Americans read or scan more than 88% of all advertising mail delivered to their homes and–after reading the catalog or advertisement–14.3% to 18.1% of the households plan to respond, according to a recently released study by the United States Postal Service.
The USPS has spent the last year crunching the 1997 numbers collected by TNS Intersearch Corp. (formerly Chilton Research Services), Horsham, PA, for the Household Diary Study. More than 5,300 American households were asked to keep a diary of all the mail they sent and received in a one week period during 1996 and 1997. The surveys have been conducted every year since 1987.
The study showed that nearly half of all mail received at home is Standard Mail (A), or advertising mail, while 43.7% is First Class. According to the study, business-to-business mail increased between 1987 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 of mail received each week; nonprofit mail receives the highest response rate; and most households (97.2%) still pay bills by mail, while only 0.8% pay by personal computer.
Network
