Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software

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Are We Paying Attention?

A Study of the Attention Span Given to Bills, Statements, Official Correspondence and Direct Marketing

Download the full white paper PDF or read the summary below:

Today’s marketers not only face the traditional challenges of advertising and direct mail, but a host of new media:

  • Email
  • Web
  • SMS
  • Sponsored links
  • Blogs
  • Viral campaigns
  • Ambient media

These fragmented media make it potentially much more expensive to identify, test and roll out the optimum media combination.

Customer Relationship Management Marketing

Competition, combined with today’s fragmented media market, has shifted the focus from simple bill and statement insertions to those targeted to the recipient’s profile.

In fact, research from Group 1 software revealed that — among the top 1000 marketers in the UK — targeted marketing offers that accompany customer correspondence generate response rates of around 5.5 percent. This rate is not far off that typical of a direct mail campaign.

Target Marketing Challenges

The technical ability to print targeted messages and then insert the appropriate leaflet into an envelope, however, is relatively new.

Additionally, anecdotal feedback from industries indicates that IT departments have started charging for the use of bills and statements as a marketing channel.

Marketers, therefore, are even more focused on ensuring better ROI from putting marketing messages on transactional communications. They must assess:

  • Which combination of media to use
  • What is the level of attention consumers devote to their monthly statements vs. direct mail vs. email

Customer Communication Research

Group 1 Software commissioned independent research of a representative sample of 1000+ adults in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States.

Interviews via web survey took place in May and June of 2007. Respondents were asked to estimate the typical amount of time that they spent looking at their:

  • Hard copy mail, including bank or credit card statements, mobile phone bills, utility bills and direct mail pieces
  • Web-based bank statements and utility bills
  • Email received from a company of which the respondent was already a customer
  • “Cold” prospecting emails (excluding spam)

Two “control” factors were also introduced:

  • Time spent looking at correspondence from central or local government (excluding tax collectors)
  • Time spent looking at correspondence from tax collectors

Key Findings

Print Correspondence
  • Printed statements or bills receive more attention than their web equivalents
  • Statements could be monetized by introducing exclusive offers from affinity partners
  • Bank and credit card statements receive the most attention — even more than tax correspondence in the UK, France and US
  • Companies using direct mail have an average three minutes to get their message across
Email Communications
  • Email to existing customers receives almost as much attention as typical direct mail
  • Prospecting emails have 50-90 seconds to grab the recipient’s attention
Geographic User Behavior
  • Italians spend the most time looking at documents they are sent
  • Americans spend the least time looking at documents, closely followed by the British
  • Respondents in the US, Italy and France spend the most time looking at their mobile phone bills
  • Germans spend the most time looking at their utility bills

Common Themes

Implement Targeted Marketing on Monthly Correspondence

Because a great deal of attention is paid to monthly statements — especially financial and mobile telecoms — any such organization that is not using this “touchpoint” as a means of putting targeted marketing offers in front of the customer is simply wasting valuable sales opportunities.

Evaluate the Value of Web Self-Service

Since web statements receive significantly less attention than their printed equivalents, banks, credit card issuers, mobile telecoms companies and utilities should consider the ROI of the economies of web self-service. These companies may want to instead generate additional income through advertising on printed bills and statements.

Maintain Direct Mail Activities

While email is a powerful medium — particularly for existing customers — direct mail remains firmly ahead of cold email in terms of the attention it can command. With its universal reach and comparative lack of legislative restriction, direct mail is likely to retain its a prominent place in marketing activities.

Now that you've read the summary, Download the full white paper PDF.