Did you know . . .

Before the postage stamps, all mail was paid for by the recipient, an inefficient and flawed system. Due to high postage rates, recipients often refused to accept their mail, which lead to the post office loosing money twice over, as failed deliveries meant that letters had to be returned to the sender. Just think — without the postage stamp, the practice of direct mail marketing would be impossible.

The first postage stamps in America bore a portrait of George Washington. They were issued by a private carrier in New York in 1842, who later sold his business to the US government. It wasn’t until 1845 that Congress set a national postal rate, and the first official U.S. stamps didn’t began circulating until three years later. The were issued in 10 and 5 cent form, with the faces of Washington and the first postmaster general of the United States — Benjamin Franklin. As of 2003, these stamps sell unused for $28,000 and $6,000 respectively. In 1851, postal efficiency resulted in a lower postal rate and a need to issue new stamps. Thomas Jefferson was added to the list of portraits for use on U.S. mailings.

The Civil War was a confusing time for sending letters. In the South, the confederate postmaster-general ordered all stamps returned to Washington, D.C., leaving post offices to revert to a cash system or issue provisional stamps until the Confederacy issued new stamps. The Union, in the meantime, decided to withdraw and invalidate all existing US stamps, and to issue new stamps, which took months. Citizens had four months in which to exchange their old stamps before they became worthless to everyone but collectors.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was a philatelist. This isn’t a dirty word — it means a collector and student of postage stamps. They’re the folks who can tell you the first perforated stamps weren’t produced until 1857, the first self-adhesive in 1974, and that the first official commemorative stamps were issued in 1893 for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Roosevelt was an avid collector, and is rumored to have collected around 1 million stamps.

Of the 25 most popular stamps for collectors, a huge percentage are devoted to popular culture. Stamps on the list include Lucille Ball, Baseball Sluggers, Jim Henson’s Muppets, Comic Strip Classics, Bugs Bunny, Marilyn Monroe, DC Comics Superheroes, Rock & Roll/Rhythm & Blues, and the Art of Disney, including images of friendship, celebration, and romance. The most popular is 1993’s Elvis stamp, with more than 124 million collected.

Obviously, that little rectangle pasted to your envelopes means more than just postage paid. Behind it stands more than a century of history and service to the U.S.A. Stay tuned for a post next week about how a simple postage stamp can work to increase the ROI of your mailing list campaigns.

Did you know . . .

The United States Postal Service delivers to every home and business in the US, processing and delivering 8,000 pieces of mail per second, 488,000 pieces per minute, 29 million pieces per hour, resulting in almost 703 million pieces per day — that’s more than 213 billion pieces of mail per year. The USPS delivers more mail in a day than FedEx does in a year, and more mail in 3 days than UPS does in a year. They handle almost half of the world’s total card and letter mail volume — delivering more mail to more addresses to a larger geographical area than any other service. Japan is a distant second, with only 6%.

If the USPS was a privately owned company, it would be the 10th largest in the US. They are the second-largest employer in the US, with almost 700,000 career employees earning nearly $2 billion in salaries and benefits every payday. It runs the largest retail network in the country, largest intranet in the world, largest civilian fleet of vehicles in the world, including the largest fleet of alternative fuel vehicles. A single cent rise in gasoline costs the postal service an extra $8 million dollars in fuel. Many citizens forget that the USPS is a self-supporting agency, receiving no tax dollars, and relying solely on the revenue generated by the sale of postage and products to cover their expenses.

The postal service is also a source of community assistance and activism. In 2006, the Postal Service recognized more than 300 employee heroes around the country who put their own lives at risk to save the lives of customers they serve. According to research by the respected Ponemon Institute, the postal service is the most trusted of all government organization, chosen by the American public for three years running. Some of their most notable community campaigns have been extraordinarily effective, including the Breast Cancer Research Stamp (raised more than $53.1 million for research since July 1998), the USPS and National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive Day (the largest in the nation which has collected over 765.5 million pounds of food since its inception, 70.5 million pounds in 2006 alone), and the “Have You Seen Me?” Campaign (in coordination with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, has reunited 144 children with their families).

For nearly 20 years, the USPS has striven to be environmentally-friendly by reducing the use of paper and supporting the use of recycled products and recycling waste — about 1 million tons last year alone. For seven years straight, the USPS has won the EPA’s WasteWise Partner of the Year Award, for reducing solid and industrial wastes in innovative ways. They use their own network to transport recycling, saving money, and sell their recyclables to companies as raw materials, creating more than $9 million in revenue.

Post offices are a study in extremes:

• The oldest post office is in Castine, ME, and has been in continuous operation since 1814. New offices are opened all the time, including one in Surf City, NC on July 30th.
• The nation’s smallest post office is in Ochopee, FL, and was formerly an irrigation pipe shed until its conversion in 1953. The building is just 8′4″ x 7′3″. The Morgan Processing & Distribution Center in midtown Manhattan is the largest postal facility in the US, employing about 4,300 workers who process more than 12.5 million pieces of mail a day.
• Leadville, CO is home to the post office with the highest elevation, while Mecca, CA has the lowest.
• The employees of Wainwright, AK post office work in the coldest area in the postal system, while the hottest employees sweat it out in Death Valley, CA.
• The western and easternmost post offices are in Pago Pago, Samoa and Majuro in the Marshall Islands, respectively. The Pago Pago office is also the most southern location, with Barrow, AK taking the northern point.

Come back for more fun facts next Friday, and remember, Martin Worldwide is here to help you figure out how to get the most from your postal mailing campaigns!

Did you know . . .

Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American purchasing power continues to rise exponentially, as does the total buying power of the U.S. gay, lesbian and bisexual population. In 2005, the relative purchasing power of each group was estimated to be:

• African-Americans: $761 billion, expected to reach $1 trillion in 2010.
• Hispanics: $736 billion, expected to reach $108 billion in 2010.
• Asian-Americans: $397 billion, expected to reach $579 billion in 2010.
• Native Americans: $51.5 billion, expected to reach $69.2 billion in 2010.
• GLB: $610 billion, up from $485 billion in 2003.

Ethnic marketing is extremely cost-effective, as the average cost in ethnic media is seven times less than in U.S. mainstream media.

One in eight of all female entrepreneurs come from minority backgrounds, which means approximately one million of the eight million women-owned businesses in the U.S. are owned by women of color.

In 2008, the 20 million Central & Eastern European-Americans will generate an estimated $800 billion in buying power, representing a huge market to advertisers.

One in every 10 people living in the United States today was born somewhere else, with more than 1 million immigrants arriving every year, maintaining their unique languages, religions, traditions, and cultures. Our country contains a variety of communities, each with its own distinctive consumer lifestyle.

To maximize your direct marketing efforts, you need to be sure you’re targeting these special groups. Martin Worldwide’s experienced list advisers can help you utilize ethnic, cultural, religious, and even geographic ethnic density data to optimize the effectiveness of your multicultural direct marketing campaigns.

Did you know . . .

The history of direct marketing can be traced all the way back to the 15th century. Printers began publishing the first trade catalogs sometime around 1450, following the invention of Gutenberg’s moveable type.

The early use of business to business direct mailings in early colonial America resulted in orders to England for books, tea, ammunition, and other products for resale. Seed catalogues are among the oldest types of catalogues, and were used in the American colonies by the mid-1700’s. Even Thomas Jefferson was a habitual mail order buyer, on mailing lists both domestically and in Europe.

As early as the 1860’s, a number of firms used direct mail to advertise their wares through informational circulars and handbills. Direct mail was advanced by the Lincoln administration’s introduction of penny postage in 1863, but the practice of “mail order selling” took off in America with the invention of the typewriter in 1867.

The Direct Mail Advertising Association, now the Direct Marketing Association, was first established in 1917.

Lester Wunderman is credited with coining the phrase “direct marketing” in 1961, during a speech to the Hundred Million Club. He pioneered some of the classic approaches to direct marketing with brands such as American Express and Columbia Records. He later elaborated on the phrase, stating “I believe the term ‘direct marketing’ is more appropriate than ‘mail order selling’ . . . direct marketing is where the advertising and buying become a single action . . .”

Look for five more Friday factoids next week!