The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm

Chapter 18. The Gen X Labor Shortage and the Impact on Direct Mail

I love mail. As a result of this passion, I read everything that’s put into my mailbox. I love freestanding inserts (flyers), too. Some people call this stuff “junk mail.” I don’t! Over my years in the marketing business, I have produced literally billions of individual pages that have found their way into people’s homes.

A while back, I received a mail piece that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was a 5- by 8-inch postcard printed in one color. The sender was our local post office. The riveting message was simple: The post office was taking applications for mail carriers. You might say, “Yeah, so what?” But this was the first time I had ever seen an ad to recruit mail carriers. ...