Let's Check the Mail Moments

/
DENNIS HOFFMAN, CEO ENGAGE USA

DENNIS HOFFMAN, CEO
ENGAGE USA

At the beginning of the year, the Postal Service released Mail Moments – a compilation of mail recipient statistics and insights. 

USPS hired a research firm to survey customers and gather information “to understand mail behavior, overall mail habits, and bill payment activities.”

There’s a lot of great info to consider. I found some of it surprising.

Here are some highlights:

  • Baby Boomers spend the least amount of time “sorting and opening/reading their mail” compared to Millennials or Gen X – just 10.2 minutes. That’s nearly 4 minutes less than Millennials.  

Boomers are key contributors to nonprofit causes. This stat underscores the importance of well-designed artwork on outer envelopes and easily skim-able letter copy. Their attention needs to be effectively caught – and once they’re reading a letter, they need to be efficiently appealed to because there may not be much time to do so.

Sort.gif

  • The percentage of people who “pick up and sort their mail” as soon as possible fell from 86% in 2017 to 82% in 2018. Boomers especially saw a decline – falling from 86% to 80%. 

For time sensitive campaigns, this suggests the window of opportunity to appeal to some donors could be smaller.

  • On the other hand, 86% of people – including 91% of Boomers – still collect their mail 4 or more times a week. And 68% of people – including 76% of Boomers – collect their mail every delivery day. Only about 5% of people collect their mail once a week or less. 

This is good news as it means people tend not to let their mail sit in their mailboxes for very long – even though it appears they may not open it as quickly these days.