Junk Mail Survey: Not Much Difference Between Mail and Email

Junk mail has been a daily occurrence for many Americans for years. Now, many companies have switched over to contacting potential consumers via email rather than snail mail. Does changing the avenue change the customer’s perception of the message, or is it just seen as more junk mail sent in a different form?

Junk Mail

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest survey, 23% of respondents said they receive junk mail daily. 37% said they receive it fairly regularly, 35% said they receive it sometimes, and just 6% said they don’t ever receive advertisements or special offers that they’ve never asked for.Just 2% of these respondents said that they often make purchases based on this type of mail. 5% said they often at least look at this type of mail and sometimes make purchases based on what they see. 23% said they look through their junk mail sometimes, and make purchases rarely. And 70% said they hardly ever even look at this type of mail.

Junk Email

So how many companies are trying to contact people via email instead of traditional mail? 33% of respondents said they receive advertising emails that they haven’t signed up for daily, 32% receive this type of email fairly regularly, and 29% said they receive it sometimes. Just 7% said they never receive this type of email.It seems the numbers are pretty comparable, but what about the attitudes? Just 1% of respondents who receive this type of email said they often make purchases based on them. 4% said they usually at least look at the emails and sometimes make purchases. 21% said they sometimes look at the emails and might purchase rarely. And 74% said they hardly ever look at the emails.

Advertising Lists

Since many consumers don’t act on the information they receive via junk mail, do they ever actually sign up to receive advertisements or special offers from companies they like? 10% of respondents said they sign up to receive this type of information via mail or email from many companies. 27% said they sign up for this type of information from some companies, 45% said they sign up for this type of information from just a few companies, and 19% don’t sign up for any company mail or email lists.The widget below shows the results of the AYTM.com survey in full. Be sure to click “open full report” for full details.Photo Credit: The heaping pile o’ mail again from FlickrWhat do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected on February 28 via AYTM’s online survey panel.