My current role is specialising in applying behavioural science to marketing, but prior to that, I worked as a media planner. I think from that media planning background, mail’s main element of appeal was the targeting capabilities. And that offers a wonderful opportunity to tap into a remarkable range of biases. So, for example, because you know someone's physical location, you can enhance one of the most powerful behavioural biases: ‘social proof’.
Social proof is this long-standing idea that we are deeply affected by what others do and we're most influenced by people like ourselves. There's a famous mailing that HMRC sent out in 2011 - 140,000 letters - saying ‘pay your tax on time, otherwise we'll fine you’. Around 68% of people pay on time. They then test social proof. Same letter, but they add, ‘9 out of 10 people pay their tax on time’, and you see a 5 percentage point increase. But the interesting bit is, they then send another group a message that is tailored to their area. So, it might say; ‘Please pay your tax on time. 9 out of 10 people in Herne Hill do’. And there, you see around a 15 percentage point increase. So, you've got this data about where people live, and by reframing the popularity of the behaviour you want to encourage, so that it references locality, you can boost the impact of social proof
There are other biases that mail is super useful at harnessing, another is this set of ideas called ‘Costly Signalling’. Various studies have suggested that the persuasiveness and trustworthiness of a piece of communication is proportional to its expense, and that higher spend acts as a genuine, credible filtering mechanism. Only people who really believe in their product do it. And I think at the heart of it, that's direct mail's strength.
“Because mail has a physicality, that means that people are going to trust the message slightly more.”
In a world of limitless, seemingly costless emails, mail is now seen as a costly signal. People will always give greater credence to a medium that has that slight perception of costliness. I think the reaction is if you receive an email, there's no signal from the brand that this communication has an expense to them. Therefore, it feels less meaningful. If you send out something physical through the mail it must have value. And because mail has a physicality, that means that people are going to trust the message slightly more. If something's transient, it's disappeared. It's gone. There's less reputational damage at stake if you don't live up to your promises.
Mail’s physicality also might make your message more memorable. There is a 2013 study from the University of Stavanger, by Anne Mangen, where she gets people to read a 1,500 word essay. Some people read it on a laptop, some people read a paper version. And she finds that the group who read the paper version are significantly more likely to remember the details than those who read the digital version. Her argument is that it's due to this physicality and tangibility. If someone asks you to remember something, you can picture it in your mind's eye. You can remember it's on the left-hand page or it was under the subheading, or it was next to the diagram.
When you bring data into the equation there’s loads of lovely studies that suggest it can have huge effects on a mail campaign. One of my favourite studies is from 2014 by an NYU psychologist, Adam Alter, called ‘nine-enders’. And his argument is that people whose ages end in 9 - 29, 39, 49, etc - are particularly open to making massive changes to their life.
He uses an American website called Athlinks and shows that first time marathon runners are 48% more likely to be nine-enders than other ages. He looks at a site called Ashley Madison where there’s 8 million male users and shows that men are 18% more likely to join when their age ends in 9. This repeated finding across multiple different datasets shows that nine-enders are more open to change.
“You need the theory, the data, and then the ability to act on it. And mail is a perfect medium to be able to do that.”
With many broadcast media you can't really do much with that. But if it's a direct campaign, those types of lists can allow you to target your activity to this moment when people are most predisposed to change. The dataset can accurately identify people, but you need a medium where you can discreetly target those groups. So, you need the theory, the data, and then the ability to act on it. And mail is a perfect medium to be able to do that.
I love the fact that with mail, if you've got the right dataset, you can apply these tactics. It’s a great way of transitioning some of the behavioural science studies from theory to practice. And, frankly, if they just stay as theoretical things, they're not much use to anyone. Mail is an opportunity to bring theories into the real world.
Mail is tangible and trustable and it can reach windows of opportunity that other media can't.
Like Rory Sutherland always says ‘You wouldn’t send out invites to a wedding by email’.
We know it in our personal lives. Why wouldn't you do it as a brand?
Watch Richard Shotton in Mail Unleashed
In this episode Richard unveils the key to being distinctive, how mail can change a consumer’s perception and generally how our minds work when we’re considering a brand.
