Every Door Direct Mail
Running a business is expensive: payroll, rent, phones…and of course marketing. Many of us get focused on the sales, thinking our overhead and marketing is fixed and there’s not much we can do about it. While that is true to some extent, there are ways to save on that bottom line and boost your sales at the same time.
Postage seems to be going up all the time; a regular first class mailing is now $0.49 a piece, so that means if you’re sending out two #10 business-size envelopes, it’s almost $1! Even a small 4″ x 6″ postcard is almost $0.34. When my customers do a mailing, the majority of their cost is not the printing, but rather the cost in actually sending them out.
Many of you have heard of Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)…some know what it is, some don’t. If you don’t, here are the basics:
- $0.177 per piece to mail…essentially half of what it costs to send out a normal postcard
- There are certain size requirements for the piece being mailed; a typical 4″x 6″ postcard and 8.5″ x 11″ tri fold are too small…while there are different acceptable sizes, your piece needs to be approximately 6.5″ x 9″ for a postcard, or 11″ x 17″ (un-folded) for a brochure (a restaurant menu, for example)
- You send by postal route; in other words, you’re sending to every address on a given route (no individual addressing)
- You can send to just residential addresses, or to residential and commercial addresses. However, you can’t use EDDM for just commercial addresses
That’s basically it. We’re always happy to answer any questions about this, so feel free to ask away! I can show you exactly how it works on the usps.com website, or you can create a free account there and play around with the EDDM page on your own. You can see each postal route and also the specifics to each, such as number of addresses, age ranges, average income and of course your postage cost to send to all of the addresses on a given route.
If you’re in search of local residential customers, or both residential and business customers, EDDM is a great way to reach them and save money while doing it…restaurants, dry cleaners, landscapers, electricians, retail, health-related fields, bakeries, insurance, etc, can all benefit from this tool.
Of course mailing is just part of the equation…it’s just as important to get the recipient’s attention when they actually get their mail. We have some great ideas for any business that’ll help get your mailing noticed, and our print quality is phenomenal. Feel free to give us a call with questions or information on the great printing options we have to make your next mailing a huge success!
