What would you do if you were told your business’s electrical power no longer would work reliably? The power might be on, or maybe not; the voltage might be steady, or it might fluctuate.
This wouldn’t leave you thrilled, and you’d probably do everything you could to prevent it. Then why haven’t direct marketers shown anywhere near the same level of concern over the imminent disruption of mail service that for sure will stem from the U.S. Postal Service’s inability to provide universal, affordable and reliable mail service given declining mail volume and revenue?
Don’t believe that can happen? Well, it already is, and postal officials are worried sick about it.
Not only has electronic communication begun to eat away at first class mail volume and revenue, but it’s also begun to gnaw at advertising and marketing mail.
The interest DMers have shown in developing marketing opportunities on the Web has astounded senior postal officials. Ad mail, they figured, would be most resistant to electronic diversion. Not so.
Finding an electronic venue for doing business, however, is not a cause for any DMer’s comfort. Despite the expansion of Internet-related bandwidth and the growth of home and business computer use, it still will take a long time before Internet-based communications take on the ubiquity of mail.
For now, mail remains the only universal messaging system. That should be enough to convince DMers that they have to preserve it.
All the more appalling, then, is the lack of interest direct marketers have demonstrated in postal legislative reform. Many in our industry have been no more concerned about the simmering postal crisis than they would be over the death of a flea. The only difference is that this flea – the USPS – is essential to their economic ecosystem. Without it, DM’s viability is being sustained on borrowed time.
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