Since January 2004, I've collected and saved every letter sent to my household or my business by a financial institution of which I have no customer affiliation.  I suspect that what is sent to me is fairly typical of what most households receive, and as such my observations about trends and quantity may be representative of what the general public experiences.  If what I receive is typical, then your customers are being inundated by competitors—something you already knew but maybe haven't specifically quantified: 18 different institutions sending me 116 letters over a period of about 75 days—and that's just this past quarter.

Can community and regional institutions compete with this competition? Can they afford not to?

In the table below, you'll recognize most of the names.  If these successful and well respected institutions are using this much direct mail, it's because the medium gets results.  Before you say it's all credit card letters and is therefore safe to ignore, guess again.  Capital One is offering me business and personal loans, and Washington Mutual with 10 contacts to me in the previous three months is asking for my checking, CD and personal loan business. 

Third Quarter 2006	Jul	Aug	Sep	Total
American Express	0	6	10	16
Bank of America	0	8	3	11
Beneficial	1	1	1	3
Capital One	2	4	3	9
Citi	5	9	3	17
Chase	6	12	12	30
DiTech	1	0	0	1
Discover	1	2	2	5
First National Bank of Omaha	0	0	2	2
Jupiter Bank	0	1	0	1
Lake Forest Bank	1	0	0	1
MBNA	2	0	0	2
National City	1	0	0	1
TCF Bank	1	0	0	1
Universal Savings Bank	0	1	0	1
Wachovia	0	0	1	1
Washington Mutual	2	7	1	10
Wells Fargo	0	2	1	3
Wholesale Home Lenders	0	1	0	1
TOTAL LETTERS	23	54	39	116