I don’t often get excited about postal products…OK, I always get excited about new USPS products, but the plans for Informed Delivery are just plain exciting! Here are a few highlights announced by USPS:
- Business to business Informed Delivery is planned to roll out in June. Expect a slow ramp-up like we saw with B-to-C Informed Delivery, as only USPS Connect Local customers will be able to sign up to receive incoming mail notifications, and no one actually knows what USPS Connect Local is. Initially, only small businesses will be eligible. If you want to see your incoming donation BREs, don’t count on it (SnailWorks does have a solution for that) but if you’re a small business and want to see if a customer’s check is in the mail it could be great.
- A lot of tools for making creating campaigns easier are being introduced:
- New API’s will allow the automation of creating jobs, so service providers like SnailWorks will be able to accommodate more complex campaigns more affordably.
- Informed Images and Informed Coupons provide ready-to-go images for some campaigns and coupon functionality that allows customers to save a coupon to their digital wallet.
- Consumers will be able to share Informed Delivery offers via email, SMS, Twitter, or Facebook. Mailers will have the ability to opt out of sharing if they don’t want offers shared.
- Package campaigns will allow unique Informed Delivery ads for each recipient – and that functionality is expected to be added to letters and flats, although that may be a ways off.
- OUR FAVORITE: Informed Delivery Mobile will be a native app on both Apple IOS and Android. With the app, consumers will be able to get push notifications when their Informed Delivery digest is ready, and when their mail is in their mailbox, along with a lot of great package functionality. This should make ID much more popular among consumers – and there are already more than 54 Million subscribers.
So, yeah, I am excited! You should be, too. Informed Delivery is poised to really change the face of direct mail.
Today, nearly three homes in ten are subscribers to Informed Delivery. Last year USPS delivered more than 38 Billion additional ad impressions through ID. This has really become a marketing channel of its own. Count on SnailWorks to help you leverage these exciting new features with your customers!