Postal department responds to market

Steps into direct mailing of advertising material

With advances in technology, the quantity of personal mail being sent by post is falling rapidly and as a result the postal department is devising strategies to tap the commercial mail segment which in fact is growing, according to R Ganeshan, secretary, department of posts.

As part of this, the postal department in Karnataka has brought out 'Direct Post'. This comes against the background of increasing commercial activities in the country and the rising need for direct advertising of products and services by business organisations.

Direct mailing is a means of distributing advertising material directly (the company addresses envelopes) to prospective customers. Direct Post on the other hand will allow businesses to send unaddressed mailers, pamphlets, brochures and other advertising materials to prospective customers at very low rates.

The company uses the database of the post office to have its mailers sent by the post office to selected categories of addressees instead of affixing the addresses itself. "This is an inexpensive and effective way of advertising," said R Ganeshan.

He added that the department will also undertake designing and delivering advertisement brochures. Unlike developed countries where the market for unaddressed post is 2-3 times larger than addressed, in India, the size of direct mail is 50 crore and direct post (unaddressed component of direct mail) contributes half of it.

The department also plans to network all the post offices in the country and as part it has computerised (installed computers) 4,000 post offices. It aims to computerise 7,000 more by April, 2007. The department has requested the ministry of communications and information technology to computerise the remaining 15,000 post offices. Networking will follow computerisation.

"The networking of post offices will help online transactions and increase efficiency of the postal department," said R Ganeshan.