Growing Together was the theme of this year’s National Postal Forum held in Anaheim, California, May 17-20, 2015. As the Postmaster General, Megan Brennan, stated in her welcome letter to the attendees, “As our industry adapts to an increasingly digital world, growth strategies depend on sharing and rapidly adopting best practices, especially with regard to data and technology use. That’s why the Forum plays such an important role in spurring growth in our industry.”

With about 4,000 people attending, this event is the nation’s largest mailing and shipping educational conference. It offers an excellent way to stay in sync with the many advances and trends affecting the mailing and shipping industry. Its extensive workshops, keynote presentations, networking events, and exhibits are designed to lead industry professionals to the right tools, services, information, and business alliances that can increase their return on investment through operations efficiency, cutting edge technology, leadership training, and proper mail piece design. 

More than 140 educational workshops covered four primary tracks:

• Mail Operations - ways to make a mail operation more efficient and tactics to streamline daily output
• Management and Professional Development - leadership skills and techniques needed in today's working environment
• Marketing - how to take advantage of the convergence of innovative marketing strategies and technologies that can enhance direct mail response rates
• Specialized - experts in various market segments - like higher education, government, non-profit, publishing - addressing unique challenges in mailing and shipping

Yours truly was a speaker for one of the Marketing workshops. The title of my presentation was “Addressing the Market Shift for Modernized Customer Communication”.  My overall message was using data to create consistent, targeted messaging to customers across all channels of communication and throughout the customer lifecycle – from acquisition to service to retention. Whatever is being sent to a customer – a billing statement, direct mail piece, an email, or an SMS message – the communication needs to be integrated and targeted to enable a relevant and meaningful customer experience. 

I believe the best starting point to do this is print. Print is an excellent on-ramp to an interactive, multi-channel communication experience for customers. And print response rates are enhanced when used in conjunction with online digital media. Adding Augmented Reality, QR codes, and PURLs to printed communications can create a rich, personalized, interactive experience that increases the likelihood of an on-going dialogue with the customer. 

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is even offering promotional postage discounts for using some of these new strategies in mailing campaigns:

• USPS Color Transactional Promo – 2% postage discount for using dynamic color print messages on bills and statements
• USPS Emerging and Advanced Technology Promotion – 2% postal discount for incorporating at least one form of emerging or advanced technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) or Near Field Communications (NFC)
• USPS Mail Drives Mobile Engagement Promotion – 2% postage discount for incorporating a mobile barcode or print/mobile technology that leads to a mobile-optimized shopping website

Three training programs with official certification from the USPS were also available at this event:

• Executive Mail Center Manager Course – Normally taught in Oklahoma, this course was brought to the Forum for the first time this year. It teaches the skills needed to manage a mail center more effectively, boost productivity, and cut costs.
• Mailpiece Design Professional - This course is centered around mail design compatibility and optimizing postage costs through automation. 
• USPS Professional Training Certificate – These certificates are awarded based on the number of workshops attended during the Forum. A minimum of 8 workshops are required for a Bronze Certificate going up to a Platinum Certificate with certified attendance at 17 workshops.

As you can tell, this is THE event to attend for professionals in the mailing and shipping industry and the only industry event where attendees can hear directly from USPS top leadership. The conference is held every year in the Spring. Next year’s Forum will be in Nashville, Tennessee, March 20-23, 2016. To receive updates about the next National Postal Forum and other industry-related events, you can create a profile at the National Postal Forum website, email the organization at info@npf.org, or contact them with questions at 703-218-5015.  

See you in Nashville!

Sheri Jammallo is  the Corporate Enterprise Segment Marketing Manager for Canon, with a keen focus on marketing strategies across North America in  the Transactional, Direct Mail, Data-Center and  In-Plant print production  space.  She brings with her a wealth of industry knowledge that enables her to lead field relevant go-to-market production print strategies and programs for Canona that bring value-add to the production print customer and print industry. Previous to Canon, Sheri spent many years in several roles at Xerox Corporation.  She was a Production Print Solutions Manager in the Northeast responsible for high end production print technology and services portfolio, leading a business development team of Production Print Sales Specialists within the In-Plant and Commercial print space.  Prior to that role, she was a Production Print Business Development Executive as the lead business development strategist to grow market share in In-Plants and Data-Centers within the New England region. Sheri began her career in the Commercial print space at Standard Register.  She spent several years with Standard Register in business development and leadership roles, with a strong focus on go-to-market growth strategies of a vast portfolio of commercial print applications to the Financial, Insurance, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Public Sector, Educational and Retail vertical markets.