Did you know that traditional mail advertising sees a much higher response rate than things like email advertising? More and more companies are realizing that mail is the way to go, and EDDM is a USPS-approved process with reasonable rates and great targeting.
But don’t just take our word for it! Keep reading to learn about what EDDM is and how it can help your business.
What Is EDDM, Exactly?
EDDM stands for Every Door Direct Mail. This is a form of direct marketing that allows you to send your advertising through the mail to targeted areas or neighborhoods. Essentially, it’s geographically targeted mail advertising. You decide whether your campaign is national or local. From there you can narrow things down to a state, neighborhood, zip code, specific town, or carrier route.
You can also decide the type of audience you want to advertise to. If you don’t want to spend time and money advertising to businesses, then you can choose to focus your campaign on residential areas.
How Is It Different from Targeted Lists?
Part of this may seem similar to purchased targeted list direct mail. Targeted list mailings involve purchasing a mail list based on certain parameters. They typically involve details such as age, income, geography, current shopping patterns, or many other parameters.
Because of this, mailing to targeted lists is generally more expensive than Every Door Direct Mail. While a targeted list could be useful to your business, EDDM might be more practical depending on your product, service, or geography.
Types of EDDM Mailing Requirements
There are two different targeting options that the USPS provides for EDDM mailing. Let’s look at the difference between EDDM Retail and EDDM Business.
EDDM Retail
This is typically used when you want to work locally. However, this option sets a limit for how many pieces of mail you can send each day, which is currently set at 5,000 per zip code.
It is a little more expensive at $0.178 per piece but they don’t require a postage permit, which can be an advantage for some. Pieces of mail can be up to 3.3 oz.
EDDM Business
This is an option that is utilized primarily by large businesses that need even more ability to send mass amounts of mail. Because of this, you are required to have a postage permit and you can send over 5,000 pieces of mail per day for each zip code. The same limit of 3.3 oz remains, but the prices are a tad cheaper, at $0.157 per piece of mail.
What Are the Benefits of EDDM?
The USPS describes EDDM as being the ideal way to build awareness, branding and acquire new customers. If you have a new business, have recently relocated, or opened a new location, this can be a great way to get the news out.
The more people who are aware that your business exists, the more likely you are to get customers. Even if people have noticed your new business, they might not know what you do or what you are selling. These mail pieces can work to help build a brand narrative that pulls in people who would otherwise drive by.
Even if your business is online, receiving advertising in the mail is still useful. Mail specifically drives traffic to a certain location to get quick results. In fact, studies have shown that 69% of people still read direct mail and advertisements. That’s a huge rate of people who will see and focus for a few seconds on what you have to offer.
It is also easy to see what is working and what isn’t with this method of advertising. If one zip code isn’t responding as well as others, it might be time to consider a more tailored advertisement, for instance.
Is EDDM Right for You?
Some of the benefits of EDDM may not be right for you if your situation is specific enough. For instance, a benefit of EDDM is that you don’t need a targeted mailing list – it will blanket an area based on carrier route, hence the name Every Door Direct Mail. However, if you want to advertise to an area that has a lot of mixed demographics and you want to target a certain type of person or household, EDDM can’t do that for you.
EDDM does have a size restriction. The size must be a “flat” size. Your mail house or the post office can help you create your piece.
All in all, for the average local business EDDM should be perfect. But if you fall into one of the above specific categories, you’ll have to think things over more carefully and do a cost-benefit analysis.
What Else Should You Know?
EDDM is not necessarily the only form of advertising you should be using. In fact, various forms of advertising are best used in conjunction with each other. The best and easiest way to integrate everything is to work with one company.
Marketing Tech can be your marketing task force for marketing services like print, direct mail, graphic design, and web development. If you’ve settled on EDDM as marketing, your next step is figuring out what your direct mail piece will look like. Check us out today for a quote on graphic design & branding to help you get more customers fast!
