In the two years since Pitney Bowes last conducted its Household Mail Preference study in March 1999, it found the percentage of households with e-mail access increased from 34 percent to 53 percent. The preference for regular mail also dominates categories such as product announcements and promotional mailings. The Pitney Bowes study was conducted by telephone with 1,009 U.S. households, and its findings are based on the 53 percent of those households with e-mail access. In the eyes of consumers, the biggest advantage postal mail has over e-mail lies in security.
Consumers also consider postal mail less time demanding.
More than 60 percent said getting and opening their regular mail is faster than retrieving their e-mail. When asked which type of communication they are likely to discard unopened, the responding households reported that 66 percent of the unsolicited e-mails are never read, compared with 26 percent for regular mail. Message volumes keep climbing, and when compared to e-mail, regular mail is winning the vote of American households. Mail is universal, it does not require special training or hardware, it is secure and personal, and it is the easiest and most effective marketing tool that business can use when communicating with customers. In fact, the United Messaging report suggests there may not be much room left for growth in the U.S. corporate e-mail market.