Mail to Every Door Now Just 14.2 Cents - USPS
Every Door Direct Mail, or EDDM, is a new low-cost mailing option from the US Postal Service. It's designed for businesses and organizations who want to mail to "every door" in a given geography. Some of the benefits:
- The postage rate (14.2 cents) is about half what you'd pay for a postcard or letter, and there are no special postage permits or annual fees required
- No mailing list needed - you're mailing to every postal customer on a given carrier route
- Reach a broad audience in a localized area - get your message out to your current customers and tap new ones
which means that when EDDM Retail is right for you, you can mail nearly twice as many pieces for the cost of a traditionally-mailed postcard or letter.
But is Every Door Direct Mail Retail right for you?
Every Door Direct Mail Retail is designed to reach a broad audience in a localized area, so it can work great for local businesses that serve lots of different kinds of local customers. The local bakery or pizza shop, video store or dry cleaners, lunch spot, or grocery store, whose customers are grandparents at the local retirement center, young people from the nearby apartment complex, business people from the nearby office park, and young families in the surrounding master planned community.
When designing your mailer, you still want your offer to be strong, and your message to be directed straight at the audience, but because your mailers will be the same for every potential customer in the area, you'll want to design them in a way that appeals to that broad audience.
So, a happy hour advertisement for the pizza shop might not yield the same kind of results as a general $5 off coupon. A message from the lunch spot geared just toward business people might not be as effective as one that mentions how great the restaurant is for an early lunch with friends, a noontime lunch with colleagues, and an afternoon snack with the kids.
How it works -
Step 1: Identify your target. With EDDM, you have to mail at least 200 pieces (up to a maximum of 5,000) and to at least one full carrier route. To identify the carrier routes within a city, ZIP Code or certain radius from your business, visit the USPS website at https://eddm.usps.com/eddm/
When you've decided where to mail, use the USPS online tool to prepare the postage statement and support documentation that will be used to prepare your EDDM Retail mailing(s).
Step 2: Choose your mailer. Two attention-getting oversized format options for your Every Door Direct Mail Retail. Choose from 6.25 x 11 or 8.5 x 11. Both are mailed flat (not folded). As always, we can print in full color or in black and white. On either option, postage is just 14.2 cents per piece.
Step 3: Choose how much help you want from us. We offer two options for Every Door Direct Mail Retail: Do It Yourself (we print, you prep) and Ready to Mail (we do it all).
- Do It Yourself: We print your mailpieces and ship them to you, along with complete preparation instructions and printed copies of your USPS documentation; you do the counting and bundling by carrier route.
- Ready to Mail (Bundled): We print and prepare your entire mailing, including counting and bundling the carrier routes, and ship it to you with the required USPS documentation ready to drop off at the Post Office.
Step 4: You take to the Post Office. Your EDDM mailpieces to you via USPS Priority Mail (at no extra cost to you!) within three business days of your order. You then take the mailers to the Post Office responsible for the carrier routes you've chosen, pay for the postage (14.2 cents per piece) and hand off your mail for delivery.
Posted on September 10, 2018
