JICMAIL Research Uncovers Power of Print

JICMAIL the Joint Industry Committee for Mail has shared its latest research on how often people interact with their mail – essentially the frequency of interaction. Using a panel of 1,000 nationally-representative UK households, every single mail item that appears in the home is recorded using a special diary-based app on their smartphone. The households are asked to record everything about the mail piece and what action they took after receiving it – whether they opened it, threw it away, put it on a notice board or had a conversation about it. The resulting count was around 20,000 responses every year, which builds a complete picture of frequency of interaction.

The results may be surprising in an increasingly digital world. After tracking over 80,000 items the average interaction rate or frequency of exposure for a piece of DM is 4.2 times. Existing planning systems assume that people look at mail once then chuck it away, but we know that it’s looked at around four times during the month. Also, the average piece of DM is statistically seen by 1.13 people, so there’s an additional reach of 13% it doesn’t receive the credit for.

Another surprise is the number of younger audiences interacting with mail; a potential opportunity for brands to reach young people who aren’t being targeted by much mail. As expected, direct mail drives online web traffic making it a key element of a broader, integrated campaign picture. There may be some cynicism out there about the power of print but this data is important news for brands connecting with their marketplace.