People of all ages like mail

10 Aug 2016

At Royal Mail MarketReach, we’ve just published our latest research which looks at how different consumer segments feel about, engage with, and respond to mail.

Initially we categorised consumer behaviours by age. However, we discovered that deeper exploration was required, and segmenting by life stage provided a better prediction of attitudes and responses.

Our findings looked into the consumer preferences of people at seven different life stages – everyone from young people still living at home, to parents with children and retirees.

We found that people of all life stages like mail, but saw differences in the preferred channels to buy or order used across the different life stages.

Despite the assumption that younger audiences have a high affinity to digital channels, we discovered that young adults living at home were actually among the most positive about mail, with 32% more likely to trust information in print over digital. They also showed a higher open rate than other groups. This may be due to the novelty factor as they often receive less mail than older audiences, and mail may be a respite from digital communications.

We found that parents with young children (none above primary school age) integrate digital technology and mail more than any other group. From our sample, 14.4% of Young Families responded to mail using a mobile or tablet, which was more than any other group.

Surprising preferences were identified across the different life stages, with the key takeaways being:

People of all ages read, engage with and respond to mail
There are no groups that cannot be reached or influenced by mail
Make sure you provide a variety of response channels – regardless of the life stage

For more insights and tips to better understand your audiences, whatever life stage they may be in, get a copy of our brand new research, The Life Stages of Mail.