USPS study: advertising mailings delivered to door are rejected less frequently

by | May 6, 2015 | Direct Mail, USPS

USPS Study: Advertising Mailings Delivered to Door Are Rejected Less By Recipients

USPS Study: Advertising Mailings Delivered to Door Are Rejected Less By Recipients

The USPS has released a new study conducted by professor Michael D. Bradley, an economist with George Washington University, examining the degree to which mail box location (door slot, cubside box, or cluster box) affects recipients’ response rates to advertising mailings.

The study was based on a survey sent to 5,000 U.S. households. It found that delivery mode had a strong impact on recipients’ engagement with advertising mail.

The study notes that “results from extensive data analyses indicate that cluster box recipients had significantly lower read and respond rates than door recipients for all types of advertising mail. In a number of instances, the cluster box read and respond rates were half of those for door recipients. Cluster box recipients also had higher discard without reading rates than door recipients.”

The study warns that “centralized delivery will lower Postal Service delivery costs, but could have implications on the demand side.” Because the USPS is now moving to a more centralized delivery model increasingly reliant on cluster boxes, the study authors suggest that “the Postal Service and advertising mailers work together to understand these potential impacts.”

The complete study is available for inspection here:
https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2015/rarc-wp-15-009.pdf