What's In Your Mail?

95.9 BILLION Invitations or announcements First-Class Mail® Advertising 8.1% Bills, invoices 2.1% or premiums 12.5% Financial statements 4.7% Notices of order 2.1% 103.5 Insurance policies 0.9% Standard MailTM & Periodicals BILLION Business or nontederal vernment agency Greeting cards 2.7% Invitations 0.4% 31.4% Letters 0.7% Mail-order company 54.2% Specialty FATE store Personal mail 22.1% Department 3.8% store Flyers & circulars Save 11.3% 17.3% Magatines & Tsleters TA Nickel 4.3% Catalogs 14.5% Letter-size direct mail 23.1% Hellal Postcards Donation Nonprolit. What's in the Customer's Mailstream? 7.1% requents 3.8% Reporting by Paula Andruss, Illustration by Jude Buffum Marketers are really good at understanding what makes a mail piece stand out, but it's not always clear what that piece needs to stand out against. What does the rest of the consumer mailstream look like? As your target customers rifle through their daily mail, what other pieces are they likely to encounter as they consider, open and discard their way through their mail piles? To find out, we waded into the two biggest tributaries to the U.S. mailstream – First-Class Mail and Standard Mail & Periodicals - to get a better idea of what American households were getting in their box. Here's what we learned. (NOTE: All data is from 2007, the year for which the most recent figures for mail to U.S. households are available.) 2.3% Source: USPS Household Diary Study: Mail Use and Attitudes, FY 2007