Don’t Forget Your Mail

October 21, 2016      Tom Belford

I love the mail.

I love checking my mailbox — a real mail box with a red flag — six days a week.

Indeed I even have two mailboxes … and one is actually at a real post office! I treasure my copper mailbox key.

I love to feel my way through the mail, regarding some with professional disdain, admiring some for their creativity and ability to win my attention (why did that particulate piece win my attention?), sorting it into ‘today’ and ‘later’ (all bills … yes, I even still get some bills in the mail) and, sure, tossing the rest.

That’s why I eagerly read DMN’s recent report, Direct Mail Right On Target. As a confessed mail junkie, I like to think this report was written just for me.

Some factoids:

  • The average American spends 25 minutes a day with mail — dubbed ‘the mail moment’ by McCann’s CEO;
  • Direct mail advertising in the US draws revenue of $12 billion;
  • Direct mail on average achieves a 3.7% response rate with a house list, 1% with a prospect list, while all digital channels combined achieve a .62% response;
  • 26% of US internet users will use an ad blocker in 2016 … expected to reach 86.6 million users in 2017 … it’s a number that won’t go down.

Some interesting direct mail case studies too. One involving direct mail pieces with a video player inside. Workable approach for high dollar donors, bequests? And what about customized postcards driven automatically by website visits?

Now, I’m not going to insist that you rush to download this report. Of course it’s designed to promote the direct mail biz. And you hopefully don’t need convincing.

But I will ask this question: Thinking of your donors, which do you think they most enjoy receiving and reviewing each day … their mail or their email? Especially over the peak year-end fundraising season when they’ll be receiving an avalanche of emails each day.

Don’t forget your mail.

Tom

3 responses to “Don’t Forget Your Mail”

  1. Meredith says:
    October 21, 2016 at 3:22 am

    A friend shared this piece around how email is simultaneously addictive and usually disappointing, yet ultimately inescapable so we need strategies for dealing with it: http://www.npr.org/2016/10/17/498292041/unsubscribe-outlines-how-to-change-your-email-habits?sc=17&f

    One of the key strategies the researcher recommends is “batching” email: carving out dedicated spaces of time to methodically go through your inbox rather than constantly checking. I admit that when I have the discipline to do this, I find email significantly less overwhelming — the issue for me is curiosity/boredom often win out and I check more than I mean to. I wonder if actual mail is more rewarding in part because the way it’s delivered forces you into that “batching” strategy (i.e. the “mail moments” are self-creating)?

    On the times when I am really disciplined about not checking for an extended period (say, when I am on holiday), the sheer volume that accumulates is absolutely daunting. My real mailbox never feels so intimidating after an absence. Maybe that’s because the costs involved in creating and sending a mailing mean the sender is more disciplined about what goes out and to whom?

    Who knew the postal service had designed such a finely calibrated reward mechanism?

  2. Jay Love says:
    October 21, 2016 at 8:51 am

    Splendid points Tom!

    Just like a new hard cover novel always wins me over too…

  3. Mary Cahalane says:
    October 21, 2016 at 11:39 am

    Hooray for real mail!

Ask A Behavioral Scientist

    Behavioral Science Q & A

    The Agitator Tool Box

    Ideas, applications, tools, processes, and case studies of break-through solutions in fundraising, including: