Falling Direct-Mail Response Rate

Card issuers set another monthly direct-mail record in May by sending 433 million solicitations. Volume declined slightly in June to 419 million. Response rates in both months were dismal: 0.4 percent in May, falling to 0.3 percent in June. BAGlobal reports that the response rate to direct-mail credit card solicitations fell in June to only 0.3 percent, down from May's response rate of 0.4 percent. Andrew Davidson, vice president of competitive tracking at BAIGlobal, Inc. attributes the low response rate to mail box "clutter." During June, 79 percent of all U.S. households received at least one solicitation. Households that received offers found an average of 5.1 in their mailboxes. For the entire second quarter of this year, 26 percent of those households receiving offers got seven or more offers each month.