The UK General Election had a significant impact on mail volumes and engagement in the second quarter of 2024, according to data from the Joint Industry Currency for Mail (JICMAIL).
In its quarterly results, JICMAIL highlighted a 12% increase in panel volumes year-on-year, with mail from political parties accounting for 10% of volume in Q2 2024. In the run-up to the Election, Direct Mail from political parties increased by 343% year-on-year while political door drops witnessed a 324% boost.
While this is perhaps not surprising given the Election backdrop, it’s worth noting the high engagement enjoyed by political mail. On average, 45-54 year-olds spent 80 seconds with political Direct Mail as parties and local representatives battled for attention through the letterbox.
Away from the political arena, Business Mail continued to perform strongly. Frequency of Interaction/Exposure (4.80) increased 2.4% year-on-year while the Lifespan of Business Mail rose 3.9% to 8.6 days.
Business Mail Q2 2024 Headline Statistics
More Mail is Being Retained in the Home
The amount of mail being retained in the home has increased across all mail types. This demonstrates the power of mail to deliver messages that its recipients wish to keep and digest in future.
As well as the previously mentioned increase in Business Mail Lifespan, these are the results for other mail types:
- Direct Mail Lifespan is 7.3 days, up 4.3% year-on-year.
- Partially Addressed Mail Lifespan is 7.2 days, up 8.1% year-on-year.
- Door Drops Lifespan is 5.9 days, up 2.9% year-on-year.
Business Mail Attention has also held up well in Q2 2024 and remains stable quarter-on-quarter, rising 25 seconds since the end of 2022.
Download the Q2 2024 Business Mail Factsheet
Supermarket Mail Most Likely to Prompt In-Store Purchase
Non-political mail continued to demonstrate its commercial effectiveness. Of the bricks-and-mortar retailers, supermarkets benefitted the most from mail, with 15.2% of recipients going on to make an in-store purchase. The utilities sector sits top of the online table, with 7.5% of utilities mail driving a purchase.
When political mail is stripped away from the quarterly results there is a clear increase in commercial activity.
A healthy 5.3% of people made a purchase driven by mail with over half of those purchases taking place online. Meanwhile, 8% of recipient’s visited the sender’s website, boosting brand discoverability and engagement.
JICMAIL: “Confidence Returning to the Mail Channel”
JICMAIL is the industry’s leading and trusted source of reporting on the effectiveness of mail. The organisation’s comprehensive and independent research is based upon data that offers clear and actionable insight into how to mail can impact upon buying behaviour.
Ian Gibbs, JICMAIL, Director of Data Leadership and Learning, said “It’s exciting to see confidence returning to the mail channel in Q2 2024, buoyed by strong mail engagement rates and commercial effectiveness. While the General Election played a huge part in stimulating volumes, this wasn’t the only driver of growth however and it’s encouraging to see retail and travel advertisers in particular using the omni-channel strengths of the mail channel to full effect.”
Mark Cross, Engagement Director of JICMAIL added, “When it came to persuading potential voters in a particular constituency, to get their message read, engaged with and talked about in the home at a critical moment, the political parties turned to mail in droves. Some powerful cross category lessons and nuggets of insight available here for the wider industry!"
Download the Q2 2024 Business Mail Factsheet
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