We go so you don’t have to. Trust us, this is well worth it. That said, the January MTAC meeting at the Pink Palace in snowy Washington, DC, was chock full of important news. This is worth reading to the end.
The meeting opened with a ninety-minute presentation from the Postmaster General which was largely devoted to reminding folks of the “Catastrophic Failure” he took over (literally illustrated by an image of the collapse of Roman temples), and today’s “Best in Commerce and Public Service”, illustrated by people celebrating on a mountain top they have just ascended, with the sun rising behind them. We assume it is rising. There were also geese and bats included in the presentation.
After the PMG’s presentation, specifics were shared with attendees. In no particular order:
Growth Incentives
The growth incentives introduced for 2024 have received a good reception. Of those who applied, 60% of the total were applying for the Marketing Mail Incentive, and 40% for the First-Class Mail incentive. 550 registrations are in process, 44% of them finalized, with most of the balance awaiting agreement on base volume between mail owners and the Postal Service. Altogether it represents 22.4 billion pieces of mail.
Importantly, mail owners will have the ability to issue credits to any permit they choose, including their mail service provider’s. There are still a number of process issues to be ironed out.
2025 Promotions
There was a lot of news on promotions proposed for next year:
- The Emerging Technology Promotion will be renamed the “Integrated Technology” promotion.
- The Mobile Shopping component of the Integrated Technology promotion will be eliminated.
- Mailers will be able to pick which six-month period they want to run their Integrated Technology mailings.
- The Tactile Promotion was the second most popular promotion, after Informed Delivery.
- There will be a new promotion: Sustainability. This will primarily be a discount for using recycled paper.
- Another new promotion, for Marketing Mail only, will be the Continuous Contact promotion for mailers that mail multiple times to the same address with offers that build upon one another. Many, many details remain to be resolved.
- BIG DEAL ALERT: Promotion stacking will be allowed. Mailers will be able to participate in more than one promotion at a time…sort of. They can stack other promotions on the Informed Delivery promotion, OR the Sustainability promotion, but cannot stack Informed Delivery and Sustainability together. Many, many details remain to be resolved.
Please note that all these promotion changes are proposals, and still need approval by the PRC.
Rate Increases Forever and Ever!
The Postal Service was kind enough to present expected rate increases through 2027:
- July 2024: 7.7%
- January 2025: 1.2%
- July 2025: 7.3%
- January 2026: 1.0%
- July 2026: 4.5%
- January 2027: 1.2%
- July 2027: 4.5%
For those keeping score at home, this represents, with compounding, a 30.5% increase in rates in three years, while, according to USPS, the CPI rises 8.5%. So, postage will be increasing at 3.6 times the rate of inflation. Ouch!