The United States Postal service recently announced that it will stop first-class mail delivery on Saturdays beginning August 10. The USPS has been losing billions of dollars each year and has massive payments to deal with in the future for soon-to-be retirees.
So how will this affect marketers? If your company has very good time management skills, then probably not much. But there are a few things to take into consideration.
Losing one day of mail doesn’t seem like much, but it could mean that your DM piece arrives a week later than it was supposed to. This is especially risky if you’re advertising an event or a product launch. According to Paul Miller, vice-president and deputy director at the American Catalogue Mailers Association, “Marketers will only be hit hard if they fail to make adjustments in time.”
Here are few ways you can prepare for the impending loss of a day:
- You can expect that your customers’ mailboxes will be completely stocked on Fridays. That means you risk an even bigger chance of your piece being lost in the mix. One way you can fix this is by delivering your piece earlier in the week. You can always follow up with a Saturday email to drive people to stores or an event. The one-two punch is a highly effective marketing tool.
- Because earlier delivery is the easiest way to prevent a gigantic direct mail fail, you’ll need tighter deadlines for the ad agency or direct mail house, as well as any printers you work with. It also means you’ll have to speed up your internal approval process (you can use it as an excuse to cut down approval by committee).
- If you have a Tier 1 consumer, especially if you are a luxury brand, consider upgrading your direct mail piece to a dimensional package. USPS will still have package delivery on Saturday, even though it’s cutting out regular envelopes. And dimensional packages are more likely to be opened.
- Finally, get started now. Even though there is still Saturday delivery through August, pretend that there isn’t, and see how everyone in the chain of execution responds to quicker turnaround demands. By the time August rolls around, your company and all of your marketing partners and vendors will have adapted and be ready to go.
