Do you relish new technology and constant change? Are you willing to take risks and experiment? Then you are likely an early adopter, the guy or gal who was first to shift from cassette tapes to CDs and sign on for a cellphone.

Early adopters are exactly who will be enticed and capitalize on a new feature the USPS recently unveiled.

It’s called Informed Delivery and at first, it seems a service that benefits mostly postal customers by letting them sign up online to receive an early morning email preview of what’s coming in the mail that day. Not everything, mind you, but all of the business-size mailings. Each morning, their email shows them black and white scans of the fronts of business-size envelopes and postcards.

Informed Delivery can make your mail interactive

But here’s the attraction for businesses. With little time and trouble, they can have that black and white image of their envelope or postcard livened up. They can substitute a 4-color image with digital capabilities or place a 4-color box with a link to a website or landing page below the grayscale scan. Suddenly a boring, static image becomes an interactive marketing tool. Even before the mailing arrives, that postal customer can click on a link and be whisked off to a website or landing page to learn more about a company, product, service or special deal. It is an easy way to expand your marketing; we have already helped a number of our clients add links or four-color promos to their mailings on Informed Delivery.

Few marketers have hopped on board which means opportunity for early adopters

About 9 million postal customers have signed up for Informed Delivery so far. As the USPS makes people more aware of the service, more will sign up for it. In the meantime, there’s nothing for businesses to lose–and a lot of added marketing to gain–by enhancing pieces of mail that appear on Informed Delivery.

With so few businesses taking advantage of this opportunity, early adopters will stand out even more. It’s an easy way to take a traditional mail piece and make it interactive. Give me a call and I can tell you more about it.