Wednesday, May 23, 2012

HOW YOU SAY IT


Source:  Kelly Mallozzi: Success.In.Print.

If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE a good cliché. And today’s observation centers on this one...

“It’s not WHAT you say, it’s HOW you say it.

For Mother’s Day, we packed up the twins and the car and headed to Detroit to visit my Mom and the rest of my family. We were staying in a Hampton Inn about five minutes from my sister’s house. I booked the room via Hotels.com and requested that two cribs be put in the room.

The day before we were to arrive, I confirmed the reservation because I was concerned that the request was not going to be filled. Sure enough, the desk clerk informed me that the request had not come through, but that he would make a note on the reservation and that it would be no problem.

Guess what happened, folks? Wait for it…No cribs in the room. So I called the front desk as my husband was lugging in all the gear, and said, “Hi. I’m going to need a couple of cribs in room 308.”

“What’s a couple?”

“Ummm...TWO.”

“Two? I don’t even know if we HAVE two. I’ll have to check. Give me a few minutes.”

There was a knock at the door five minutes later. An unassembled port-a-crib comes rolling in.

“Now let me see if I can go find another one,” remarks the hotel employee.

Five minutes later, unassembled port-a-crib number two gets dragged in.

We all have a choice to make with each interaction with a customer or any member of the public, folks. And I would submit that this fella’s effort was truly abysmal from the word go.

If you think about it, we are all kind of in the hospitality industry, so the more we make our clients and prospects feel at home, the more loyal they will be—and the more inclined they may be to spread the word as a result. So please remember this story the next time your client makes a request, needs a little something extra, or even catches you off guard. Take your time, and ask yourself, “If I was making this request, how would I want to be treated?” Then act accordingly.

As a follow up (and the last nail on the coffin), I asked if the hotel had DVD players available for the rooms, because the TV, while lovely, did not miraculously have “Little Einsteins” on a loop, which is what I need when two two-year-olds have missed their nap for two days straight.

His answer? “No.”

Really? You couldn’t have put in a little more effort, made alternative suggestions, or asked a few clarification questions to determine WHY I needed a DVD player and made at least a modest effort to make me happy?

Maybe he was having a bad day. We all have them. But people, please remember, you are always judged on each and every interaction with ALL of the public. This goes for vendors, door-to-door salesmen, and your janitor. So remember the golden rule and always treat people the way you would like to be treated. Call it business karma. You’ll be glad when the good stuff comes back around.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Postal Service’s $3.2 Billion Q2 Loss Underscores Need for Legislative Changes

The Postal Service ended its second quarter (Jan. 1 – March 31, 2012) with a net loss of $3.2 billion, compared to a net loss of $2.2 billion for the same period last year. Despite ongoing management actions that have grown and improved efficiency, the losses will continue until key provisions of the Postal Service five-year business plan move forward.
 
Without the impact of the non-controllable costs related to mandated retiree health benefit pre-funding payments and accounting for non-cash adjustments for worker’s compensation, the non-GAAP loss for the quarter was $486 million compared to $469 million for the same period last year.
 
The losses are due primarily to legislative mandates such as the unique mandated pre-funding of retiree health benefits, and prohibiting management from making the needed operational and human resource changes required to address these issues under current laws and contracts. Also contributing to the continuing losses are the declining First-Class Mail and Standard Mail volumes. The Congress must act soon to pass legislation providing the Postal Service with the flexibility and speed needed to make the changes necessary for long-term financial viability.
 
Details of the second quarter results compared to the same period last year include:
  • Total mail volume of 39.5 billion pieces, a decrease of 1.7 billion pieces, or 4.1 percent;
  • Operating revenue of $16.2 billion, a decrease of $7 million or less than 1 percent;
  • Operating expenses of $19.4 billion, an increase of $938 million, or 5.1 percent, driven by expenses related to the legally mandated prefunding of retiree health benefits payments scheduled to be paid in the final quarter of this year;
  • Transportation expenses of $1.7 billion, an increase of $126 million, or 8.1 percent, driven by rising fuel costs. Other expenses of $2.3 billion, a decrease of $133 million, or 5.6 percent.
These results bring the year to date net loss to $6.5 billion, compared to $2.6 billion for the same period last year.

“We are aggressively pursuing new revenue streams and reducing costs in areas within our control,” said Postmaster General and CEO Patrick Donahoe. “These actions are not enough to return the Postal Service to profitability. The legislative changes outlined in our business plan will enable us to reduce annual operational expenses by approximately $22.5 billion by 2016 and set the stage for long-term financial stability so we can continue to provide secure, reliable and economical universal service to the American public.”

Postal Service actions to increase revenue continue to pay off in the shipping and package service lines of its business. Revenues related to shipping and packages totaled $3.5 billion, an increase of over 13 percent compared to the same period in the previous year, as volume increased 74 million pieces, or 9 percent.

Despite the growth and success of Postal Service shipping and package products, it was not enough to overcome the decline in Mailing Services. Revenue from mailing services, excluding market dominant packages, totaled $12.8 billion, a 3 percent decrease compared to the same period last year, on a volume decrease of 1.8 billion pieces. The revenue reduction reflects the continued decline in First-Class Mail as consumers continue to turn to electronic alternatives.

The second quarter also saw a decline in Standard Mail, attributable to a decline in direct mail advertising spending across a number of sectors as sales prospecting slowed in certain sectors, advertisers used more selective targeting methods and competition from electronic advertising media increased.

“We expect to retain the ability to continue high quality delivery services to all of our customers, and continue to take all actions necessary to make sure that our employees and suppliers will be paid. Without legislative change, we will not have sufficient cash to pay the $11.1 billion required for retiree health prefunding and may be forced to default on other payments due to the Federal Government,” said Chief Financial Officer Joe Corbett.

The Postal Service’s comprehensive business plan addresses these financial challenges through revenue growth programs, process improvements, eliminating excess mail processing capacity and other actions to address underutilized assets as well as improve operational efficiencies. It includes targeted legislative changes such as giving the Postal Service the ability to transition to a five-day delivery schedule, restructuring the retiree health pre-funding, enabling the Postal Service to sponsor its own health care program that is independent of other federal health insurance programs, and returning nearly $11 billion to the Postal Service from its prior overfunding of the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS) which would provide vital cash flow to ease the current liquidity crisis.

 
 
Source: USPS.

  

 

Thursday, May 3, 2012


Thoughts on Optimizing Online Display Ads
 
To understand online advertising, you must understand women’s haircuts. To wit, have you ever heard this line: “How do you like my new haircut?”

Gentlemen, you’ve probably been in this same boat before (and ladies on the other end of it). Your wife gets a new haircut. You don’t notice. Consequences ensue.

But as a man, I can attest that we only notice huge changes in things that vastly interest us. She had hair before. She has it now. What’s the difference?

However, if the wide receiver you’re starting on your fantasy team has even the slightest limp, you’ll instantly notice. Because you’re just that interested.

And I have news for you – your online advertising is not something that your audience is hugely interested in.  Visitors view Web pages as content in the middle with noise all around it. That noise is banner ads.

So, how do you stick out among that noise and grab attention? Do you always want to?

When you want banner blindness
Sometimes, perhaps counter-intuitively, you want banner blindness. Like a zebra, you’d prefer to get lost in the herd.  If you’re paying for clicks, you don’t necessarily want to draw attention to your ad.  In other words, you don’t want curiosity clicks because you have an interesting ad. You want people that were so motivated, they hunted through the pack, found your specific ad, and just need to know more.

Another example is when you have complementary information that you want people to be able to find if they’re really looking for it, but you don’t want to distract from the main message.

Banners?  Where we’re going, we don’t need banners.
Of course, the future of marketing is all about inbound marketing, right? Sometimes, as we often learn in our experimentation, you don’t want to optimize the marketing tactic, you want to try an entirely new approach.

Sometimes the most effective banner may be no banner at all.   Write a blog post, perform a direct marketing campaign, or distribute a targeted email campaign.  Take the time to test and find out what is effective for your intended audience and manage the response return.
Contributor Source:  MECLABS, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Against the Grain

By: Justin LeFebvre

Welcome to my everything-is-backward, “through-the-looking-glass,” what-are-we-coming-to, bizarro blog this week. Ever since the Senate passed the postal reform bill that delays elimination of Saturday delivery by two years and slows the shutdown of mail processing facilities, it seems like everything is the exact opposite of what I would think.

First, the USPS—that bureaucratic, drag-your-feet, labor-first, pseudo-governmental entity—came out with a statement strongly opposed to the bill as was passed. Its board of governors stressed the need to return to financial viability, objecting to the slowing down of facility shutdowns and movement to five-day delivery.

I spoke with multiple postal representatives who consistently called for the removal of the handcuffs that are preventing the Postal Service from taking these next steps and impairing its ability to operate as a private enterprise would. The representatives I spoke with couldn’t have been more clear about their commitment to returning the enterprise to its former vitality– if only we’d (read: our elected representatives) let it.

Next, I spoke with representatives from some of the print and direct marketing groups that have come out in support of the legislation. These are the groups that many of us, as printers, support with our membership fees. The mood of this group was much more bullish on the bill.

The people I spoke with were excited that a bill had passed. They saw it as better than a pragmatic compromise; it was described as a good bill that does some cutting now and forces the House to act on the topic.

So in this bizarro world, the entity that some think of as a slow-moving bureaucracy is advocating for market-driven reform and pushing for the ability to be nimbler, more responsive and responsible. And the private-sector trade groups that one would expect to be backing changes that clearly will benefit the most constituents over the long run, are settling for legislation that only postpones the day or reckoning, while ignoring the fundamental issues that bedevil the USPS.

Everything IS backward in this drama. Trouble is, it’s not fiction. It’s the real world, and it will affect OUR world. Mightily.

As for the chances of passage of a House bill and reconciliation before May 15…prognosis: “Negative.” However, many believe there is a better than 50-percent probability of something passing by the end of the lame-duck session after the election.

Hence, come May 15, the USPS will begin to make some of the changes it is allowed to make in the absence of definitive legislation. Hopefully, this postpones its run-in with the $15 billion credit limit until later next year.

Of course, this begs the question of what happens when it hits that limit? The truth of the matter is that long-term solvency for the USPS does not depend on cutting underused office locations. And five-day delivery, while pragmatic and appropriate, isn’t the panacea that some people seem to think it is. Those are well-conceived, but insufficient, responses that belie a much larger issue—much of the postal service’s fiscal crisis comes from a provision in the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act that requires the USPS to prefund its Retiree Health Benefits Fund at the rate of approximately $5.6 billion a year. In today’s postal market, the service just can’t make those kinds of payments without running up huge deficits.

Unfortunately in the United States, we’ve also dealt with myriad crisis within the past few years and we have some data points for reference. Creative destruction has been met with a wide-range of solutions, but in almost every case, it has involved a new authority, massive restructuring and, oftentimes, the imposition of artificial, non-market “props” that have forsaken long-term solutions in favor of short-term, politically palatable expediency. If Postal Service’s day of reckoning is postponed, and this turns into a far greater crisis, it WILL mean dramatic postage increases.

In the crisis case of dramatic postage increases, the movement along the demand curve will be momentous. Some say catastrophic, some say the death of our industry.

All the opinions and prescriptions offered are well meaning, and all groups identify and understand the existential threat posed by this crisis. In our arena, the associations believe they have our interest in mind, but they have a different calculation on the medium-term predicament that will ensue.

As for the national dialogue, Senators are fighting to keep jobs in their states and are listening to some of the underserved members of their community. These groups have a real need for the Postal Service, as many of them live in rural communities that lack high-speed Internet access today. And sure, the USPS has a genuine mandate to serve the public interest.

Unfortunately, the law of unintended consequences comes into play for this group. For if we push back the dramatic changes necessary for long-term financial viability of the USPS, a worse crisis will come into play just a couple of years from now. And the people we’re ostensibly trying to protect will be worse off than ever. Not only will those people not receive the same mail service in a few years, what will be left of the $1.1 trillion direct marketing industry, along with its 8.4 million jobs?

As a direct mail printer, the viability of our industry relies upon the distribution mechanism that delivers 99 percent of our product—the USPS. The Postal Service has a plan of attack, and it must be allowed to take the dramatic steps needed to ensure its long-term viability. It is a $63 billion business. Yes, demand for its service is real. We cannot let the unintended consequences of local politics destroy our industry.

We must push for the USPS to fully implement its plan without any watered down legislation. If we—as a nation and as an industry—want the USPS to maintain itself as a self-sustaining enterprise in the face of declining demand for its most lucrative monopoly—first-class mail—it must shed personnel, streamline infrastructure, cut outmoded services and create new products and services that respond to an increasingly connected and, yes, digital world.

I would not like to be in the shoes of the Postmaster General, for no matter what track he takes, he faces an uphill political battle. Let’s hope, like Kramer, he can “TCB.” What’s that? You know, taking care of business. Our businesses are riding on it.