by Chantal Tode at GraphicArtsOnline.com

Advertising mail was a focus during the opening session this morning at the National Postal Forum in Nashville, TN. This included a number of new initiatives intended to help mailers cut postage costs and innovate.

The overall mail mix is shifting, forcing the USPS to look for new ways to drive growth, explained John E. Potter, postmaster general and CEO at the US Postal Service.

First-class mail has traditionally been the largest segment of mail by volume. However, first-class mail volume dropped 15% between 2006 and 2009 and is expected to decline another 37% by 2020 as invoicing and payments continue to move online. While standard mail also dropped between 2006 and 2009, the volume decline wasn’t as steep and it is expected to stay flat for the foreseeable future. The Postal Service is predicting that by 2020, it will process 53 billion pieces of first-class mail compared with 86 billion pieces of standard mail.

With this in mind, the Postal Service wants to focus on where its strengths lay, Potter said.

The Intelligent Mail barcode (IMB) is one area where the Postal Service believes it can continue to drive growth. Hallmark, for example, is offering a line of postage paid greeting cards with an IMB, giving customers a way to buy cards with pre-paid first class postage. For Hallmark, the company can track the cards in the mail stream, even though they are  coming from many points of origin and to many destinations.

This is the first application of the IMB to a new product but the Postal Service thinks it can have as many different applications as users want and is encouraging customers to suggest ideas for other applications, said USPS president of mailing and shipping services Robert Bernstock.

Pricing incentives for mailers is another way the Postal Service wants to continue to drive growth and it has some new strategies for 2011 in mind.

Next year, the Postal Service will open certain incentives to high-density mailings and run some incentives for a full calendar year instead of just a few months.

In addition, the Postal Service is looking at creating a weight-based incentive for catalogers. Currently, catalogers pay more as the weight of a mailing increases. One possible incentive the Postal Service is considering would be allowing catalogers to ship 1 or 2 ounces of incremental weight for free or at a discounted rate once a certain threshold has been hit. “Catalogs have been one of our greatest challenges,” said Bernstock.

The Postal Service is also developing an incentive that would allow eligible mailers to include a business-reply envelope for free inside a 1-oz. first-class mailer. The Postal Service would pick up the cost of the addition weight, giving mailers more weight to use for advertising purposes.