USPS need to think small
Print Official USPS postage using your PC at home. Free trial worth $80 available.
In much of its past advertising and marketing, the U.S. Postal Service has done what many businesses do: It concentrated its time, energy and resources on harvesting what can be termed the ripest business fruit hanging from the lowest tree branches in the postal orchard. The USPS calls them "national accounts," customers that ostensibly get a postal representative of their own to handle day-to-day postal business concerns.
There are, however, lots of other trees in the postal orchard that offer a variety of fruits. They may be a little harder to pick, but the fruit is just as tasty. In this category I would place what can be termed "small business accounts." Within this group are the thousands of more diminutive businesses that make up the lion's share of American enterprise. Is this group really worth going after? The postal service can get itself a quick and accurate answer by taking a look at its own customer profile.
For instance, go to any postal customer council (PCC) in the United States. If the USPS were to find out from which constituency most PCC members came from, they'd find the majority are mail service-related providers rather than end users. These mail service providers, quite obviously, must be finding work somewhere that helps keep their own enterprises afloat. For sure, the source of a good deal of this work is from that small business sector. And where do you think those PCC service providers have been hanging their hats these days? Why, in the local chambers of commerce - the very places where the USPS could find prospective postage payers.
But gaining entry to this market requires a bit of effort, and many of the folks who have held the USPS' small business portfolio over the years have been loath to do anything resembling hard work. Instead, they've seemed more interested in just sitting back and waiting for small businesses to come to them. After all, they're the postal service.
It's time to get real. There are thousands of small businesses that never learned the value of mail as a medium for business development. This is a market that's more than ripe for the taking. Others have figured this out. In fact, tapping into the small business market is very much a part of FedEx's and UPS' strategic plans. The only sleepwalker here appears to be the postal service.
Print Official USPS postage using your PC at home. Free trial worth $80 available.
GENE A. DEL POLITO is president of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) in Arlington, VA.
COPYRIGHT 2004 PRIMEDIA Business Magazines & Media Inc. All rights reserved.COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
In much of its past advertising and marketing, the U.S. Postal Service has done what many businesses do: It concentrated its time, energy and resources on harvesting what can be termed the ripest business fruit hanging from the lowest tree branches in the postal orchard. The USPS calls them "national accounts," customers that ostensibly get a postal representative of their own to handle day-to-day postal business concerns.
There are, however, lots of other trees in the postal orchard that offer a variety of fruits. They may be a little harder to pick, but the fruit is just as tasty. In this category I would place what can be termed "small business accounts." Within this group are the thousands of more diminutive businesses that make up the lion's share of American enterprise. Is this group really worth going after? The postal service can get itself a quick and accurate answer by taking a look at its own customer profile.
For instance, go to any postal customer council (PCC) in the United States. If the USPS were to find out from which constituency most PCC members came from, they'd find the majority are mail service-related providers rather than end users. These mail service providers, quite obviously, must be finding work somewhere that helps keep their own enterprises afloat. For sure, the source of a good deal of this work is from that small business sector. And where do you think those PCC service providers have been hanging their hats these days? Why, in the local chambers of commerce - the very places where the USPS could find prospective postage payers.
But gaining entry to this market requires a bit of effort, and many of the folks who have held the USPS' small business portfolio over the years have been loath to do anything resembling hard work. Instead, they've seemed more interested in just sitting back and waiting for small businesses to come to them. After all, they're the postal service.
It's time to get real. There are thousands of small businesses that never learned the value of mail as a medium for business development. This is a market that's more than ripe for the taking. Others have figured this out. In fact, tapping into the small business market is very much a part of FedEx's and UPS' strategic plans. The only sleepwalker here appears to be the postal service.
Print Official USPS postage using your PC at home. Free trial worth $80 available.
GENE A. DEL POLITO is president of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) in Arlington, VA.
COPYRIGHT 2004 PRIMEDIA Business Magazines & Media Inc. All rights reserved.COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
posted by yw6ad at 12:15 AM
0 comments
