The training course was announced at the second annual conference of the Strategic Mailing Partnership, a joint initiative between Royal Mail and the UK’s mailing house industry.
More than 120 people, including representatives from 79 mailing houses, attended the conference at the Kia Oval cricket ground in London. Royal Mail Chief Executive Moya Greene was the keynote speaker.
Moya Greene said: "Mailing houses are some of Royal Mail’s most important partners. The Strategic Mailing Partnership has cemented our relationship with the mailing house industry and has made great strides since it was established just over a year ago. Royal Mail is committed to developing the Partnership and building on the successes already achieved."
Other senior Royal Mail executives who presented were Chief Customer Officer Dave Smith, Director of Regulated Products Stephen Agar, Director of Sales and Channels Graham Davis, and Media Director Mark Thomson. They were joined by Mike Colling of media buying agency MC & Co, Rosemary Smith of RSA Direct, Patrick Collister, former creative director of O&M, and Thomas Wimmer from Kodak.
The conference heard how Royal Mail is focussed on supporting the industry by simplifying its product range, being more customer focussed and helping mailing houses to grow the use of mail.
The training initiative announced at the event is the first of its kind specifically for the mailing house industry. It has been introduced in response to requests from Partnership members for more support to help them promote direct mail.
Royal Mail is offering up to 100 places to mailing house partners within the Strategic Mailing Partnership to receive the free training course. The course is designed to help mailing houses promote the value of direct mail in driving engagement, response and loyalty.
Judith Donovan CBE, chair of the Strategic Mailing Partnership, said: "The second annual conference of the Strategic Mailing Partnership was a tremendous success. The importance that Royal Mail places on the industry was demonstrated by the fact that its Chief Executive, Moya Greene, was keynote speaker and the participation of several Board Directors.
"We are delighted with the success of the Strategic Mailing Partnership since its launch early last year. It will continue to improve the collaborative working relationship between mailing houses and Royal Mail throughout 2011 and into the future. We are in a strong position to continue supporting the industry and I am looking forward to seeing further positive developments over the next year."
Jim Bulmer, Royal Mail’s Head of Mailing House Development, said: "The Strategic Mailing Partnership continues to go from strength to strength. The development of the training scheme to help mailing houses promote the power of mail is in response to feedback from the Partners within the Strategic Mailing Partnership.
"Our first year has been tremendous. It is a year that has seen the industry and Royal Mail working together better than ever with a huge increase in the partnership approach to make Better Mail. We are now looking to step up our activities to build on the success of the past year. The Strategic Mailing Partnership has some exciting new goals for 2011 including working on improving our clients’ confidence in the mail medium and joint working with industry stakeholders to change perceptions about mail."
The Strategic Mailing Partnership also unveiled the winners of its first awards scheme to celebrate Better Mail. The winners were:
• The Royal Mail Mailing House Scheme Award, for the consistently highest performance against the quality standards of the mailing house scheme, was won by 121 Direct Mail
• The Mail Growth Award for attracting new customers to direct mail was awarded to Orbital Marketing
• The Mail Champion Award, for the mailing house that truly celebrated and promoted direct mail, was won by GI Solutions
• The Strategic Mailing Partnership Grand Award went to GI Solutions, for their approach to positively driving Better Mail performance and mail perceptions
