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1. Postal News. The Printing Industries of America (PIA) believes that because retirement obligations for postal employees and retirees are now almost fully funded through the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), the USPS will save enough money to experience postal rate stability for approximately the next four years. PIA's Ben Cooper believes this may "give the Postal Service and the U. S. printing industry the breathing room necessary to promote and grow direct mail and other printed products that travel through the mail." Further reductions in postal costs may come from two R&D programs that could eliminate up to $2.8 billion annually in delivery costs through new sorting technologies. 2. Fax Vs. Email. In the past, we’ve discussed our decision to continue this newsletter via fax rather than making a transition to email. It’s something we’ve debated with our marketing consultants. Interestingly, I had a lengthy email discussion with Jan Sheeley at GA Design. She’s an advocate of email and made some interesting points which I thought I’d share: "Many people overlook the objective of a given marketing piece and the audience it is directed at. Your industry is a difficult mix. For the most part, they are late adopters, therefore fax communication is ideal, but I do feel email will eventually be the mode of choice. Time is a huge problem for all of us. I do understand when you say you have only a certain amount of time to focus on any marketing piece. However, we all look at what is of interest to us, and when I feel the information in a particular newsletter will be valuable, and offer at least one tip, I open it up and take a glance. Email is so cost effective, but again it’s how you use it and why. It is part of the marketing mix and should not have to stand alone." Jan closed with an example of email’s value as a reminder for seminar participants. She’s noticed attendance has more than doubled when last-minute reminders are sent. I was grateful for Jan’s feedback and made certain to send her a Starbucks gift certificate to show my appreciation. So, the question is raised again. Would you prefer to keep receiving these newsletters via fax, or is it time to shift to email? Write in and let me know. I’ll share your responses. 3. Interesting Item. Anyone visiting the Mountain View, California headquarters of Google, Inc. might find it fascinating to observe the lobby ticker that runs a constant display of searches being entered into the Google search engine. The company’s Live Query offers a continuous scrolling of requests in all 86 languages which the company tracks. Google receives more than 150 million queries per day from more than 100 countries, a wealth of information that paints an interesting portrait of the online mind. According to Google’s Craig Silverstein, sex is on the minds of many web surfers, as are celebrities, current events, new products, and computer downloads. It has been suggested that this can be an excellent instant indicator of current trends. When you enter "print" and get 55 million hits, I wonder what trend that indicates?
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