Fast facts: direct mail and the digitally disadvantaged

Despite the drive to get the UK online there’s a huge audience who don’t live in the wired world. This report examines the drive for cyber-equality, profiles the different demographics of the online and offline audiences and examines how mail can help to reach those consumers without internet access.

Using research from the Future Foundation/nVision Research, ONS, Royal Mail/ Quadrant and TGI, this report examines the drive for cyber-equality, and to profile this offline audience. It also reveals direct mail’s effectiveness in reaching those consumers without internet access.

Key findings include:

• Growth in internet usage has been most dramatic in older age groups: 43% of people aged 65+ are now online, a four-fold increase over 2000.

• Figures from the Office for National Statistics for the second quarter of 2011 show that 8.73 million UK adults still do not have access to the internet; this represents over 17% of the adult population.

• Disabled people account for 4.24m adults who have never used the internet – almost half of those who have never used it: 37% of those who are disabled have never accessed the internet.

• The government’s Race Online 2012 project reveals that older people who are at risk of social exclusion can benefit from the internet as part of mainstream health and social care provision.


• 63% of the offline audience are C2DE: 42% are over 55; All offline adults receive less direct mail than the UK average.