Royal Mail should take a leaf out of the US Postal Services’ book by offering discounts to brands who use QR (quick response) barcodes in their direct mail campaigns, according to industry sources, or risk seeing a further decline in mailing budgets.
Although QR codes have been available for a few years, the widescale adoption of devices which can scan them – iPhone, BlackBerry and Android handsets – have seen their potential grow, as more and more consumers scan use QRs to access extra information.
The US Postal Service is offering a 3 per cent discount to direct mailers if they include the mobile barcodes, which can be linked to online content, special offers or competitions.
The operator hopes the move will help to highlight the potential for mobile technology to be used in conjunction with the physical mail to offer better response rates for direct marketing campaigns.
Thomas Foti, the Postal Service manager of marketing mail, said: “We firmly believe that mobile barcodes add significant value to mail – they help increase response rates and they help establish relationships with those that don’t have necessarily already have a relationship with mail – for instance those in younger generations.”
An industry source told DecisionMarketing: “This is just the sort of initiative Royal Mail should be embracing. The postal operator has many rivals these days – not just email – DRTV and press are becoming more attractive as rates fall. By offering discounts for brands using QR codes, it would send a message out that mail can really be effective in conjunction with other media.
“At the moment, all that seems to be coming out of Royal Mail’s Media Centre is that direct mail and email work well together. This is only half of the story. Royal Mail needs to jump aboard more recent technology or face further decline.”
