How the US Postal Service and MRM delivered increased ROI

In recent years, some of the most striking business success stories haven’t been about a new product or idea so much as they’ve been about re-imagining something well-loved and making it exciting again.

With nearly 250 years of delivering mail to every household in the nation, the United States Postal Service (USPS) is often plagued with an antiquated perception. Historically, direct mail has been a major force in driving consumers to purchase, but in today’s marketplace, with an increased focus on digital to meet always-on consumer expectations, mail needed help.

We set out to take attendees of the country’s largest mail industry conference, National Postal Forum (NPF) on a journey from awareness to advocacy and transform them into mail repositioning evangelists. We had specific KPIs to increase:

• Mail revenue identified.

• Leads.

The strategy

USPS launched ‘Bright New Journey’ at the NPF, to inspire the industry with the latest digitally integrated innovations and technologies.

Our aim was to help shift mail’s narrative from a 20th-century channel to a 21st-century, digitally-driven one. That shift couldn’t happen without making the attendees at NPF evangelists for mail’s repositioning. We took our audience on their own journey at NPF, to:

• Create awareness and desire around the latest innovations and technologies.

• Spark interest to learn more.

• Transact and retain them as evangelists.

• Inspire loyalty and recommendations.

• Drive real change around mail’s new narrative.

Our strategy to communicate Mail’s New Journey was to take our audience on a journey of their own. It consisted of four stages—awareness, interest, activate, and advocate—and we developed content to drive them from one stage to the next.

The campaign

To set the stage, we created a series of videos for the keynote presentation. These videos broke down one customer’s (Penny’s) journey to purchase a new lamp, exploring each stage, from awareness to advocacy, and demonstrated how mail—when working in tandem with digital efforts—helped Penny see the light and act. Penny and her journey were spotlighted in the keynotes over multiple days—making these videos the tentpole message for the entire conference.

With mail’s Bright New Journey on their mind, attendees were encouraged to attend a TED event with thought-leaders. Introducing this event, USPS leadership dove deeper into how mail and mail technology can help optimize performance across the purchase journey. This presentation encouraged attendees to evolve their thinking about how data-driven mail can spark action, and encouraged them to seek more information at the USPS booth.

At the USPS booth, attendees could interact first-hand with Penny’s journey and learn about each of the stages in greater detail. Booth MCs and ambassadors were also provided with scripts and talking points to engage and educate visitors about how USPS could apply to their own business. Supporting collateral about USPS solutions that are designed to drive action along the journey was also available.

Finally, we developed a learning module for our audience to take after NPF. It was designed to help reinforce Mail’s New Journey and the technologies and innovations driving it, so attendees could affect real change in the industry by becoming evangelists.

The results

The campaign delivered. Our approach made an impact with our key audience, driving in 176 mail leads and $297M in identified revenue - a 190% increase in ROI YoY.

This campaign was a winner at The Drum B2B Awards 2019. If you think you can scoop the prize next year, register your interest in 2020's awards.