formerly Advertising Mail Marketing Association)
Empowering Core USPS
Service With Electronic Technology
by
Gene A. Del Polito, Ph.D.
President
Association for
Postal Commerce
Prepared for Target Marketing
There probably are very few sectors of the direct marketing business that haven't been affected by the genesis of the Internet and the World Wide Web. This year, more than any other, the same can be said of the U.S. Postal Service too. For the first time in history, postal officials are predicting the Postal Service will experience an absolute decline in the volume of First-Class beginning in the year 2003 and continuing every year thereafter.
As the Internet began to grab hold of the American consciousness, most postal gurus expected the USPS would continue to enjoy vigorous growth in its advertising mail business, because, as the theory went, printed advertising had an enduring value to the marketplace that would not easily be substituted by an electronic alternative for some time to come. This year's experience, however, has shown that this theory is wrong. In fact, direct marketers have flocked to the World Wide Web establishing "e-tail" stores. The enduring value of print notwithstanding, the impact of the Web on advertising mail volume already has had a notable effect, and it's giving postal officials the willies.
Ever since the advent of online communications, postal officials have struggled to determine what the Postal Service's response should be if the effect was a reduction in postal volume and revenue. Most of the USPS' efforts have been marked by fits and starts that have engendered a great deal of controversy, but have produced little in the way of postage. In fact, the less than envious record the USPS has amassed thus far has prompted some postal critics to say that the Postal Service should abandon its grappling with electronic technology and stick to the business of delivering mail.
This sentiment seems to presume, however, that "electronic technology" and the Postal Service are mutually exclusive. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Indeed, while some might argue that many of aspects of e-commerce are being developed quite well by the private sector without USPS interloping, the idea that somehow the Postal Service cannot and should not be allowed to use electronic technology as a means to enhance the value of the "core" postal services it is chartered to provide is without merit.
Mail does and will continue to have an enduring value in the world's economy. Despite all the hoopla about the wiring of America, it will take decades before electronic mail boxes take on the ubiquity enjoyed for centuries by the traditional postal (or, as some have taken to calling it, the "terrestrial") mail box. So rather than worry about how the Postal Service should match tit for tat every feature of the online world, postal officials should concentrate on how to increase and improve the value of the products and services that are chartered by Congress to provide. And here, as is true of practically every other sector of our economy, electronic technology can provide a means for providing this enhanced value.
Mailers have been explicit in saying that the core business services the Postal Service provides must evolve to match businesses' changing needs. In addition to mail services that are universal and cost-efficient, they also need to be reliable. Mailers have told the Postal Service that part of what they call reliability and predictability includes the ability to know where mail is in various aspects of the scheme of processing and delivery and to be able to know when a critical postal event, such as delivery or the posting of a return mail device, has occurred. In short, mailers want access to more information about their mail. Ironically, the email technology that has been keeping postal officials awake at night can provide the very tool for giving mailers access to the kind of information they are demanding.
One of the benefits of information-based indicia (IBI) or enhanced Planet barcoding technology is the ability to provide more information than a simple two-state Postnet code could ever provide. The two-dimensional PDF 417-based IBI barcode has a rather substantial capacity for information. By simply encoding an email address within the IBI, for instance, the Postal Service could have a powerful means for providing mailers with substantial real-time information about their mail. Barcodes are read at various junctures in the processing and delivery of mail, and the reading of email addressed information-rich barcodes could initiate a communication with a sending or receiving mailer about the occurrence of a key postal event--or, to use the words of Postmaster General William Henderson in a manner he probably never intended, a real "mail moment."
Trusting the transmission of such information to email, however, can be a little dicey, since people and businesses have demonstrated a propensity to change their Internet Service Providers and their email addresses at the drop of a hat. This problem, however, could easily be circumvented if the Postal Service were to use an email addressing scheme that was more directly linked to a mailer's actual physical address. With the maturation of zip codes from their original five-digit schemes to today's more detailed eleven-digit, delivery-point counterparts, however, mapping email addresses to physical mail addresses becomes child's play.
Several years ago, I noted that an eleven-digit zip code alone could provide all the information any mailer would need to identify a physical point of mail delivery. For instance, simply noting on a mail piece 22209-1609-01 as the delivery point zip code would be sufficient to tell any mailer that the actual point of delivery was "1901 North Fort Myer Drive, Arlington, Virginia." Taken one step further, the simple addition of the name of the actual recipient to a delivery point zip code would be more than enough to complete the delivery of email-based information. For example, there is no reason why a message directed to "gene.del.polito@22209.1609.01.usps.com" cannot be delivered successfully over the Internet. This kind of email addressing information could easily be embedded in any information-rich barcode and could easily be used by the Postal Service to signaling the occurrence of that critical mail moment. In other words, simply by extending the Postal Service's hard-copy messaging zip code technology to the electronic realm, would empower the USPS with the ability to provide businesses and consumers with the kind of information they have longed to receive about their mail.
Want to know when outbound mail has reached the first or last step of its processing? An email address enriched barcode could tell you. Want to know when delivery has actually been effected, the reading of an email address enriched barcode could tell you. Want to know when Business or Courtesy Reply Mail is on its way back, the reading of an email address enriched barcode could tell you. The possibilities, then, for applying this sort of information to enrich and enhance the value of hard-copy messaging are limited only by imagination.
In fact, adding such capability to mail would enhance even further the value of programs such as Origin Confirm and Destination Confirm. Rather than having to go to a USPS web site to access the information you want, it would be sent to you. From there, you could compile and organize it in a database of your own choosing--adding even more value to the information such a program could provide.
Not long ago, Postmaster General William Henderson set the Postal Service to the task of developing what he called a postal information platform. There is absolutely no reason why a zip-code based email addressing scheme could not be used as the nucleus for such an information platform. Indeed, the routine incorporation of postal email addressing information could provide the Postal Service with exactly the kind of information it needs to improve the cost-efficiency and productivity of its own operations.
The Postal Service should take on this challenge without delay. It already has its own email domain (usps.com), and it already has the basis for developing an email addressing scheme (its delivery point zip code). In short, there is no reason whatever why the Postal Service should hesitate using the very same technology it has come to fear as a vehicle for enhancing the value and utility of postal mail. In fact, no one else within the private sector is as well-positioned to do anything similar. Congress may not have chartered the Postal Service to compete with the private sector, but it should didn't charter it to be stupid either. With this kind of technology at its disposal, the Postal Service could better position itself to satisfy the nation's need for reliable, cost-efficient, and universal mail services for years to come.