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Email
has become the predominant form of written communication for
most Americans. Within the Direct/Interactive marketing community
it has become the 'killer app'. Spam is the growing threat
to business involved in Email and a giant pain to all consumers
that are online.
Congressional
committees are sharpening knives as they get ready to create
legislation, that if put into action will strangle the newest
marketing medium. What should be done?
The United
States Post Office should step into the fray. Our USPS missed
the boat on email and the Internet over a decade ago. Back
then, a clearer vision would have given them a revenue stream
as well as protecting consumers from spam. This article will
not, as I have previously written, speak to the issue of revenue
per email sent. There is a more vital role for the Post Office.
The controlling
and issuing of permanent email addresses to all U.S. households
and family members.
Think
about our phone numbers. Depending upon where we live, we
have a defined area code, a defined prefix and then four digits
that are personal to the phone number itself. A number in
Nassau County, NY could be 516-433-1234. That number places
it in Nassau County, Jericho/Syosset and then the personal
numeric.
Whether
the person possessing that number uses MCI, Sprint, ATT or
a variety of other vendors the phone number will remain the
same. It is transparent to the user or receiver as to which
service is being employed.
Let the
Post Office do the same for email and the 'net' in general.
Here is
an example of how this could work.
John Doe
lives at 201 Broad Stream Road, Sarasota, Florida 34236-5604
The new standard email for Mr. Doe would be johnd@201bsr-fl236.usa
Of course,
I am sure that the postal service can come up with a more
creative standard than I have in this example. The zip four
could certainly be used. My point is that email can be standardized
by the service.
There
are clear benefits to everyone to this becoming a reality.
Except, the spammers, pornographers and fraudulent groups
that prey through email.
| Benefit
one is that each individual in a family could register
with the Post Office for their own address. At the Doe
household, Mary, John jr and Peter can all have their
own email addresses. |
Plus,
for an 'upcharge' they can have a family website: www.201bsr-fl236.usa,
which each family member could add a personal page.
(There
were probably more than one benefit above, but who is counting.)
| Benefit
two is that each household or email address could simply
block non-usa (official post office) url's from their
email bin. By simply using the filter on their email program,
Spam from off shore would be eliminated. |
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| Benefit
three would allow the USPS Inspection service and other
federal agencies to pursue domestic email abusers. |
| Benefit
four would allow households and individuals to change
service providers and still keep their email address. |
| Benefit
five, Marketers would be able to target geographically
as well as employing all the methodology of traditional
direct marketing. This in itself would make emails received
more relevant to the recipient and response margins and
ROI more profitable. |
| Benefit
six, remove requests would be honored through traditional
suppress methods. |
| Benefit
seven, would be that Change of Address and new Email address
would be combined to allow for greater efficiencies to
all concerned. |
Businesses
would have a choice, either the above Standard email or one
that maintained their individual corporate url.
For all
official government business, consumers and business alike
would be required to use the Standard postal email address.
Therefore, IRS communications and filings as well as banking
and secure transactions with SEC institutions would all be
through the new system.
Who would
lose? Excluding the bad guys, the ISP's such as AOL, Earthlink
and others stand to lose their branding via the url of the
email address. This is a small price to end the blight of
SPAM and add the benefits to consumers and marketers alike.
It furthermore
allows the Post Office to become a source of renewed energy
and services that will come from an agency that has been around
since the beginning of the republic.
Globalization
of legitimate emails from other countries can be combined
into this program. Once again through the postal service.
Discussions of this type of scenario are taking place. Lobbyists
for different interests are not in favor of this program.
As direct
marketers we should think about this or other consumer oriented
email programs that will allow the medium to survive.
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