USPS to boost direct mail with simplified address options
The US Postal Service is aiming to attract millions in new revenues next year by making it easier for businesses to get into direct mail advertising. It has brought in new rules to allow companies to address saturation flat-size mail or irregular parcels to all homes or businesses within a given area using simplified addresses, rather than exact names and addresses.
Mailers will be able to address items to “Postal Customer” without having to purchase updated databases of delivery-sequenced specific addresses, for items to go to all addresses within the required city, state or zip code area.
The service was previously available for governmental mailers, rural and highway routes, but from January 2 will extend to city routes and Post Office boxes.
The Postal Service is hoping to attract new advertisers to try direct mail for the first time, while also helping existing customers expand promotion of their products through the mail.
While it is not reducing prices for standard mail deliveries, the USPS said the new service could save money, particularly for small businesses, in mail preparation time and in purchasing and maintaining address databases.
Paul Vogel, president and chief marketing/sales officer at the USPS, said simplified addressing would help local, small and mid-size businesses reach their customers, as well as large businesses targeting customers in specific areas.
He explained: “Simplified addressing will serve as the on-ramp for many small businesses trying to reach their audiences within a specific geographic range. It will allow them for the first time to take advantage of the most effective marketing channel there is — direct mail.”
The USPS told Post&Parcel that there would be options for mailers to mail out specifically to residential addresses or business addresses within a given route.
While items can be addressed to “Postal Customers” to distribute to both residential and businesses, they can be addressed to “Residential Customer” to limit deliveries to households. Mailers can also use a “PO Boxholder” address to deliver to all Post Office boxes.
As well as individual city, state or zip code markings, simplified address mail can also be labelled “local” for delivery to the local area around a certain USPS destination delivery unit (DDU). However, the city, state or zip code will be required when mail items are not dropped directly at the relevant DDU.
Mailers will be required to meet preparation standards for standard mail, although pieces will be exempt from USPS automation and bar coding requirements.
However, maillers will be required to provide enough mailpieces for complete distribution to all active addresses on their chosen route, using statistics obtained within 90 days of the mail-out.
Information on USPS routes is available for a fee from the Post Office, in the shape of its Delivery Statistics File, but a Simplified Mailing Process website is to be set up to help small businesses find the information they require.
As with the current system for rural routes, USPS spokesperson Patricia Licata said recipients could opt out of receiving unwanted direct mail. They would do so by contacting individual mailers to ask to be taken off their list, as already happens with rural routes. Ms Licata said research suggested requests for non-delivery would be “very minor”.
“However, customers that do not wish to receive this mail will follow the effective procedures now in place on rural routes: Customers make these requests through the mailer, and then the mailer will then notify the local delivery unit through the same processes established for rural routes,” she explained.
