The Mail Media Centre has recently published an excellent report “Mail Volumes and Response Rates by industry sector 2010.
The report used data from Ebiquity, Royal Mail and Nielsen.
The findings offer some real time insight into industry trends and present a positive picture for direct mail, which appears to have rebounded from the recession lows of 2008 and 2009
- Direct mail volumes fell to 1.5 billion in 2008 and to a further low of 1.4 billion in 2009
- However, the 2010 figure has seen an increase to just over 1.7 billion items in 2010
The financial sector continues to lead the way – as it has done for the last 5 years – by mailing in excess of 495 million items in 2010, compared with 463 million in 2009.
Close behind is the retail sector which has witnessed a growth in direct mail of over 31% compared with 2009. The 2010 volume was just over 465 million compared to 354 million in 2009.
There is still evidence of seasonality for mailing campaigns:
- June and September are the two most prolific months for mail with 9.4% each
- December is the least active month for mailers with 5.5% of total volume
The charity sector continues to use the medium of mail and the report reveals that they apportion some 69.58% of their advertising budget to direct mail. Unsurprisingly this sector spends most on direct mail in October and November.
9.5% of charity mail is attended to by recipients
- There was an average response rate of 1.57%
There are also some rather more unusual findings from the report such as: Only 1.6% of direct mail is sent to those aged between 16-24 and 32.79% is sent to those over the age of 65.
However this suggests that mailers are grasping the targeting issues as 50% of those over 65 open their mail as soon as they receive it. And 38% of women open their post in the morning compared with some 27% of males who are more inclined to open their mail in the evening (35%).
