Credit Card Mailings Fall Slightly in 2007: Mail Monitor
U.S. households will receive approximately 5.3 billion offers for new credit cards during 2007, a slight decrease from 5.76 billion in 2006, according to Mail Monitor, the credit card direct mail tracking service from Synovate.
As a result of the decreased volume, Synovate predicts response rates for new credit card offers will edge up to 0.6% from 0.5% last year. This will result in an 32 million applications for new credit cards.
Despite this year’s decrease, 2007 is projected to reach the third largest direct mail volume for credit card offers since Synovate began tracking in 1988. The all time record high volume for credit card offers was in 2005 when 6.05 billion pieces were mailed.
This decline in mail volume and projected response rate increase is partly attributable to the Bank of America/MBNA merger last year, according to Andrew Davidson, Vice President of Competitive Tracking Services for Synovate’s US Financial Services Group.
In addition, Chase and Capital One which still mail in huge volumes, have scaled back and diverted some of their marketing efforts to other channels such as television advertising and the Internet.
“Other acquisition channels, particularly the Internet, will play an increasingly important role but direct mail, with more than 50% of card applications, will likely remain dominant for the foreseeable future,” said Davidson, in a statement.
