UK mailing issues: Go with the flow (transactional mail)
Mailing houses have formed a radical post-deregulation idea: produce and deliver direct and transactional mail under one roof, creating a single mail stream. If they can pull this off, the scope for marketing via bills and statements will be huge. It is only one month since the UK postal services market opened up fully to competition, so it is a little early to predict the eventual impact of liberalisation on the direct marketing industry. But one thing is certain: life will never be the same again for mailing houses. So long as there was a monopoly service provider, these suppliers were limited in how much value they could add to their services. Postage discounts can only be taken so far when the range of delivery options is restricted. In an open market, however, new opportunities have arisen. Many of these will flow upstream from the decisions taken by the new postal operators. In developing services and building market share, companies like DHL Global Mail, TNT Mail and UK Mail will need supplier partners to feed their distribution networks.
Already, the business development strategy of these operators could point to one major change. The new players have been targeting high- volume, regular transactional mailers – in other words, issuers of bills and statements. If their new clients also decide to move their direct mail activity away from Royal Mail, it is a bonus.
