Tag: Royal Mail

Royal Mail and Vialuna launch dialogue mail to help businesses develop deeper customer relationships

Posted by | May 19, 2008 | |

Royal Mail is continuing to support the direct marketing industry in an increasingly competitive advertising landscape by launching “Dialogue Mail”, an innovative customer relationship management solution combining traditional direct mail with digital media.

In partnership with dialogue marketing specialists, Vialuna, Royal Mail now offers an integrated solution that will enable brands to have more in-depth and engaging conversations with prospects or existing customers.

Dialogue Mail capitalises on the power of direct mail to drive customers online. Recent Royal Mail research revealed that over half (55 per cent) of consumers prefer to be contacted by a combination of DM and online and that integrating digital advertising with direct mail campaigns can increase customer spend by almost 25 per cent.

The Dialogue Mail journey begins with an intrigue-based mailshot designed to pique recipients’ interest and direct them online. Vialuna’s technology creates personalised URLs, meaning the campaign is individually tailored to each customer. The interactive microsites can be designed to allow customers to share their preferences, request specific products or information and fundamentally direct their overall customer journey.

Crucially, all interaction is captured allowing the brand to learn more about individual’s behaviour and shape future communications to make them more relevant. Vialuna’s Dialog Engine tracks campaign responses and delivers lead alerts directly to sales teams in real-time.

Dialogue Mail is the latest concept in a series of innovative direct mail solutions from Royal Mail designed to help businesses win customers, build loyalty and enhance their brand through the post. The CRM-focused proposition complements Personalised Integrated Media and Sensory Mail, both launched last year, to make direct communications more engaging.

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Postcomm recommends privatisation of Royal Mail (UK)

Posted by | May 19, 2008 | |

Postcomm, the UK postal regulator, has said that it has proposed to an independent review committee on postal services, to partly privatize Royal Mail to bail it out from financial deterioration.

The BBC News has quoted Nigel Stapleton, Chairman of Postcomm, as saying: “Postcomm wants to see the government and Royal Mail embrace a partnership approach with the private sector to secure a universal service.”

Postcomm has said that Royal Mail required capital to restructure itself and become profitable. Mr Stapleton has said that Royal Mail may require a subsidy if the government decides against privatisation.

Royal Mail was the only mail service in the UK till 2006, when the gates were opened for private players to deliver mails. But it still controls 90% of market share, the BBC News has said.

Postcomm has also proposed that the controller of post office network, Post Offices, be separated from Royal Mail.

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Sell-off of Royal Mail 'doomed'

Posted by | May 18, 2008 | |

A plan by regulator Postcomm to partly privatise Royal Mail will fail because of the company’s huge and growing pension deficit, according to a leading independent consultant.

John Ralfe said Royal Mail was technically insolvent with a GBP 3bn pension hole. ‘No trade or equity investor would even consider taking a stake unless Royal Mail could be shorn of its pensions,’ he said in a research note for RBC Capital Markets.

Ralfe said that even if the Government, Royal Mail’s owner, could be persuaded to run the pension scheme, it would be illegal because it would be a clear breach of the EU Treaty that bans anti-competitive state aid.

Postcomm’s suggestion that Britain should follow the lead of the Danish and Swedish postal services in allowing partial privatisation was not valid because neither had to cope with such huge pension liabilities.

The Postcomm plan has run into further opposition, with the Communication Workers Union, the main postal workers’ union, suggesting that the proposals overstepped the regulator’s remit.

And the Government would face opposition from its own MPs with close links to the CWU. Royal Mail announced last week that it made a GBP 279m loss in the year to March. And the company has two new and emerging problems.

First, mail volumes are starting to decline. And second, Royal Mail has been forced to open up its business post services to competition.

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Royal Mail to merge sorting sites (UK)

Posted by | May 16, 2008 | |

Royal Mail has announced the closure of two mail distribution centres in the Thames Valley.

After a period of public consultation the company has decided to press ahead with a plan to consolidate its centres in Oxford, Reading and Swindon.

The new Thames Valley Mail Centre will be based at an expanded Swindon site.

Building work at Swindon is due to be completed by October and the transfer of work from Reading and Oxford is scheduled for June 2009.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said it was unclear at this stage how jobs would be affected but he said they would be carrying out consultations with staff.

In a statement, the company said: “In a fully competitive postal market Royal Mail needs to change and this project represents a big step forward in making changes that will benefit our customers, our business and our people.

“Some GBP 20 million is being invested in this project and once complete, the new Thames Valley Mail Centre at Swindon will be the largest, state of the art mail centre in the country.”

Reading’s mail centre was “no longer fit for purpose” said the company as it was high maintenance, outdated and unsuitable.

Instead a new delivery office for central Reading will be developed.

The company added that delivery and collection operations across the Swindon and Oxford postcode areas would not be affected.

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Warsaw is cultural capital with the lowest price tag

Posted by | May 16, 2008 | |

Culture vultures who want to save hundreds of pounds on the cost of an arts and entertainment-packed short break should head for Warsaw. The Polish capital was far and away the cheapest city for a cultural weekend away, according to the new Cost of Culture report conducted by Post Office® Travel Services.¹

Even though sterling buys 22 per cent fewer Polish zloty than a year ago, the GBP 75 price tag – which included visits to Warsaw’s historic art galleries, museums and heritage sites, together with nights at the renowned Polish National Opera, ballet and a symphony concert² – weighed in at less than 25 per cent of the equivalent London cost.

London proved by far the most expensive of the 10 cultural capitals surveyed by the Post Office®. Its itinerary of 10 cultural highlights, which included trips to the Royal Opera House, Buckingham Palace and the Victoria & Albert Museum, costs around GBP 308, despite the offer of free entry to its national museums and galleries.

By contrast, while the sliding pound has made Prague up to 25 per cent more expensive than a year ago, the Czech capital rates as great value for lovers of the arts. It was second only to Warsaw, at just under GBP 104 for a culture-filled trip.

The survey of Europe and North America’s top cultural centres included six eurozone capitals and, as with other price comparison reports by the Post Office®, revealed a huge disparity in costs between these destinations.

The Cost of Culture survey identifies the five best value choices for each of the six cultural categories researched (allowing one entry per city in each category)³ and found that Paris was the only city not to feature. However clued-up culture vultures can cut their costs by visiting Paris on the first Sunday of each month, when galleries are free.4

The Post Office® Cost of Culture survey is available online for holidaymakers to view at postoffice.co.uk/costofculture

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