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| Persuading the Postal Service |
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| Written by Donna Hanbery |
 Since its formation in 1997, one of the missions of the Saturation Mailers Coalition (SMC) is to persuade the Postal Service to be more customer-focused and responsive to the needs of saturation mailers, including free paper publishers. Our ability to persuade is enhanced when we can produce facts and figures to support our positions.Our ability to dazzle with data was greatly enhanced by the decades of audit work and reporting of the Circulation Verification Council (CVC) for the free paper industry. This spring, SMC was asked to show the Postal Service the opportunities for expanded postal distribution and volumes if the Postal Service could be responsive to the needs of free paper publishers. SMC wants to thank Tim Bingaman and CVC for giving the number crunchers at the Postal Service more than a few things to think about. Just as advertisers have used CVC data to recognize the reach and response rates they can achieve by using free paper print products, the Postal Service can see in the CVC data base the vast potential for attracting distribution business that is already recognized and received by circulation that exceeds the combined circulation of all dailies in the US. CVC generously agreed to let us share its reports with the Postal Service so that officials in Marketing, Mailing Services, and Pricing could see there are thousands of free papers working to reach American households each week. In recent months, the Postal Service has shown a renewed interest in discussing SMC’s proposal for simplified but certified mail as an alternative way for addressing saturation flat mail, like free papers, for delivery to city routes. The Postal Service officials responsible for Marketing and Mailing Services are interested in growing new areas of Postal Service business. They are dialoging with the saturation mail industry, and other mailers, to explore new Postal Service products and ways of growing existing types of business with postal customers. For years SMC has been telling the Postal Service that saturation mail programs, like free papers, could be a great growth opportunity for the Postal Service. Our message has been consistent. We have told the Postal Service that its rates are too high and the addressing requirement is too burdensome to make many free paper publishers consider the mail. This spring we have asked SMC members, and free papers that belong to associations that do reciprocal memberships with SMC, to answer the SMC survey about your business and priorities. This survey will be used by the SMC Steering Committee to set our own postal advocacy and action agenda for the year. Of equal importance, survey results and data will help us make our case to the Postal Service. As of the end of June 2009, SMC had received survey responses from 32 different companies representing more than five billion pieces a year of saturation program mail. One of the most valuable aspects of the survey was the information we received from mailers that maintain their own do-not-mail/customer suppression requests. The data supplied by our members show that locally distributed program advertising packages, like free papers, are well received and welcome to consumers. One of the biggest arguments SMC has heard in response to our request for a simplified addressing option for city routes is the fear that consumers will not want the mail or the Postal Service will have too many different do-not-mail requests, or households to skip, on any given delivery day where a saturation piece is being distributed. The data we received in our SMC survey on do-not-mail numbers was very helpful. Of those survey respondents that reported having procedures in place to honor do-not-mail requests, the responses showed that our members’ products were welcome in most consumers’ home. The responses on customer do-not-mail requests of survey respondents with a do-not-mail procedure in place showed the following: 4 described their do-not-mail requests as "a handful," "very little," or "small;" 4 said it was less than 1% of total circulation; 1 said less than .5% of circulation; 1 said less than .05% of circulation. The remainder provided do-not-mail circulation estimates that were all less than 1% ranging from .0001% to .2% of circulation. SMC will be compiling the full survey data for purposes of a presentation between our members and Postal Service officials later this year. We are hoping that the hard numbers we have been able to give the Postal Service on our do-not-mail experience, combined with the depth of data and opportunity represented by the CVC data base, will persuade the Postal Service to adopt SMC’s proposal for simplified but certified as an addressing option for saturation program mail, or to move forward to test the proposal, later this year. For more information on or questions about this article or SMC, please contact: Donna E. Hanbery Saturation Mailers Coalition 33 South Sixth Street, Suite 4040 Minneapolis, MN 55402 (612) 340-9350/direct dial (612) 340-9446/fax Website |
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Free Community Papers of New YorkP.O. Box 11279
Syracuse, NY 13218
Phone: 315-472-6007 or 877-275-2726
Fax: 315-472-5919
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