Zumbox is a service that allows you to take traditional mail and send it to someone’s street address digitally. I was initially confused about how this would work because the messaging on their home page is limited to a statement about being “the alternative postal system”. Here’s what I’ve figured out after doing some digging and speaking with someone from their PR agency.

What is it and how it works

Individuals go to Zumbox and register on the site, which includes letting them know your street address. Zumbox then assigns you a mailbox online where you can check the mail tied to your postal address. Just like a postal-mailbox, companies and individuals can now send mail to your address even if they don’t know who you are.

So now you’re now you’re going to get your postal-junk-mail online? Not exactly, Zumbox allows you to block senders and is also building a service to stop paper-mail (you can watch their FAQ here.) At present you can only stop paper-mail from companies that are registered and working with Zumbox, which means that the value of the service is dependent on a critical mass of sender-registrants.

A balancing act of value

I’m personally excited about the prospect of stopping junk-mail even though I understand that it’s not the focus of the beta release. In the past, I’ve made calls, sent letters, and even signed up for Green Dimes to stop junk-mail. Regrettably, none of these efforts seems to have worked. I think balancing customers’ desire to stop junk-mail against a company’s desire to send unsolicited materials will be a real challenge for Zumbox. On the one hand, customers are inundated with direct-mail that they mostly don’t want and which is bad for the environment … but which they sometimes read. On the other hand, companies still get a solid return on their direct-mail investments, which is why they keep doing it. It’s hard to say how this balance will be affected in a non-physical context where you can easily stop the message from arriving on your doorstep.

That said, there are clearly financial benefits to using Zumbox if companies  can achieve worthwhile response rates with significantly reduced costs (no printing, no mailing). Obviously, companies would require less conversion if their costs are lower, which should also mean that they can adjust their materials to provide a more relevant and targeted message (i.e. relevant information I actually want). Even if this transition were to start today, most companies would be using a hybrid approach for some time to come.

There is a clever lead generation opportunity built into Zumbox because users will be requesting that Zumbox get in touch with specific companies that they’d prefer to receive digital-mail from (or, which they’d prefer not to hear from). Zumbox will presumably be able to turn to these companies with potential customers in hand (or, customers that they are wasting money on). Considering that direct-mail is a massive industry, there seems to be plenty of space for a service like this today. Though, the biggest question I have is why consumers would choose this channel over something like a newsletter, and rss feed, or a twitter feed? The short answer is that Zumbox offers geographical targeting, but I’m not sure that’ll hold up as location-based mobile services become more prominent.

Marketers should be paying attention

“Zumbox believes that over time, more and more traditional postal mail will transition to a digital platform. The cost savings, revenue opportunities, and environmental benefits are overwhelming.”

In general, I agree with the above statement. What I don’t understand is why we should try and emulate an old system, whose only real benefit is geo-location? The fact is that consumers don’t want cluttering and irrelevant messages delivered to their postal-mailbox or their digital-mailbox. Plus, geo-location offers more potential that just supplying information about where I live. If I did choose to receive unsolicited information, I’d also probably be willing to share my current location in exchange for better information (not just where I live).

If Zoombox can help stem the tide of postal-junk-mail while moving companies away from costly printed campaigns, which are bad for the envioirment, then I say kudos to them! My only concern is that I don’t see the long-term value once companies transition to more appropriate marketing techniques.