An Every Door Direct Mail, EDDM, campaign gives you the opportunity to make a powerful first impression within a particular geographical area of your demographic market. Unlike traditional direct mail campaigns, you are not required to purchase mailing lists or acquire special mailing permits before sending the promotional pieces out to a target market audience. A significant portion of an EDDM campaign is accomplished online through the USPS website.
Delivery Mapping
The process starts by identifying potential customers that reside in a particular geographical location of interest to your business. It can be local or long distance depending on the type of product or service your company offers. You have the opportunity to map out a delivery area to either a specific mile radius distance from your office location or by the city, state or zip code areas of postal customers. You can further define a delivery area to include target age ranges or average household income levels if you prefer. Delivery area mapping is available through the USPS website.
Mailing Process
With your delivery area set, you can focus on designing an effective mailing piece for your target market audience. Each mailing piece design must meet size requirements set by the USPS that have a maximum measurement of 15 inches long by 12 inches high, and no more than .75 inches of thickness. Likewise, all mailing pieces must be at least 10.5 inches long by 6.125 inches high with a .25 inch thickness to be acceptable for mailing.
When your mailing piece is ready, you need to attach a prepaid mailing label to each piece and sort the items into stacks of 50 to 100 pieces. Each stack that you create needs to have a facing slip that provides the post office with the necessary delivery information. The online tool with the USPS creates each facing slip that you need for the mailing process. You just print each one out and attach it to the corresponding stack of mailing pieces.
Every Door Direct Mailing does not require you to have any special permits for the mailing process. You have the option of paying for the postage online as part of the online tool activity or paying when you bring the stacks of mailing pieces to the post office. Each stack that you bring to the post office must also include a mailing statement that you receive as the final step in the online tool process. From that point, the post office takes your mailing bundles and delivers each piece according to your instructions on the mailing statement.
Increase Brand Awareness
An EDDM campaign presents you with an ideal opportunity to increase your brand awareness in a manner other than online marketing. Your target market audience receives a majority of promotional information in an electronic format presentation. It can be an email that features a newsletter, a banner ad that appears as they interact with social media, or some other form of an electronic promotional piece.
By sending a marketing piece by direct mail, you capture the attention of your intended audience from the moment that item lands in a potential customer’s mailbox. Consumers are more likely to initiate a response to a direct mailing piece more quickly than they would with an online marketing piece. Having that mailing piece in their hand paves the way for an emotional connection with your company to form. It stands out from other mailing pieces that a consumer receives by offering a benefit instead of asking for something as is the case with financial bills or other items in the mailbox. The consumer has something to gain by reacting to your direct mail piece.
The Benefits
An EDDM campaign provides several benefits to your company. Topping that benefits list is being able to reach a wider target market audience than a basic direct mail campaign would allow. You can target an audience that is across the street from your office just as easily as you can market to an audience that is in another state.
An added benefit of an Every Door Direct Mailing campaign is that it has the flexibility to create an eye-catching promotional message on a small yet compelling mailing piece just as easily as you could on a larger, more detailed mailing piece. The campaign is also cost effective as your marketing pieces can mail for 15.7 cents a piece. The absence of a mailing list purchase or special permit requirement places more revenue towards your bottom line as well. Overall, this type of marketing campaign provides an undeniable opportunity for introducing your company to a new group of neighbors and bringing them into your company as customers.
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I'm the Director of Digital Services and Partner at Ballantine, a family-owned and operated direct mail & digital marketing company based in New Jersey. and started in 1966 by my great uncle!
