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I may be in the minority on this but everyday I make a pit stop at my garbage can before I enter my house with the mail. I make that stop because I get at least two postcards or mailers from businesses that I am a customer of. A lot of times it is my car dealer alerting me about a new service appointment I might need or a special offer they have for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love special offers as long as they are relevant and timely.

My issue isn’t really with the offer although they do need to get better. My issue is with the delivery model.

These messages aren’t targeting me to become a new customer, they are 100% retention and loyalty programs geared to get me to shop there again. In each of these places I have given my email address and mobile number and in some of these places even my twitter and Facebook info. So, why are they still spending the money to print a postcard and pay postage to let me know my tires need to be rotated or my dog needs to be shaved? I don’t know!

The cost of postage continues to rise. The government is very close to reducing the number of days mail is delivered– I’d be happy with just Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Everyone owns a mobile device of some sort with a very high percentage moving to Iphone, Blackberry, and Droid. I can’t imagine there is a high percentage of people without email addresses.

So, where is the disruption to this space? Possibly Twitter, Foursquare or Facebook? Maybe! Can local media get involved in this area and make the electronic delivery of loyalty programs more prominent? Or better yet, there should be an “app for that.”

I read stats all the time that tell me how many people call the phone number on the mailer but I never hear stats comparing them to electronic delivery.

Besides things that are mandated to be mailed like government and school information, these are the only things I get in my mailbox. Why?