Cheap Mailing $.154

A friend of mine was telling me about how he can mail to the people he wanted for about $.154 each in postage. I told him yes, he can mail for that price; it’s a service the Postal Service provides called Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM). I also told him that EDDM will deliver to every address in a carrier route not just to the potential customers he wanted.

When using EDDM, the only options you can select are mailing only to residential addresses, only to business addresses or both. If you want to do just single family homes but there are apartments, it’s too bad. Your mailing goes to everyone, homes and apartments alike. You can not be selective.

You can use the map at the Postal Service web site to select your carrier route, and they do have some demographic information available. You can see different age ranges, average household size of each route and the average household income. You can not select to mail to, say, all the 45-60-year-olds with household incomes of $50,000 plus; you have to mail to all.

If your business has almost everyone for a customer such as a pizza place, dry cleaners, oil change shop, doughnut shop, fast food place or roofer after a storm, then EDDM will work for you. If your business has a defined and targeted customer base such as a financial planner, high-end pet groomer, or a pool and spa servicing company, then EDDM is a waste of money for you; most of your mailing would be wasted going to people who would never use you.

In that case, you would be better off buying a targeted list that you can use repeatedly and conducting a 3- to 4-piece mailing directing your target customer to both visit you and your web site. At your web site they can get something of value in exchange for their email address so then you can conduct a drip email campaign. You’ll get a better ROI than using EDDM.

Oh by the way, that $.154 per piece price that’s always quoted, remember that does not include printing. Plus there is time you spend getting the mailing ready and taking it to the correct post office.

Over the years, I’ve learned the secrets from the post office of how to make EDDM work better. If you’re interested in learning more about EDDM and how it might work for you, just contact me.

Until next week,