April 23, 2013
USPS is an important national infrastructure that can and should endure, says Google Chief Innovation Officer Vint Cerf.
February 14, 2013
A survey released today by the USPS found that most Americans support the new mail delivery schedule.
January 04, 2013
Hanging from a cliff, the 112th Congress ignored USPS boss Patrick Donahoe's pleas for postal reform. Now he's setting an agenda for the 113th.
December 01, 2012
In 2013 the postal service will continue promotional initiatives designed both to entice marketers to integrate mobile technologies into their direct mail pieces.
August 01, 2012
The United States Postal Service defaulted on a $5.5 billion payment to the United States Treasury August 1, which was intended to cover the healthcare benefits of the organization's future retirees.
March 19, 2012
UPS has reached an agreement to acquire Dutch-based international delivery services company TNT Express, said UPS director of global media services Norman Black. TNT Express's major shareholders have agreed on UPS's all-cash offer at $6.8 billion. UPS expects the deal to close during the third quarter of 2012.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) ended the first three months of its 2012 fiscal year with a net loss of $3.3 billion — and large losses are expected to continue until planned restructuring efforts have taken place, the agency said Feb. 9.
January 31, 2012
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is, for the second year, planning a summertime promotion for direct mailers that use two-dimensional barcodes, USPS VP of domestic products Gary Reblin told Direct Marketing News on Jan. 31.
In response to feedback from the mailing industry, businesses mailing automated or presort letters first-class can now mail letters weighing up to two ounces at the one-ounce postage rate, said U.S. Postal Service (USPS) spokesperson Patricia Licata on Jan. 26. The "2nd Ounce Free" initiative became effective this week.
January 20, 2012
The embattled U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is continuing its struggle to stay in the black, but the five-month moratorium on facilities closures may end more than a month before the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) releases an advisory opinion on its streamlining plans.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has been granted permission by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) to allow direct mailers to pay postage via credit rather than requiring prepayment, said PRC chairman Ruth Goldway on Jan. 6. The new rules went into effect Jan. 5.
January 01, 2012
The embattled U.S. Postal Service (USPS) faces a host of new challenges, several of which threaten to directly impact marketers. However, many who rely on direct mail say that in spite of the tumult, they'll wait and see how things pan out before altering marketing strategy.
December 14, 2011
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS), in response to a request made by multiple U.S. senators, agreed to a five-month moratorium on closures of post offices and mail processing facilities on Dec. 13.
December 05, 2011
As part of a previously announced $3 billion cost-savings initiative, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is moving forward with plans to change delivery standards for first-class mail, the organization said on Dec. 5. The cuts would eliminate next-day delivery for first-class mail and periodicals.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) seeks to raise shipping service rates by 4.6%, the company said in a Nov. 22 statement. Priority Mail prices will increase on average 3.1%, Express Mail prices will increase 3.3% and First-Class Package Service prices will increase 3.7%
A postal reform bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate on Sept. 23, seeking to help the ailing U.S. Postal Service (USPS) with the establishment of two new control boards. One would oversee a kind of receivership for the USPS if it defaults on any of its government payments and the other is intended to prevent politics from influencing plans to reduce the USPS processing infrastructure.
The US Postal Service continued its downward spiral on Aug. 5, with the agency reporting a net loss of $3.1 billion for the third quarter of its 2011 fiscal year. The number is a slight improvement compared with the same period in 2010, when the USPS posted a $3.5 billion net loss, but the agency said that "absent substantial legislative change" it will default on payments owed to the federal government.
May 17, 2011
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) introduced a bill May 17 that would allow the financially struggling US Postal Service to modernize its pension payments system, eliminate Saturday home delivery, and expand its services. The Postal Operations Sustainment and Transformation Act of 2011 would also give the USPS the ability to close post offices as it sees fit.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said Monday that he had to nudge his in-house and agency marketing team towards the ad campaign that the US Postal Service will use this fall to show off the effectiveness of mail as a marketing tool. "They said 'mail's not sexy,'" Donahoe told reporters at the National Postal Forum 2011 in San Diego on May 2.
The Postal Regulatory Commission said March 24 that the US Postal Service overestimated its potential savings and underestimated potential lost revenues in its proposal to move to five-day-per-week home delivery. The commission's five members issued varying opinions on the plan to cut Saturday delivery, which Congress is expected to debate this session.
Netflix needed some good news. It got it.
The US Postal Service saw a net loss of $642 million in May, bringing its fiscal-year-to-date total net loss to more than $2.9 billion, according to preliminary financial data filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission.
The US Postal Service's planned exigent price increase, recently proposed federal draft privacy legislation and a Colorado tax law are creating a "perfect storm" to hinder catalogers, said Paul Miller, VP and deputy director of the American Catalog Mailers Association, in his latest bulletin to members.
Catalog mailers and magazine publishers are bracing for sizable postage price increases in January 2011, when the US Postal Service expects to implement an "exigent" price increase on mailing services.
The US Postal Service's $1.6 billion net loss in the second quarter of its 2010 fiscal year was a year-over-year improvement of about $300 million. Despite beating agency forecasts for the quarter, the organization is on track to lose nearly $7 billion this fiscal year, which ends September 30.
Trade groups the Direct Marketing Association and the American Catalog Mailers Association pledged to work together on postal issues on March 11.
The US Postal Service reported a net loss of $297 million for the fiscal first quarter of 2010. The agency also saw revenue decline 3.9% for Q1 2010, which ran from October 1 to December 31, 2009.
One of the questions that President Barack Obama tackled yesterday in a YouTube town hall regarded a theoretical privatization of the US Postal Service. His response: privatization of public services is "a bad idea most of the time."
The Postal Regulatory Commission wants to hear from members of the public about the US Postal Service's financial future. The group will hold a public forum on February 10 in Washington, DC, on the organization's business plan for the future.
The current system of funding the US Postal Service's Civil Service Retirement System pension responsibility has resulted in the agency overpaying $75 billion from 1972 to 2009 to its pension fund, according to the Postal Service's Office of Inspector General.
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What's in our mailbox this month: fitness postcards from Retro Fitness, American Woman Fitness Centers, Union's United Taekwondo Academy, and Bally Total Fitness. (We're totally pumped.)
Social data can improve a brand's bottom line and customer relationships. Just ask brands Infiniti and Diamond Nexus.
Here are three must-have data sets that every marketer should include in his or her email strategy.
