The U.S. Postal Service is gearing up for the spring start of a three year major market test of its experimental Mailing Online service for national small-to-medium direct marketers, nonprofit mailers and other types of business.
Postal officials hope to launch the three-year major market test some time in May. They are putting the finishing touches to a national ad campaign promoting the service which is expected to begin about a month before the actual start of the market test. In November, USPS officials asked the Postal Rate Commission to recommend the test be authorized by the postal service’s Board of Governors.
The PRC is expected to file its recommendation with the BOG between late February and mid-March so it can act on the proposal at their April meeting.
The USPS tested the service on a limited basis in five East coast cites, Boston, Hartford, Philadelphia, New York and Tampa, FL, between June 1997 and last October. During that period, according to periodic reports filed with the PRC, some 15,000 small-to-medium marketers used the service to electronically mail some 400,000 bills, documents and other materials to customers and prospective customers.
To use the service, mailers electronically send letter-size Standard A (advertising) Mail pieces, or documents, correspondence or news letters generally sent by first class mail, with their mailing lists to a USPS site on the Web.
The files are electronically transmitted to strategically located printers who, under contract with the USPS, print and mail the materials within hours of receiving them.
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