Commentary: 5 Highlights from the National Postal Forum

Last week, the National Postal Forum (NPF) met at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee, with the largest crowd it's seen in years. Around 3,000 people came to spend the week exploring trends in mailing and shipping, and dive into a wide range of educational sessions about getting the most out of mail and packages sent through the postal service.

There was a lot to be excited about, and for the most part attendees were in high spirits. The expo hall was the biggest to date, with a host of first-time exhibitors there to connect and share what they have to offer. And the education sessions were, as always, top notch, with a little something for everyone, no matter what role they play in the mailing cycle.

Related story: 7 Things You Don’t Want to Miss at the National Postal Forum

That said, there was some frustration over the lack of response to the mounting frustrations over postal rate increases, with USPS executives not touching on it at all during the keynote addresses. Off the record, a number of direct mail printers attending noted they are getting increasingly frustrated with the way it’s being handled, as they are seeing their margins shrink to the point where they are starting to wonder how much longer mail will even be a viable marketing channel. Despite its stellar performance in any campaign, if it’s too expensive to put a piece into the mail stream, even brands that believe in the channel will walk away.

But that day hasn’t come yet, although it does highlight the need for more personalized, targeted direct mail pieces to make the most out of every single dollar spent. To that end, here are some of the top trends that people were talking about this year.

1. The generation that loves mail the most isn’t who you think it is.

It is the 18-29 year old demographic that loves mail the most, according to several research reports that were presented at NPF this year. Michael McCormick, marketing specialist at SG360, and Karen Scharf, vice president of marketing for SG360, presented “The Future of Direct Maill: Marketer and Consumer Insights.” And David Krawczuk, vice president of Print & Mail Operations at Lob, and Kate Sanders, partner success manager at Lob, presented “The State of Direct Mail: Data-Driven Insights Boost Engagement and ROI.”

Both sessions had some great stats to share, and interestingly they were very similar when it came to the numbers — which just goes to show the accuracy and consistency of how people feel about mail right now. They highlighted the fact that younger generations not only look forward to mail, seeing it not as something to dread, like bills, but as something exciting and new. The digital generation enjoys the novelty of pieces they can hold in their hands and engage with all their senses.

On the flip side, while they are the most engaged audience by far, they are also the group looking for the most personalization. And just a name isn’t enough — research shows that an average of three pieces of personalization is the minimum needed to catch their attention, and five or six is optimal if you really want to craft a piece that will get noticed.

2. Personalization is critical.

David Krawczuk, vice president of Print & Mail Operations at Lob, led two sessions at NPF 2025 breaking down the data around direct mail to get the most out of every campaign. | Credit: Toni McQuilken

Which brings us to the second trend: personalization is no longer a nice upgrade to a mail piece, it is absolutely critical. A staggering 88% of marketers report significantly improved response rates when they use thoughtful personalization techniques.

In another session at NPF, Krawczuk once again took the stage and cautioned attendees that they need to stay on the right side of the “cool and creepy line. You all know what I’m talking about,” he said. “You’ve all been on both sides of this line. You want to make sure the stuff you’re doing doesn’t cross that line, because that’s where you get into the danger zone of turning people off instead of engaging with them.”

What does that mean? He gave the example of a coffee shop mailer that used data they have about things like demographics and location to use stock imagery that would create a connection — female models for women, male for men, etc. Or including an image of a popular landmark in the city where the business and person are located.

He also noted even the offer can be customized, offering a free food item with purchase, for example, or timed to get them to come in outside the days or hours they would normally engage. On the wrong side? Offering a discount on the specific beverage they tend to order — it’s cool to get a discount on hot coffee beverages. It’s creepy to get a discount on large vanilla lattes with oat milk. While you might have that granular of data from things like loyalty programs, be careful at just how specific you get. Be cool, not creepy.

3. Data is king.

And that segues us into the next major trend: data. Across the board, whether it was talking about using AI to help craft campaigns (and take advantage of a postal discount specifically geared toward promoting the use of AI in mail pieces), designing personalized mailers that catch and hold the attention of the target audience, or even tying direct mail pieces into a broader omnichannel campaign, the central figure is data.

Whether it’s a brand making more of an effort to collect and parse through data, or a direct mail printer doing it for them — and incidentally supplementing that data, which is one value-added service every printer in this vertical should be taking a hard look at offering — it’s not just about having the data. You have to make sure the data is clean, accurate, and then have a system in place to actually make sense of it. It’s not an easy process by any stretch, especially for those that haven’t put any emphasis on data in the past few years. But if you want to continue to see mail flourish, it’s going to have to be targeted and personalized. And to do that, the data must be strong.

4. Mail isn’t an island.

As strong a platform as mail is — and multiple studies have shown that ROI increases into the double digits for mail pieces versus just a few percentage points for digital methods — it can’t live alone. Consumers today aren’t engaging with brands in a single fashion, and they can’t market to them that way either.

It takes multiple touch points from brands to build awareness and encourage engagement, averaging three to five touches. Mail helps accelerate that process, and helps provide a tangible and credible anchor point for the rest of the campaign. And it works — multiple tests have shown the ROI increasing for all the digital channels as well when a mail component is introduced.

And it’s not just engagement — the purchase value, frequency of purchases, and even retention rates are consistently higher for campaigns that include a direct mail component. Yes, it costs more up front to send a piece through the mail than it does to just click a few buttons and send out a bevy of emails, or send a regular newsletter. But mail more than pays for itself on the back end, bringing in more engaged consumers who spend more money and time with the brand than they would with digital marketing alone.

The NPF 2025 theme was "Leading Forward". | Credit: Toni McQuilken

5. The time to start is now.

All that said, it can be overwhelming to jump into mail, especially for brands that have been digital only to this point. To win that business, there are a few things printers can do.

• Provide the data. When you talk to customers, download some of these studies and show them the hard numbers. Many marketers today simply don’t know about mail, or understand its role in their job. They came into the industry as digital natives, and they need you to educate them about the power of mail and why it works.
• Provide samples. As many have said in the past “eat your own dogfood.” Send out regular direct mail campaigns to your clients and prospects showing off some of the techniques your operation is capable of creating. Give them tangible examples, so when they sit down to start thinking about their next campaign, that will be lurking in the back of their minds.
• Provide specific examples. For your best customers and prospects, go one step further and give them samples of what a campaign for them might look like. If they already do some mail with you, show them examples of what they could do to personalize and enhance their pieces to get better responses. If they are a prospect, create pieces based on relevant information about what they do or sell to get them thinking about how you can help them, specifically.
• Start small. No brand is going to go from zero to mailing hundreds of thousands of pieces. And honestly, 1,000 well-designed and personalized pieces will likely perform better than 100,000 generic ones anyway. Help your customers understand that more isn’t better in this care — it’s about getting the right message, in front of the right audience, at exactly the right time.
• Embrace data management. The way businesses operate today and in the future will only continue to be more tightly intertwined with how good the database is. For printers, taking control of that data and managing it for your customers not only gives you insight to help them better personalize their pieces to get better results, it also makes them far more sticky. It’s a lot harder to justify going to the competition for a few cents less per piece when it also involved moving over years’ worth of campaign data, and learning a whole new system to manage it.