AMERICANS READ OR scan more than 88% of all advertising mail delivered to their homes, and up to 18.1% of all households respond, according to a recently released study by the U.S. Postal Service. To conduct the study, TNS Intersearch Corp., Horsham, PA, asked 5,300 U.S. households to keep a diary of all the mail they sent and received in a one-week period during 1996 and 1997. The study showed that nearly half of all mail received at home is Standard A, or advertising mail, while 43.7% is first class. Business-to-business mail increased between 1987-the year of the first study-and 1997 from 30.9% to 38.1%. However, household mail volumes declined from 69.1% in 1987 to 61.9% in 1997. The study also showed that the average American gets 22 pieces of mail each week; personal mail (household to household) has decreased from 1.6 to 1.2 pieces per week. In other findings, the postal service reported that nonprofit mail receives the highest response rates, and that 97.2% of households still pay bills by mail, while only 0.8% pay by personal computer.
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