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The Envelope Manufacturers Association shares results of a survey it conducted on consumer attitudes toward envelopes.

The Essential Envelope

By Steve Brocker

As communication channels grow, consumers and businesses have more alternatives for ensuring that important information reaches key audiences. New media choices, in particular, are grabbing attention and taking market share. In the last year, the Envelope Manufacturers Association (EMA) Foundation has taken a hard, objective look at where envelopes stand in the marketplace. Ours is a powerful industry: We employ more than 30,000 Americans and represent more than $1 billion in annual wages. We are a lead partner in the $900 billion mail stream.

The EMA launched its “Open for Business” campaign in 2006 with the release of a consumer preference study. The results of the study revealed that, within the paper-based communications industry, envelopes still pack a punch. We’ve spent the last year sharing this industry data with key customers and important stakeholders to remind them of the envelope’s strength. We’ve convened high-level briefings with leading direct-mail advertising agencies and with high-volume transactional mail users in the financial, insurance and telecommunications industries. What we told them was significant:

• Our consumer preference study shows unequivocally that Americans prefer and value mail in an envelope, especially to manage household information and finances.
• Eighty-four percent of Americans believe envelopes are a trusted way to leave a memorable impression and 86 percent feel envelopes are safe, secure and private vehicles for communication.
• Compared to online communications, consumers feel envelopes are more reliable (26 percent versus 21 percent online) and more private (23 percent versus 14 percent online).
• More than eight out of 10 Americans receive their bills in an envelope in the mail. They are concerned about the risk and vulnerability of online transactions and want a paper trail for documentation and error correction. More than 57 percent say getting their bills in an envelope is a more trusted method than receiving them online.
• There is clear growth in the advertising mail market, which accounts for almost 52 percent of total U.S. Postal Service’s mail volume and is growing at about 7.5 percent each year.
• Mail volume is holding strong. In 2007, the U.S. Postal Service expects a Standard Mail increase of 1.9 percent. Though rates for First-Class mail are rising next year, USPS expects overall mail volume to stay relatively steady. The envelope will continue to be used as a primary conveyer of documents and information sent through the mail.

These statistics may not surprise anyone in the paper-based communications industry; however, they are eye-openers to our customers. We’re learning that the more customers and key stakeholders hear from us, the more they understand the power of the envelope. In fact, they’re anxious and eager to know even more about how envelopes can deliver ROI to their customers.
Working With the Statistics

To sustain this momentum, the envelope industry must maintain synergy with online communications and other new media options. A dozen years ago, the internet and the mailstream looked like two boxers poised on opposite sides of the ring, ready to battle for supremacy in the direct marketing world. After some sparring in the early rounds, this highly touted winner-take-all tussle has turned into a tango. Mail uses the internet, and the internet uses the mail. Each is better because of the other. Direct marketing pundits talk about “multi-channel marketing” as a best practice to achieve maximum results. There is nothing quite like an envelope in the mail, and that’s the point.

We’ve brought industry partners together who have a stake in the mail stream and paper-based communications, because the entire paper-based communications industry must collaborate to grow and innovate. We look forward to a concerted and unified effort to encourage and promote use of the envelope and other paper-based communications.

As the “Open for Business” campaign continues, we expect to work together in aggressively responding to the needs of direct-mail decision makers at advertising agencies, direct marketers and fulfillment executives.

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