Direct Mail....Worth Much More Than One Week

The following is a perspective by postal commentator Kate Muth.

How are you spending Direct Mail Week? Throwing a few steaks on the grill and inviting your marketing team over to celebrate? Or taking the distribution team out for happy hour in recognition? Or maybe just hugging your letter carrier? 

Or perhaps you didn’t realize that Aug. 22-25 is Direct Mail Week, according to the Direct Marketing Association. I hope you will take this opportunity to recognize and appreciate the valuable contribution that direct mail makes to our economy – and to many of our livelihoods. It certainly contributes to mine, and so I am especially thankful this week. 

It seems hard to believe that the discussion of the mailing industry as a $900 billion industry is practically becoming a cliché. How many times now have we heard members of Congress site the figure in opening statements and in the throes of debate on postal issues? This is a significant achievement as it was not something you found regularly noted or quoted by lawmakers. These types of comments tend to get picked up in the mainstream press, giving a broader audience insight into the importance of the mailing industry in the larger economy. While the DMA has worked for the past decade to analyze the size and influence of the mailing industry, the numbers gained traction through the Mailing Industry Task Force. 

So here it is again: the mailing industry represents 9 million jobs and $900 billion. To put this latter figure in perspective, this is roughly the equivalent of Spain’s Gross Domestic Product. That’s some serious cash. And advertising mail is a growth product – or as some mailers like to say, the engine that drives the train. Standard Mail makes up about 46% of total mail volume. When factored in with the advertising mail in First Class, advertising mail makes up about half of the total 206 billion in USPS volume. And Standard Mail volume is growing. It increased nearly 4% in fiscal year 2003; up 5.6% in 2004; and it is on pace to increase 6% this year. 

I have the Postal Service to thank for raising my awareness about Direct Mail Week. Last week its media relations staff invited a group of us to an informal – but on-the-record – lunch with two of the Postal Service’s marketing managers to discuss direct mail and other core products the USPS is promoting. Rick Arvonio, director of direct mail for the Postal Service, and George Hurst, manager of direct mail, discussed some of the USPS’ products and efforts in its core products, in particular direct mail. 

At one point, the conversation turned to the black eye that direct mail sometimes suffers in the mainstream press. All of us have read articles that disparage advertising mail as an environmental burden or a nuisance in homes and mailboxes. And some advertisements and media reports will incorrectly allude to mail as the primary source of identity theft, perhaps in an effort to deflect public scrutiny from more vulnerable industries. The Postal Service is sensitive to, and often incensed by, these articles and advertisements that denigrate mail. If you don’t know how the Postal Service feels, check out the “Set the Record Straight” section of the www.usps.com website. (You can get to it under the “News” section.) 

Since January, the USPS has sent more than 30 responses to false, misleading or insensitive news reports. (Letters on the term “going postal” make up a portion of the responses.) The site also has an archive of “setting the record straight” responses from the previous two years. The letters are filled with counterpoints and useful facts about the value of mail. Here are a few snippets from the “setting the record straight” letters:

• To some it’s “junk mail” but to others it's a solicitation from a charity in need. It's also an offer on a favorable mortgage interest rate for a young couple buying their first home, or a bargain on an automobile to someone who needs one.
• The livelihood of more than a million Californians depends on the advertising mail industry. This number is not just the creative employees of an advertising agency but it also includes the printers, typesetters, truck drivers, warehouse workers, paper recyclers, office workers and yes, mail carriers and more who are connected to the development and delivery of advertising mail.
• More importantly, unlike the telemarketer interrupting your dinner, ad mail is not intrusive. It's delivered to a box at your home and you can look at it at your leisure—or not at all. Only you are in control of your mail. So I'd suggest you be patient, and enjoy your evening "mail moment." Who knows, you might find a bargain.
• Hackers. Stolen laptops. Lost backup tapes. Stolen computers. Dishonest insiders. Ms. Givens: where's the mail? And the number is staggering: 50,054,480. Yet you say mail theft is the most common form of ID theft? How does that square with this information?

Solid information that directly counters the negative spin put on a story about mail. But how can we as an industry be proactive, rather than reactive? How can industry and the Postal Service work together as allies with a shared interest in touting a reliable and effective medium? We need to consider coordinated strategies that get out in front of these negative stereotypes and position mail as a valuable segment of this country’s economy. Ignoring these damaging attacks on mail is not a solution.

There are opportunities here, and both Arvonio and Hurst expressed interest in working with industry to explore them. Hurst noted that the USPS has loads of data and statistics on the positive aspects of mail. Let’s put our heads together to find ways to rid the airwaves and newspapers of incorrect and misleading information about an important segment of our economy. Nine million employees are counting on us.