What does the approaching increase in postage from the USPS mean for marketers? Well, according to this article it means we should be pushing our clients more strongly into the online world. And I agree with that but just have a few comments about his article:
1 - Driving more business away from postal mailings is just going to cause the postage rate to increase even more. So unless you can completely eradicate all mailings, then you're not totally solving the problem by moving online.
2 - I believe in using an integrated marketing approach with clients. Sometimes that includes good old-fashioned snail mailings. I'm a big fan of online marketing, but if the situation calls for a direct mail piece, I don't think a 2 cent increase is going to be the deciding factor of whether or not to do it.
3 - On a more personal note, as an American living abroad I would like to point out that Americans have it pretty good as far as postage rates go. For example, the cheapest you can mail a letter within France for is $0.74. So $0.41 ain't lookin' too bad anymore (especially since the US is a lot larger than France). I'm just saying, there are bigger fish to fry.
I'm glad more marketers are encouraging and supporting email use, but you just have to remember to look at the whole picture.
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