. (Psst-you can use any of the above links to save 10% off of the regular carrier route map prices).
Consistency: The main URL to access the USPS Every Door Direct Mail portal was changed. That’s right, marketers like me bookmarked your site and educated our clients about the new EDDM site. I even created, printed and distributed educational flyers listing the EDDM URL. All of this information is now incorrect.
Missteps like this make you, your own worst enemy. We want to use your services, but instead feel like rats in a maze where the piece of cheese is constantly being moved. The original URL was linked to the new URL for a period of time, but it’s now long expired. Please try to view the decisions that you make from your customers’ point-of-view.
Flexibility: Right now EDDM is only available for Flat-sized pieces. The natural evolution of this program is to also make it available for letter-sized mail pieces. I’ve spoken with dozens of frustrated customers who’ve ordered a large amount of postcards only to discover that standard sized postcards don’t currently qualify for EDDM.
Personalization: EDDM is an economical solution for a geographically-based prospect audience, but it does nothing to help small businesses who want to market to their existing customers using bulk mail.
Ask yourself how you can simplify existing bulk mail programs, or launch new programs that will make it easier for business mailers and nonprofits to market to their existing clients using mail.
As the USPS, you own direct access to every customers’ mail box-this is what differentiates you from every other available marketing channel. This is your strength!
You must develop solutions & products that allow marketers to leverage this direct customer access. Please develop new product options with marketers in mind.
Make new product offerings as simple as possible, publish educational material that the average person can understand, and once we’ve figured out how to do something, please don’t change the rules.
Marketers can spend a lifetime trying to access the customers and prospects whose mailboxes you control.
Stop encouraging marketers to use other channels by the decisions that you make or fail to make. There’s a lot of money to be made for both the USPS and my fellow marketers if you can get this right.
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Please share your ideas for how the USPS can improve direct mail marketing in the comments section below.
The post Dear USPS: Here’s How To Get More Love from Business Mailers and Increase Your Revenues in the Process appeared first on The Direct Mail Man.