Why Your Business Needs Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)

Why Your Business Needs Every Door Direct Mail ( EDDM )

If you haven’t tried Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) marketing for your business, you could be missing out on an excellent opportunity to drive sales. EDDM offers multiple benefits to small businesses and franchises, from restaurants to retailers to service-based companies, including:

1. EDDM is easy
2. EDDM saves hundreds of dollars
3. EDDM is perfect for geographic targeting
4. EDDM works

EDDM is a powerful tool that can attract more customers to your business; in fact, EDDM one of the best local marketing ideas for small businesses. Let’s break down each reason your business needs Every Door Direct Mail so you can launch a winning marketing campaign that helps you grow your business.

1 EDDM is easy

You don’t need a marketing department or even to hire a marketer to launch a successful EDDM marketing campaign. All you need is a postcard and the USPS EDDM Mapping Tool.

You can design your own (and print) EDDM postcards fast and easy with free Every Door Direct Mail templates and PsPrint’s online postcard maker, which eliminates the need to pay for design services.

The U.S. Postal Service has strict guidelines for EDDM postcard sizes, but you can eliminate the guesswork (and save yourself from costly mistakes) with free EDDM postcard templates. You can even have your EDDM postcards bundled with facing slips (per USPS requirements), so all you need to do is drop them off at your local post office.

Choosing your delivery area is as simple as using the USPS EDDM Mapping Tool, which we’ll cover below.

2 EDDM saves hundreds of dollars

Businesses can save hundreds of dollars by taking advantage of Every Door Direct Mail. Since you (or your Every Door Direct Mail printing company) handle the sorting before you drop your postcards off at the post office, the USPS offers discounted postage for EDDM.

How much does EDDM cost? Standard postcard postage is $0.35 per piece, while commercial first-class postcard postage is $0.257 piece; however, EDDM postcard postage is $0.178 per piece. That means you can realize a savings of nearly 50 percent!

In addition to postage, EDDM mailing saves money by eliminating the need for a mailing list – which can cost $100 or more – and a mailing permit, which can ]]>cost $225.]]>

And, if you design your own EDDM postcards online with free postcard templates, you won’t need to pay a graphic designer. Professional postcard design services can cost anywhere from $100 to $500 or more – ]]>Thumbtack states the average cost to hire a graphic designer is $475]]>.

Let’s compare the cost of an EDDM mailing with that of a traditional direct-mail postcard marketing campaign sent to a targeted mailing list.

In this scenario, not only can you save more than $1,000, you can mail larger postcards – which command more attention at the mailbox.

Of course, you can opt to make your own postcard online when you print targeted postcards, too. In this case, the targeting mailing cost would be reduced to $945 – but EDDM would still be $555 cheaper to reach the same number of delivery points with a larger postcard.

3 EDDM is perfect for geographic targeting

Every Door Direct Mail is perfect for local business marketing; often, EDDM is a perfect example of great local marketing. Many businesses use EDDM as a marketing strategy to attract customers, including:

These businesses rely on local customers, so it makes sense to deliver mailers to every door in a targeted area, known as a postal route. You can use the USPS Mapping Tool to select a postal route according to city, ZIP code or neighborhood. The USPS allows you to mail up to 5,000 EDDM mailers per day, per postal route – the only requirement is you must deliver to every address on your selected postal route (you can select either both business and residential, or residential-only addresses).

Let’s say, for example, you’re based in New York and you want to market your upscale, high-end fashion accessories website to customers in San Francisco. You can use the ]]>USPS Mapping Tool]]> to browse post office direct-mail routes in San Francisco, and then select the table feature to view average ages, household sizes, and incomes on each postal route. Thus, you could send an EDDM mailing to affluent neighborhoods in San Francisco.

4 EDDM works

Of course, the bottom line when it comes to Every Door Direct Mail is whether it works.

Let’s break down what a 1,000-postcard EDDM campaign might look like in terms of your return on investment. Your Every Door Direct Mail return on investment will depend on a number of factors, including your offer and local competition. EDDM response rates can vary from 1 percent to 4 percent or more; for our purposes, we’ll assume a modest 2 percent response rate.

Let’s check out three EDDM examples:

EDDM Example 1

Let’s say you average $40 per sale. If you send 1,000 EDDM postcards and achieve a 2 percent response rate, you’ll get 20 customers. Multiply by $40 and you get $800. If your EDDM campaign investment is $390, you’ll clear $410 from your postcard marketing campaign.

EDDM Example 2

That doesn’t tell the whole story, however. For example, let’s say you operate a pizzeria, and you send an EDDM postcard that includes 10 coupons. You know the average respondent will use three of those coupons, each on a different occasion, and your average order is $20. In this scenario, you would earn $400 X 3, for a total of $1,200; subtract the $390 investment, and you’re left with $810.

EDDM Scenario 3

Another scenario: perhaps you operate a local gym and membership is $60 per month. You send an EDDM mailing and get a 1 percent response, or 10 new members. We’ll say the average membership lasts one year, so the math is $60 X 10 X 12 = $7,200, less your $390 investment, for a net of $6,810.