Your 41 pounds of junk mail

By Gina Roberts-Grey

When's the last time a personal letter turned up in your mailbox? The holidays? Your birthday? If you're like most people, you receive about 1.5 pieces of personalized mail -- including bills -- each week.

And 16 pieces of junk mail.

The average household sifts through 41 pounds of junk mail annually, sending most to the circular file, says Sander DeVries, a co-founder of 41 Pounds, a Michigan nonprofit trying to reduce the environmental impact of junk mail.

"I only read about 5 to 10% of the junk mail we get," says Nancy Mann Jackson, 34, of Florence, Ala. "Most of it is trash."

The vast majority of junk mail does indeed wind up in the trash (35% of it is never even delivered), yet it is among the most effective marketing tools. That's largely because -- though the array of catalogs, circulars, leaflets and offers in your mailbox may leave you scratching your head -- somewhere, somehow, your own actions are probably responsible for the junk mail that comes to your door.

Yet few of us know how or why we get the particular junk mail that we do or that there are easy ways to greatly limit how much we receive.

Trash isn't cheap

"If it were 'junk,' you wouldn't get as much as you do. You get it because it works," says Gerald McKiernan, the media-relations manager for the Postal Service. He prefers the terms "direct mail" or "advertising mail" to "junk mail."

Consumers have other names for it, too. "It's the hard-copy version of spam. I toss out junk mail before I even leave the mailroom," says Wendy Lewis, 50, of New York.

Environmentalists share Lewis' perspective. In a typical year, junk mail leaves a carbon footprint equal to that of 9 million cars, or the emissions generated by heating nearly 13 million homes for the winter, according to a report by ForestEthics (.pdf), a nonprofit environmental group.

If most people hate it, then why is there so much "advertising mail"? Because a lot of people still read it, and a good number of them respond to it, making it a highly effective way to advertise.

"Direct advertising mail and catalogs account for more than $702 billion in U.S. sales and 10 million jobs annually," says Neil O'Keefe, a vice president of the Direct Marketing Association, a company that represents about 80% of credit card, home insurance and magazine subscription offers that find their way to your mailbox.

He says the largest class of junk mail, known as direct mail because it's addressed specifically to the recipients, is a big moneymaker. "The return on investment is twice as effective as traditional broadcast advertising, with direct mail yielding a $25 return on every $1 invested," O'Keefe says. "Catalogs have a $7 return."

The direct approach

Ironically, the path to direct mail begins with you.

When you shop at a store, that merchant may enter your contact information in his or her database, and you'll begin to receive additional offers from the store. That's the simplest way. But direct mail is also referred to as "targeted" for a reason: It's often aimed at a specific demographic whose buying and browsing habits put a bull's-eye on their mailboxes.

Some things that determine the direct mail you get:

• Your lifestyle. Sign up to receive mailings from your favorite fabric shop and you're probably going to get mail related to similar hobbies (scrapbooking and other crafts, for example). "The thought is, if you're spending money at Michael's, you're a prime potential customer of Jo-Ann's," O'Keefe says. The names in frequent-shopper and discount-club databases are also often purchased by stores in your area offering similar merchandise. So if you have a discount card for CVS, don't be surprised to get promotional mail from Walgreens.

• Your location. If you've recently shopped at Home Depot and Lowe's is headed to your neighborhood, expect to receive mailers touting the grand opening.

• Your hobbies. Subscribing to magazines, belonging to a professional organization, entering a contest or contributing to a charity will increase your mail. These groups all keep records of the people who've once been customers, donors or participants. And not only will they solicit your repeat patronage, they rent, share or sell those records with others hoping to add you to their rosters.

Continued: How merchants share information

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