Continued Commitment to Commercial Mail
July 7, 2006
For the mailing industry, the only thing constant is change. Rates change, mail preparation rules change, addresses change, certifications change, and sometimes companies change ownership. We’ve certainly seen a lot of mergers and acquisitions in this industry and as you know Firstlogic has had some changes as well. However, despite now being called Business Objects, we have not changed our commitment to the commercial mailing industry. In fact, our Postalsoft® legacy is as strong as ever. I wanted to use this week’s blog entry to update you on some recent activities to hopefully affirm our commitment to our customers and the industry.
Let’s start with the CASS® certified software. Did you know that this year we not only met the USPS request of shipping the software 90 days before the August 1 deadline, but that we actually beat that milestone by over 30 additional days? While some vendors are still developing their solutions, our clients were improving their address assignment and overall mail deliverability by using the latest, certified technology. Remember, a complete, correct, and current address not only reduces undeliverable as addressed costs but also helps prevent turning your carefully crafted, highly targeted mailpiece into “junk”.
NCOALink™ presented another challenge in this year’s CASS cycle. The USPS changed the format of the data in the midst of the CASS cycle and thus put the vendors and their customers into a bit of a bind in trying to coordinate releases of these two “synchronized” products. I am pleased to say that today we just received notification that we have passed our stage 2 test for NCOALink. Here again, we are ready well before the September switch over date for the new NCOALink data format, thus once again helping to keep our customers addresses complete, correct, and current.
There is a saying that “you can lead, follow, or get out of the way” and again, we are continuing to choose to lead. I have been accepted by MTAC to co-chair another workgroup. This one is #104: List Certification and will focus on finding ways to improve the overall quality of mailing lists in order to provide visibility into address quality, reduce UAA mail, and expedite the mail acceptance process. My USPS co-chairs and I are kicking off the workgroup during MTAC week (August 1 – 3, 2006) in Washington, DC and expect this to be another exciting effort.
Finally, you may have heard that we have decided to discontinue our Postsort.dat products. I won’t go into the details of this decision other than to simply state that we felt that the technology wasn’t matched to the direction we were seeing with PostalOne!®. However, we are still committed to supporting Mail.dat and will continue to create this industry standard as part of our presort solutions. In fact, Corrie Brague, commercial mail development department manager for Business Objects, is an industry co-chair for the Mail.dat Strategic Development Team. Incidentally, Corrie Brague is also participating in MTAC workgroup 106: Improve and integrate data sources that facilitate optimal mail preparation and induction.
So, while our name may no longer be Firstlogic, you can still continue to count on a lot of “firsts” from us as Business Objects and our Postalsoft brand of products.
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Reader Comments (2)
If the commercial U.S. postage discount was discontinued, I would guess the following would happen:
1. Businesses would reduce their unsolicited mailings. If this reduced their profits, they'd need to modify their business plan.
2. Some U.S. Postal jobs may be lost. The employees and the union would not like that, but maybe a hiring freeze and normal turn-over could absorb some to the staff cuts.
3. The public would not continue to be inundated with unwanted mail.
4. Some trees will be saved and trash reduced.
SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE!! Any suggestions??
Sincerely,
Penny King
The discounts mailers receive are directly related to the effort they take to reduce overall costs to the USPS for processing the mail. I have another blog entry entitled “Some Assembly Optional” that explains this and I suggest you read it in order to understand that postage discounts are tied to cost avoidance.
Direct marketers use the USPS because it simply works. According to the 2006 “Household Diary Study”, only 16% of the over 5,200 households surveyed did not read the advertising (i.e. catalogs) sent to their house. That means that the vast majority of households does indeed want their mail and value its contents. However, it appears you may be in the 16%.
The fact is that mail works. Over $60 billion will be spent in 2007 on direct mail. Mail contributes to nearly $900 billion of our US economy and supports 9 million jobs. That’s nearly 1 out of every 15 people in this country.
I understand that you don’t value every piece of mail sent to your house. However, keep in mind that nearly every piece is recyclable, does not come from new forest growth, and is still the most cost effective way for small, local businesses to advertise.
If you are still vehemently opposed to mail, you can certainly sign up for certain suppression lists and responsible mailers will stop sending you offers. Keep in mind, though, that many of these lists suppress all types of mail including your local businesses, non-profit organizations, and many other businesses that view mail as their only cost-effective means for advertising.