The Postal Service’s new OneCode program makes direct mail more effective than ever

Here’s the marketing mantra of the new millennium: It’s all about the ROI. Although direct mail has always been at the forefront of measurability, there’s always room for improvement. Well, a new program that launched September 1st from the United States Postal Service aims to provide marketers with numerous services that should enhance the ROI of any direct mail campaign.

Currently, the Postal Service uses multiple barcodes on mail pieces; the OneCode is aimed at consolidating various technologies into one barcode. “Our hope is to eventually combine all those different barcodes into just one for letter-sized pieces,” says Vincent DeAngelis, USPS manager of value-added and special services.

The new four-state Customer Barcode (the name refers to the four different types of bars that comprise the new code) can hold up to three times more information than previous iterations, so only one barcode will be needed on a mail piece. “This frees up envelope space for marketing messages,” says DeAngelis. “So you have a cleaner-looking mail piece without all that extra clutter taking up precious pitching space.”

Under the new system, marketers can also more easily use more than one value-added information service on a piece of mail. The new barcode allows the USPS to offer two new services: OneCodeConfirm,TM which allows marketers to track the location of their pieces as they travel through the mail, and OneCodeACS,TM which lets marketers more easily collect relocation information when a recipient moves. For marketers, this will mean a more thorough way of tracking mail as well as better data to enhance the effectiveness of future mailings. The expanded barcode format will also enable the Postal Service to offer additional capabilities in the future related to address quality and postage payment.

The new barcode currently allows mailers to track up to a billion pieces of mail at one time, but the Postal Service expects that the program will eventually let customers track every piece of mail from pickup to delivery. “We’re all about giving customers the information and services that they need to make more informed, efficient business decisions,” says DeAngelis. “OneCode allows us to do this better than ever.”