Postal Customer Councils in West Michigan and Mid-Michigan will test drive two of the Postal Service’s first cross-channel seminars in the nation. These seminars are part of the Postal Services effort to help small to mid-size businesses to generate more business for themselves.

The training program is designed to help small to mid-sized businesses integrate direct mail with digital strategies such as the use of Mobile Barcodes, QR codes, Augmented Reality, Digital Watermarks, Social integration, Video in print and 3D printing. These half day multi-channel symposiums provide an in-depth overview of new techniques available to smaller marketing operations that link digital platforms with the measureable, targeted attributes of Direct Mail. The seminars also cover lead generation and acquisition, brand, social and content marketing, creative and production, data measurement, retention and loyalty, mobile marketing, and cross-channel strategies.

Keynote speaker at the Mid-Michigan events will be Bob Ellis, Team Leader Business Alliances Advertising Agency, USPS Headquarters, Washington DC.

Bob has been with the U.S. Postal Service for 27 years, which includes various positions in marketing and sales. In his current position as Team Leader for Advertising Agencies and Associations, Bob leads a team to promote the addition of a direct mail component among agencies clients’ media mix. 

• The Lansing program hosted by the Mid-Michigan Postal Customer Council (PCC) will be held at MERS, 6709 Centurion DR, in Lansing MI, 48917 on Wednesday, February 6th, from 8:00 am until 11:30 am. Pre-reregistration is also required: www.midmichiganpcc.org/event.html

The Postal Service is planning to deliver similar programming to more Postal Customer Councils (PCC) representing more than 20,000 mailers around the nation.

Postal Customer Councils are a forum for mailers to discuss local mailing issues and meet other mailers as they learn more about Postal Service operations and programs. They were first established in 1962.

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Please Note: For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at http://about.usps.com/news/welcome.htm.

For reporters interested in speaking with a regional Postal Service public relations professional, please go to http://about.usps.com/news/media-contacts/usps-local-media-contacts.pdf.

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service was ranked number one in overall service performance, out of the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world, Oxford Strategic Consulting. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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