Inkjet & Digital Printing

InfoPrint Survey Confirms 75 Percent of Americans Prefer Environmentally Certified Traditional Mail

Tuesday 15. September 2009 - Results Highlight the Value of Relevancy in Print and Consumers' Trust for Printed Communications Over Email

PRINT 09 — Three out of four respondents would consider opting for traditional mail delivery if they were informed it had less of a negative environmental impact than email, according to a recent survey by InfoPrint Solutions Company, a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh. This is despite the current push from leading banks and credit card companies to move to electronic communications. Added to this, more than half of those polled by InfoPrint would unsubscribe to email newsletters due to a lack of content relevancy.
50 percent of consumers still prefer to receive marketing information about new products or services via traditional mail rather than email. Only 44 percent of respondents would rather receive marketing via email, the survey showed.
TransPromo, the combination of must-read important documents and relevant promotions, is a key tactic to ensure print remains the preferred method for consumers to receive vital communications and to cut through the clutter of irrelevant junk mail, whether electronic or hard copy.
“Traditional mail is still an extremely trusted source for valued communications like bills and statements and in many instances, needs to be compared against email. It is clear from the results that consumers are aware of the need to be more sustainable and will make changes to help decrease the negative affect of their communications on the environment,” said Lee Gallagher, Manager, Direct Marketing Solutions at InfoPrint. “Combine this with the fact that consumers feel bombarded by irrelevant marketing content received via email such as promotions, e-newsletters and other spam results, and it is evident that consumers are tired of this barrage of non-personalized communications. Implementing precise marketing, using TransPromo techniques, is invaluable to any company trying to reach specific audiences and reduce the amount of printed paper.”
When asked what types of traditional mail they receive, nearly 60 percent of those surveyed responded with monthly bills second only to promotional offers, received by 68 percent of respondents. This is compared to 63 percent stating they mostly receive promotional offers via email followed next by e-newsletters with 57 percent.
Attitudes to delivery format showed that while 71 percent of respondents always open email containing a monthly bill and 60 percent will always open an email containing a bank statement, when asked about opening traditional mail, response rates nearly doubled. 92 percent of consumers always open monthly bills and 83 percent always open bank statements received in the mail, showing a higher level of trust attached to traditional mail versus email.
“There is a growing desire to throw the ‘promotional baby’ out with the ‘mail bathwater’ in a frenzy to send all of our messages through email and online channels. But, what this research indicates is that consumers still trust, value and consume content via traditional mail, making the need to utilize solutions that embrace online and offline integration more important than ever for today’s marketer,” said Liz Miller, Vice President of Programs and Operations, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council. “If we listen to this voice of the customer, we must look to eliminate mass, meaningless messaging that clog up both inbox and the mailbox and look for channels of engagement that consumers themselves define as valuable.”
InfoPrint offers customers a Suite of TransPromo Solutions that has already proven remarkable cost-savings and return on investment. Customers in the hospitality industry and cable space have worked with InfoPrint to garner these results.