1. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MAIL
MAIL IN THE HOME,
HEART AND HEAD

2. 18 MONTHS OF RESEARCH 12 Ethnography households 14 focus groups
99 depth interviews
213 Neuroscience / biometric participants
401 BrandScience’s ‘Results Vault’ cases
416 IPA Effectiveness Databank cases
1,000+ academic articles reviewed
9,504 respondents across our telephone and online quantitative surveys

3. THE STORY OF THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MAIL
Mail in the Home
Mail in the Heart
Mail in the Head
Mail in the Wallet
Summary

4. MAIL IN THE HOME
LIFE BEYOND THE LETTERBOX

5. MAIL’S JOURNEY ISN’T OVER WHEN IT HITS THE DOORMAT
Adults read their mail on average for 22 minutes a day.
1.15PM: Collects mail and brings it into the home with other bags and belongings
5.30PM: Uses laptop again to get further details on the piece of mail from earlier
8.30PM: Brings catalogue into lounge to read
1.30PM: Opens mail whilst doing other jobs
2.15PM: Opens parcel
Mail flows through the household – it is passed around, discussed and displayed in more ways and for longer than previously thought.
And rather than being opened and read on the doormat, we saw that participants interact with their mail, fitting it in around their daily life, even revisiting mail later in the day.
The IPA Touchpoints survey shows that on average adults read their mail for 22 minutes a day. This compares to magazines, read on average 14 minutes per day. However, with magazines, attention is split between editorial and advertising. With mail, 100% of attention is on the advertising content itself.
2.30PM: Uses laptop to get details on a piece of mail received
Source: IPA Touchpoints 5 (Data based on Monday – Saturday morning); Royal Mail MarketReach, Media Moments, Trinity McQueen, 2013

6. for bills and statements
PEOPLE GIVE MAIL TIME
Mail is kept for extended periods, creating a constant presence in the home.
17 days
for mail
38 days
for door drops
45 days
for bills and statements
People not only spend time reading advertising mail, they can take their time with it; we’ve seen that they typically keep it around the house for more than two weeks.
In fact, many advertisers report that results from mail come in for 3-6 months or even more.
So mail not only gives brands more time in customers' hands, it gives them more time in their homes.
Mail can be a constant presence for a considerable time
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Ethnographic Quant, Trinity McQueen, 2014
TGI Kantar Media, 2014

7. AND SPACE
80% of adults kept some mail that companies had sent them in the last four weeks.
‘The Holding area’ where it is kept before being dealt with
‘The Pile’ for mail that has been read and will be revisited
‘The Display area’ for useful or important items (local information, time limited offers)
Holding area
Pile
Recent data from Kantar Media’s TGI study shows that 80% of adults kept some mail that companies had been sent to them in the last four weeks.
But people not only give mail time in the home, they also give it a specific space.
Data from IPA Touchpoints 5 confirms that 69% of people have a specific place in the house where they store advertising mail such as coupons, catalogues, brochures and vouchers – all of which helps to keep your message in the household longer.
Display Area
Source: TGI, Kantar Media, 2014; Royal Mail MarketReach, Media Moments, Trinity McQueen, 2013

8. MAIL GETS DISPLAYED
39% of people have a dedicated display area for mail in the home
Those display areas are particularly important – keeping your message visible, like a poster space in the home.
We noticed how mail was used as functional decoration, occupying a designated space in a room.
The follow-up survey supported this, with 39% of people saying they had a dedicated display area for mail, which was usually the kitchen (51% of people who have a dedicated area).
So mail doesn’t just deliver the message, it quite literally nails it to the wall.
By thinking creatively about ways to encourage people to display your mail, it can become visible to everyone in the household.
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Ethnographic Quant, Trinity McQueen, 2014

9. MAIL GETS OPENED – AT HIGH RATES
Statement, bill or information update
83%
Brochure from a company they have ordered from before
71%
Letter – promotion or special offer
69%
Letter – about a product/service they don’t have
60%
Leaflet without an address about a product/service
59%
Leaflet without an address about a promotion/offer
54%
Brochure from a company not ordered from before
54%
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Ethnographic Quant, Trinity McQueen, 2014

10. MAIL IS SHARED An average of 23% of mail is shared within a household.
Brochure from a company I have ordered from before
29%
Statement, bill or information update
24%
Letter – about a product/service they don’t have
25%
Average of 23%
of mail shared
within a household
Brochure from a company not ordered from before
23%
Leaflet without an address about a promotion/offer
Mail not only moves around the home, it also moves from person to person.
An average of 23% of all mail gets passed around other people in the home or household, extending the reach of your message beyond the named recipient. And this increases to 29% when it’s a brochure from a company which the recipient has bought from before.
Sharing is, understandably, more common in shared households.
But since the inhabitants of shared households tend to be younger, this has particular implications for the audience for mail.
For example, according to IPA Touchpoints 5, there is evidence to suggest that year olds are:
42% more likely to find mail memorable than the UK population as a whole
71% more likely to trust the advertising mail they receive
So, if a mail piece is a conversation starter, it might not only get additional people seeing it, it can potentially get your brand talked about over and over again.
22%
Letter – promotion or special offer
21%
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Ethnographic Quant, Trinity McQueen, 2014

11. SUMMARY
Mail brings a brand into the home where it is not just kept, but often displayed and shared
It extends reach to additional individuals
It’s seen multiple times

12. MAIL IN THE HEART
CREATING AN EMOTIONAL
RESPONSE

13. TOUCH CREATES A POWERFUL EMOTIONAL RESPONSE
When people can both see and touch something, they value it 24% more highly than if they can only see it.
Over a third of people say that the physical properties of mail influence how they feel about the sender.   
+22%
+24%
Behavioural marketing experts have investigated the importance of touch in human psychology.
Multisensory stimulation seems to alter the way the brain processes messages – often making processing quicker.
Physical contact results in what psychologists call the ‘endowment effect’ – a sense of ownership over an item which makes people value it more highly.
Scientific experiments have shown that people value something they can see and touch 24% more highly than something they can only see.
Meaning that the physical nature of mail gives it a sense of importance as well as influencing how they feel about the sender.
Participants were asked to subjectively grade ownership and value on a 7 point scale.
Source: Peck, Joann, and Suzanne B. Shu. The Effect of Mere Touch on Perceived Ownership. Journal of Consumer Research, 2009; IPA Touchpoints 5, 2014

14. PEOPLE FEEL VALUED AND HAVE A BETTER IMPRESSION OF THE BRAND
The emotional impact of mail versus
MAIL
63%
18%
I am more likely to take it seriously
57%
It makes me feel more valued
17%
It gives me a better impression of that company
25%
55%
A 2013 article in Scientific American showed that there is still a strong preference for reading on paper, driven by the physical properties of mail.
And this preference for reading on paper does in fact translate into a preference for advertising mail over communication.
For example, we discovered that 63% of people say that they are more likely to take mail seriously, compared to just 18% of people for .
But not only does mail give a better impression of the company than (55% vs 25%), people also feel more valued when they receive mail rather than (57% vs 17%). .
(% True of Mail vs. True of )
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Mail and Digital Part 1, Quadrangle, 2013

15. MAIL IN THE HEAD
HOW MAIL IMPACTS THE BRAIN

17. THE BRAIN RESPONDS MORE STRONGLY TO MAIL THAN TO TV OR EMAIL
Mail had a much more powerful overall impact on the key measures of the neuroscience study than or TV.
Mail delivers a stronger brain response, on these measures, than tv or .
This response to mail is also universal. Whilst different indicators are stronger for different age groups, the overall effect remains strong regardless of age.
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Neuro-Insight 2013

18. So why are people’s brains reacting in such a uniformly positive way to advertising presented in a physical medium?
Well, it could be that stimulating more than one sense speeds up the brain’s ability to process information. For example, in learning experiments performance is consistently better when vision is accompanied by sound, when compared to just vision alone.
And the same applies to touch because it appears that the tactile effects of mail do something similar by making the absorption of messages easier, potentially making them more memorable.
In Kantar Media’s TGI survey, 80% of respondents say that they can remember seeing or reading some advertising mail sent to them in the last four weeks. And when we asked about advertising mail that the respondents found useful or interesting, 60% said that it helped to keep the sender’s brand top of mind.

19. MAIL IN THE WALLET HOW MAIL MAKES MONEY
So, we have seen the role mail plays in people’s homes and how it impacts positively on the heads and hearts of consumers.
What our research also shows is that mail is highly effective at delivering return on investment (ROI), performing not just in terms of sales and direct response, but also on incremental reach, efficient growth of market share, brand switching and cost per new customer acquisition.
But mail also helps in getting new audiences to engage and respond so it can make a
significant difference when integrated into multi-channel communications planning.
We believe it is important to demonstrate the impact mail has on the full range of
marketing and communications measures and to see how these lead to tangible
business results.

20. MAIL DELIVERS ROI
Mail ROI showed a strong channel performance in BrandScience cases
We commissioned BrandScience to conduct a meta-analysis of advertiser econometric models – 401 cases (56 of which used direct mail and 42 of which used door drops), each representing one year with an average of 3 campaigns per year.
They discovered that mail’s ROI performance is strong and that it is similar to television and above that achieved by most other media channels covered in the analysis.
Door drops also deliver excellent performance – around the same level as OOH (out of home / posters).
Of the 56 cases using direct mail, we found that mail and door drops did well versus other channels, and that both deserved to be included/considered in their own right.
Revenue Return on Investment of clients using direct mail
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach BrandScience, 2014

21. MAIL CREATES A MEASURABLE MEDIA MULTIPLIER EFFECT
Total ROI increased 12% when mail was included in the mix.
When mail was included in an integrated plan, total communications revenue ROI jumped from £4.22 to £4.73 – a 12% increase.
The inclusion of mail particularly showed increased revenue ROI from campaigns using TV and print. This is in line with the neuroscience research where we saw a strong interaction between mail and TV. 
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, BrandScience 2014; advertiser cases including mail versus cases without mail.

22. MAIL DELIVERS NEW AUDIENCES
Adding mail to the mix opens up new responsive audiences. When mail is added to the schedule
Adding mail to the mix also delivers new responsive audiences. This is not just from media multiplier theory.
Royal Mail consumer research shows us that different people like to be communicated with through different channels at different points in the customer journey. In our Mail & research for example, we found that 68% of people prefer companies to use some communication by mail.
With mail added to the mix, in our Digital and Mail: Part 1 research, we could identify that 13% more consumers visited the sender’s website, 21% more consumers made purchases and 35% more consumers redeemed coupons or vouchers .
versus on its own
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Mail and Digital Part 1, Quadrangle, 2013

23. 3.4x 2.9x WITH MAIL IN THE MIX, MARKET SHARE GREW 3x MORE EFFICIENTLY
Mail included in multi-channel campaigns drove market share growth with 3x the efficiency versus non-mail advertisers.
2.9x
Market share growth for all clients
3.4x
Market share growth for service sector
Furthermore the results of this analysis showed that where mail was included it drove market share growth with 3 x the efficiency of those that did not include mail.
A brand spending the same amount of money on two campaigns, would therefore experience three times the amount of market share growth from one that included mail than one that did not.
Comparing market share growth per 10 Extra Share of Voice points (ESOV) shows the increase in efficiency of advertising plans including mail.
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, IPA Databank Meta-Analysis, Peter Field, 2013

24. OUR
SUMMARY

25. SUMMARY
Mail brings a brand into the home where it is kept, displayed, and/or shared
Its tactile qualities have powerful emotional and rational impact that can be identified and proven
Mail makes your message more memorable
Mail drives successful return on investment
When used in integrated campaigns, it can provide a measurable media multiplier effect
Mail delivers top-ranking sales and acquisition growth and efficient market share growth