Direct mail was once the most popular form of marketing and thus ‘junk mail’ became the bane of everyone’s life. However, with the rise of the digital era, direct mail is being overshadowed by its digital cousin. With that in mind, companies now need to think, which is the most effective way to get my message in front of an audience?
Royal Mail estimated that there were 19.7 billion letters sent in 2005, of which 6.17 billion were ‘direct mail’ or ‘junk’ mail. However, it seems that direct mail is on the fall. By 2012, this had fallen these numbers had decreased to 13.8bn total letters, of which 4.4bn was direct mail. Forecasts for the future see mail dropping even further. By 2023, there’s a forecasted 8.3bn total letters, of which 3.1bn will be direct mail.
Is there an email overload?
On average then, there are around 13.8 billion letters sent each year in the UK, meaning around 37,808,219 letters sent each day, of which 12,098,630 are direct mail. Does that sound a lot? Although it is quite alarming that 4.4% of the UK’s annual consumption of paper and cardboard is accounted by junk mail, email wastage is far higher than unwanted mail.
That figure of 12,098,630 is just 0.01% of the amount of spam emails sent every day. Does that still sound like a lot? There were around 205 billion emails sent per day in 2016 (as of March 2016), meaning that there are over 115,866,000,000 spam emails sent each day.
Whilst we might get on average around two pieces of ‘junk’ mail per day, we receive an average of 121 emails per day. With all of this in mind, there is enough spam emails to send around 16 emails to each person, every day,
Is it worth it?
It’s no surprise that with the sheer volume of email overload, they don’t have a great open and response rate. On average, the open rate for emails is 22.87%, in contrast to 56% for direct mail. This means that direct mail is doubly as effective at getting a message in front of an audience. Similarly, only 0.12% of people respond to emails, whereas 3.4% respond to their direct mail.
To put this simply: more people are reading and responding to direct mail than emails. So, which process would you choose?
The verdict
With the amount of physical mail sent falling year by year, direct mail is becoming useful again as they achieve a higher open rate and a higher response rate than emails. When your aim is to get your campaign in front of an audience and to stand out, you shouldn’t contribute to the ‘email overload’. Instead, choose a better marketing campaign with memorable direct mail solutions.
Sources
• http://www.royalmailgroup.com/sites/default/files/The%20outlook%20for%20UK%20mail%20volumes%20to%202023.pdf
• http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/services/environment-and-planning/waste-and-recycling/household-waste-and-recycling/Pages/Say-no-to-junk-mail.aspx
• http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Email-Statistics-Report-2015-2019-Executive-Summary.pdf
• http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/email-statistics/
• http://www.statista.com/statistics/420391/spam-email-traffic-share/
• https://www.cmocouncil.org/facts-stats-categories.php?view=all&category=direct-marketing
