80% of Email is trashed without opening… only 4% of direct mail is trashed without opening

One of the startling statistics to emerge from some ground-breaking research done in the UK is that 40% of all mail received by the average household is still hanging around 4 weeks later. It might be filed away, pinned to the noticeboard, in a heap on the sideboard, or just generally lying around. But it's still there.

The same research by the Royal Mail shows that only 4% of mail is trashed without opening it, whereas 72% is immediately opened, looked at and even read. The rest is saved for later.

The research conducted by the Royal Mail, was based on 200 households keeping a diary over the course of a month, to record every single thing that happened to every single piece of mail received.

The findings aren’t all that surprising as mailers are using personalisation and segmentation More effectively. The really smart players, where the call to action is to drive people online, Make use of personalised URLs.