Royal Mail Launches New Pricing Awareness Drive

Royal Mail is to begin a wide-reaching campaign to drive awareness and understanding of its new pricing structure, ahead of radical changes to the ways in which publishers are charged for subscription mailings.

Information packs will be sent to 2,500 of Royal Mail’s publishing customers early next month, with the postal giant hoping to provide as much detailed information on pricing changes as early as possible. A wider mail-out to other businesses will take place in January 2006.

Royal Mail’s Pricing in Proportion (PiP) system will be introduced on 21 August 2006, valuing items not just on weight as per the current system, but on size and shape – taking into account the awkwardness of handling light, but large items.

Lorna Clarkson, director of commercial policy and pricing at Royal Mail, explained: “These information packs are designed to remind our customers from the publishing industry about Pricing in Proportion and to help them identify and benefit from any potential cost savings that can be made with PiP.”

The information packs will provide price and sizing information as well as advice on how companies can manage the impact of PiP. The mailing to publishers is the first stage in a £10 million public information campaign to support the introduction of PiP. The campaign will incorporate TV, radio and press advertising as well as information in all 14,500 Post Office branches. The changes will eventually be communicated to every business and residential address in the UK.

Around 30% of business mail is expected to be affected by the PiP price changes, with Royal Mail estimating that up to half of the mail affected will become cheaper to send.

Earlier this year Tom Wasilewski, head of publishing at Royal Mail, explained the effects of the new guidelines on businesses, and the implications for industries such as subscription magazines and direct mail in an exclusive column for MediaTel NewsLine (see Pricing In Proportion).

Royal Mail: www.royalmail.com