The time we spend with mail

We found some interesting research on direct mail from England of all places, where an organization named JICMAIL shared findings from a major year-long study — 'The Time We Spend With Mail'. The research quantifies the amount of time consumers spend with their mail. The average piece of consumer direct mail is looked at for 108 seconds across the course of a month, while the average piece of business-to-business direct mail is viewed for 150 seconds.

The researchers found that the mail channel is more attention efficient than a host of other media platforms, resulting in the recommendation that it is a "must-have" channel on attention-based media plans.

Key findings include:

• Mail is a high attention media channel. The average consumer direct mail item generates 108 seconds of attention across 28 days; while B2B mail gets 150 seconds of attention.
• Mail attention is strongly linked to commercial effectiveness. There is a 2x to 5x multiplier for time spent with direct mail items. Commercially effective mail items drive a range of effects including purchases, sports, discussions and voucher redemptions.
• Mail in turn generates a huge amount of digital attention for brands' owned channels: the average mail item which prompts advertiser website visits, does so for five minutes a session on average.
• Location in the home and contextual relevance are key drivers of mail attention. The living room and kitchen are particularly high mail attention environments, with charity, medical and government mail often found in the former and retail and restaurant mail often found in the latter.

When you compare the times spent with direct mail to the fleeting impression you might gain from views of a digital ad, you can easily see the benefit that direct mail provides to the marketing mix.