Imagine this. A day or two before you receive a marketing message in your mailbox, you receive a preview of what’s arriving on your smart phone via a special app. Or perhaps you’ll have an email inbox that lists mail and packages that are on their way.
This is a reality that’s a lot closer than we might think, according USPS Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. In his keynote address at the National Postal Forum held in March in San Francisco, Donahoe introduced MyPost. Currently being tested among a few hundred postal employees, MyPost uses Intelligent Mail barcodes, or IMb, to determine the location of various pieces of mail.
“MyPost could put direct mail engagement through the roof,” said Jim O’Brien, co-owner of Tampa-based ThinkShapes Mail. “You could send previews and teasers for days up to the time of delivery and build excitement.”
While no definitive time-to-market has been set, MyPost now lives in prototype form. If demand is big enough to support it, the USPS’s Secure Digital Solutions Department will make it a reality. Developers are now working to make sure the data that comes into each MyPost is appropriate for the user. That way someone’s teenage son doesn’t get notifications that Mom’s cookbook is on its way, and conversely, Mom doesn’t receive news that his recent hip-hop tickets have been shipped.
For Randy Miskanic, VP of the USPS Secure Digital Solutions Department, such projects are evolutionary. “We’re not building something and assuming customers will come,” he says. “The key for us is developing solutions that enhance the physical mail experience.”
