The United States Postal Service Needs To Capitalize Off Of Potential Revenue Streams

Advertisements have become a direct and indirect part of every day life. Therefore, most people aren’t too put off by advertisements, as long as such advertisements aren’t offensive, too imposing, or too intrusive. Therefore, I believe it would be in the best interests of the U.S. Postal service, to strategically integrate advertisements into its services.

Since the USPS has been sustaining billion dollar losses, I never understood the penny increases on the purchase of a standard USPS stamp – especially since most people would continue to purchase such stamps if the increase was a bit higher….neither here, nor there. So back to the subject at hand

The first, most logical advertisement medium that the USP could use to bring in more positive revenue is standard stamps.

The USPS could auction off the right to place ads on stamps, the wax sheet in which stamps are removed from and so forth.

When it comes to the standard stamp ad, such would be limited to one stamp per book of stamps. However, the sponsoring company would have a more prominent as placement on the waxed paper – especially since such an area equals the total available space of all the stamps adhered thereto.

The USPS could also create creative add that could be placed on, and / or on the inside of the USPS’ envelopes. Yet, such should be done in a tasteful way.

As long as such an ad strategy isn’t too prominently displayed on the envelope, the ad strategy shouldn’t have any meaningful resistance – especially since it would slow down future price hikes.

 

Magazine Ads Need To Be More Relevant, In Order To Be Effectively Viewed

– The only effective ads that I currently see being placed inside of magazines are contest based ads. Which are the ads that are relevant to the title and/or contest of a magazine article, and are strategically placed inside/ in between the pages of the article, or after the article.

– Other than contest based ads, I have failed to find many relevant ads other than perfume/cologne strips.

– I believe that magazines should create more relevant ads by creating better ad strategies. The following are three of my suggestions:

(1) – Use the magazine cover or table of contents…

(2) – Create an entertainment/ game page that direct viewers to advertisements.

(3) – Make the back cover ad more noticeable.

(1): The front of a magazine in my eyes is the most noticed/viewed part of a magazine. Therefore, it seems to be one of the most neglected ad spaces – especially since most magazine covers aren’t being utilized as an ad space.

– I can understand why most magazine companies are cautious about using the front page of a magazine for showcasing advertisements – especially since they don’t want to dilute or disrupt the main advertisement area for selling the magazine. However, I believe the benefits that come from such an ad strategy would far outnumber any adverse effects that would come about.

– There are many ways to place an ad on the front cover of a magazine, that wouldn’t adversely affect the selling point of the magazine. Yet, my favorite would be to use removable adhesive attachments, which when left attached or removed from the magazine cover, they would not change the cover scheme of the magazine. In other words, the top portion of the adhesive attachment would be identical to what’s depicted in the area of the front cover where it would be attached.

– The advertisement, coupon, etc. would be located on the underside of the adhesive attachment.

– I believe magazine companies should use the adhesive attachment strategy, also, to place advertisements in a creative way upon the magazine’s content page(s).

(2): I’m like a lot of magazine readers when it comes to enjoying doing crosswords, word searches, etc. Therefore, I’m surprised that magazine companies haven’t used the popularity of such games to direct readers to advertisement pages inside of magazines.

– Magazine companies should create game pages that feature popular games such as Sudoku, crosswords, word searches and so forth. Make such game pages detachable, and create certain games in a way in which players would have to view ad pages in order to fully play the games.

-For instance the word search game would only feature the word search box on the game page, and players would be instructed to turn to certain ad pages, to locate the words in which they are supposed to view within the word search box.

– The word search words would stand out from the other words within the advertisement, because the word search words would be a different color than the general words.

– The magazine companies were to deploy such an ad strategy properly, they would be able to guarantee advertisers more views, and friendlier views, and such an ad strategy would create more ad revenue for the magazine company.

(3): Since I rarely view the back cover of magazines, and can’t think of a good reason for most magazine readers to intentionally look at the back of a magazine. I believe that such “back end” ad placements are mainly a waste of money for advertisers; therefore, such should be the cheapest advertisement area of a magazine, if it isn’t the cheapest.

– My best advice on such a matter, would be for a matter, would be for magazine companies to create and use sense provoking adhesive attachments, and strategically place them on the back of the magazine.

– The most logical senses that can be provoked, in order to convince the reader to look at the back of the magazine would be touch, sound and smell. Therefore, I will write an example focusing on the most obvious and easiest adhesive attachment to create (touch).

– The touch provoking adhesive attachment would be a different texture on its top than the feel of the magazine. And such an attachment would be placed in an area of the back of the magazine where people will generally touch.

– In my opinion, magazine companies should be better utilizing the spaces on physical magazines, in order to bring about more revenue from advertisers. And most importantly, the advertisements would be memorable.