Who gets excited about attending a mailing conference? I do.
On October 19 my coworker, Tracey Rosenlund, and I attended the Northern Colorado Postal Customer Council’s Fall Mailer’s Forum in Loveland, Colorado. By the time October 2010 rolled around, we had struggled our way through multiple mailing campaigns and were still in the dark when it came to the rules dictating bulk mailing procedures. For each campaign we took our best guess at how to sort our mailers so that the post office would accept our batch. While I knew that there were mysterious rules dictating how mail is sorted and sent, I was oblivious to just how complex the postal system is.
The day of the conference my eyes were open to the complicated world of mailing. G.P. ‘George’ Heinrich, also known as the Postal Professor, enlightened the group of eager attendees about the many intricate postal regulations. At first I diligently took notes on every slide that appeared on the projector screen. As time passed, and the writers’ cramp in my hand became more intense, I realized there was no way for me to write down every rule the Postal Professor covered…
“DMM 601.9.3.3: Small Cold-Blooded Animals. Small, harmless, cold-blooded animals (except snakes and turtles) that do not require food or water or attention during handling in the mail and that do not create sanitary problems are mailable.”
“The direction parallel to the delivery address determines the length in all lettersize mailpieces.”
“DMM 201.3.15: Booklets must have a bound edge (spine). Sheets that are fastened with at least two staples in the manufacturing fold (saddle stitched), perfect bound, pressed-glued, or joined together by another binding method…”
To my relief, the audience was given a packet that listed Websites that contained every mailing rule one could possibly need to know for reference.
I left the conference feeling slightly overwhelmed by all the information I had heard in the preceding hours, yet excited by knowing that I could utilize the information to potentially save Handel a substantial amount of money in postage and send marketing materials much more efficiently.
So, who gets excited about attending a mailing conference? I do. Why? Because you can gain the most useful knowledge from the most unexpected places.