The United States Postal Service (USPS) is launching an interesting service based around mobile barcodes, where it is effectively bribing people into putting them onto their mail by offering discounts.
What’s the story?
Just so we’re clear on the running order here: the USPS is offering people who send mail a discount on the price of sending, if they put a QR Code on the inside or outside of their physical mail. Anyone who does so gets a 3% discount on the price of sending – which is a pretty small discount if you’re a consumer, but could be a pretty substantial saving for companies that send a lot of mail (like direct mail marketers, for example).
The QR Codes will be provided by the USPS, and will link Android, Blackberry and iPhone users through to promotional campaigns and offers for the postal service itself. The Mobile Barcode Promotion will run during July and August this year.
Interestingly, USPS expects to lose close to $5 on this deal – but the overall goal isn’tprofit, but rather to highlight how barcodes can be combined with physical mail. Tom Foti, USPS manager for Marketing Mail, said “this promotion is another step in our long-term strategy to ensure mail remains relevant as a key element in the overall advertising mix for an increasingly interactive marketplace. By creating a promotion for placing mobile barcodes on mailpieces, we’re providing marketers with a compelling way to reach an internet-savvy customer base.”
Source: http://postandparcel.info/39254/news/usps-approved-to-run-smartphone-linked-direct-mail-promotion/
What we think?
This is an interesting idea, but I remain doubtful that it will achieve much. Considering how much money could potentially be saved by putting these codes on an envelope, I predict that a lot of mass-mailers will be slapping them on there during July and August. However, I’m not sure how the USPS intends to get these codes out to consumers to use. Will the envelopes be sold with the codes already printed on? Are they meant to print them out and stick them on themselves. Either way, I imagine that the people who use this service the most will be marketing companies, and people will probably not notice that their junk mail suddenly has a lot of barcodes on it.
My understanding is that the USPS won’t be the one necessarily issuing the barcode, although they certainly could, and it might make great sense for them to do so.
The 3% discount is probably the most attractive part of this promotion–for right now. I think it’s a great opportunity for direct mailers to give mobile barcodes a try and measure the interaction with the mailpieces and determine if the addition of the barcode yields any lift in sales volume or lowers CPA.
I’d be running some A/B testing during this time, testing barcodes on the OE, on the reply device(s) and would also try some additional inserts–buckslips or flyers. I’d track the codes to check the interaction rate and see what vehicle drives the most print-to-web conversion and then would also look closely at average order size, CPA and mailing efficiency. The usual Direct Response testing things.
I think mobile barcodes could help stem the tide of loss of volume in Standard Mail, especially if they show improvement in mailer results. I don’t think it’s a slam-dunk, however, which is why careful testing is key. I did extensive testing using 1D (UPC) barcodes on response devices back in ’93 – ’95 to improve order form processing time and to lower processing costs and found–maddeningly–that 1D codes statistically significantly lowered response and even LTV.
I only wish there was more time for mailers to develop really intelligent test plans. A lot of July/August mail is going to be done already, and we might just get mailers just spraying on barcodes for the discount–which would be a shame and a loss of real opportunity to test the power of mobile barcodes on paper mail.
Sounds pretty risky if they are looking close to losing $5 !
The failure in the barcode space are those who are promoting it: Printers. Sorry, but that’s just the way it looks from the outside.
Save the Client or themselves 3% but forget that the only value a barcode delivers is if the Client spends far more money on the mobile offering itself. I’ve seen printers get all excited about this USPO offering and them say how a mobile web page can be done for $10 (which is true, if it’s pretty basic).
The downfall of QR and Barcodes is that the interactive creative teams aren’t assembling interesting campaigns. Unfortunately, Printers are managing the Creative and user’s are already bypassing QR codes since they rarely lead to anything interesting.