During the fourth quarter of 2009 (October – December) 1,239 mailings were tracked.  Overall, approximately 95 percent of the test pieces that were mailed were received even though 100 percent of the original addresses were correct.  This could be a result of a number of factors including faulty imaging of addresses, faulty insertion equipment, production wastage, or postal mishandling.

The average delivery time, across the United States was just over 10 days with the average maximum delivery time across all mailings being 29 days.  The average minimum delivery time across all mailings was 1 day.

Thus, a mailer can expect about a 28 day difference between the earliest delivery and the latest delivery.  This has implications for such practices as “protecting” mail dates, using “doubling dates” and planning on “in home” dates for time sensitive materials.

This study, undertaken by the DMA Nonprofit Federation in cooperation with US Monitor will be ongoing and each quarter reports on changes in the ratio of pieces delivered and the timeliness of delivery will be reported publicly.  The United States Postal Service is undergoing efforts to provide measurements of their own performance and the DMA Nonprofit Federation, on behalf of Non-Profit Standard mailers will continue to provide this type of reporting.  Our heartfelt thanks to Paul Ercolino, President of US Monitor for providing us with the ability to conduct this research.