Category Archives: Postal Carriers

Put your hand up if you don’t know who delivers your mail!

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In case there is any doubt I can tell you that it’s most likely Royal Mail.  Surprised?  You shouldn’t be!  Of course the mail may have the usual Royal Mail Postage Paid Impression (PPI) or it may have the PPI used by one of the downstream providers such as TNT or UKMail.  In any case the PPI will tell you who it was that picked up the mail and injected it into the Royal Mail system.  What it won’t tell you is who actually put the letter through your letterbox and just so we’re clear on this; it’s very likely that it was the Royal Mail.

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Microsoft Tags. You gotta Love ‘em!

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SOLO Website Tag

There’s a bit of quiet argy bargy going on in the 2D barcode world.  It’s so quiet that most people are unaware of it.  I mentioned QR codes a few weeks ago when the Marketing Week magazine mentioned a Royal Mail press item that seemed to be about QR Codes.   For the uninitiated QR Codes are little blocks of dots which, read by a QR reader, take you to a specific web site.  The important thing to remember about QR Codes is that they are static.  That bears repeating as its so fundamental to the QR Code design.  QR Codes are static and if you produce one today to take a reader to http:www.solo-uk.com then that’s where they will go any time the code is scanned.  The printed symbol decodes directly to the web address.

Microsoft tags on the other hand are entirely dynamic .  I’m not usually a big Microsoft fan.  I like the stuff that works but I don’t own a Microsoft T shirt and I don’t have a direct line to Bill.  Microsoft tags I like a lot!  When I first encountered them I thought they were just silly and that they were just adding a new standard for the sake of it.  It turns out though that I was very much mistaken. Continue reading →

Digitally Enhanced Direct Mail

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Marketing week, not usually prone to exaggeration, ran a story today about Royal Mail and their plans to roll-out ‘digitally enhanced DM’.  Marketing Week don’t actually explain exactly what that is but they do say that Royal Mail have said

“digitally watermarked” mail will take consumers to a company’s website, social network page or video when scanned with a 3G phone

From where we sit that sounds like a plain old QR-Code that you scan with a phone or tablet device which directs your browser to a web site.  You have to wonder why they didn’t say that though.

If you are new to QR-Codes here is a picture of one (below) that will take you to SOLOs website.  You’ll need to download a software scanner from your chosen ‘app’ provider though.  They really are a good idea to include on mailings and both DM and the retail sector are using them more and more.  Look out in your local supermarket for them on stands and promo backings.  On the front on an envelope you might just snag a few hits on your website as consumers start using them.

The difference between a day out and a move!

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In February we posted a news article to our blog about Royal Mails decision to raise prices.  Chris Combemale of the DMA said, in the article, that he felt that once a company had ‘migrated’ to other media they don’t come back.  Well, all things considered I’m afraid I have to disagree with Mr. Combemail. Continue reading →