Key Points:
EDDM is a mailing program from the US Postal Service that makes it pretty simple to mail to specific areas you choose from a map. Due to the cost efficiency and user friendly nature of the program, we suggest any of our clients should look into it as a mailing option.
The first step is to punch one of your target zip codes into the USPS EDDM Mapping Tool and see how the carrier routes lay out in your area: https://eddm.usps.com/eddm/select-routes.htm
EDDM Program History
The post office has always given preferable postage rates, “postal discounts” in their terminology, based on the saturation of a mailing list. Just like any route based business, it’s more efficient to deliver more pieces in a smaller area. If you’ve ever received a piece of mail labeled “Resident/Occupant” you have likely been part of a “Saturation Mailing.” The company mailed to you and over 90% of your neighbors, and bada bing, the post office gives them a super low “Saturation Rate” for their postage.
In a traditional saturation mailing, a mailing house or lettershop still has to address, sort and tray up all those mailing pieces in order to get their favorable postage rate.
So several years ago, someone at the post office had the legitimately ingenious idea to offer those low saturation rates directly to businesses like yours by cutting out the mailing house altogether. The EDDM program, in a nutshell, is the post office saying “if you mail to everyone on one of our routes, and bring the materials to the local post office in your target market, we will deliver them super cheap - and you don’t even need a mailing list.” People talk trash about the post office plenty, but someone deserved a gold star for this idea.
How Does it Work
With a “traditional” direct mailing, you design and print a piece of some sort, then you create a mailing list, and someone processes the list, addresses the materials and delivers them to a bulk mail center, after which they get trucked to the local branch post offices and then delivered to the homes on your list.
With EDDM, there is no mailing list and you don’t address each mailing piece.
Instead, you first choose the people you want to mail to by selecting postal carrier routes on the EDDM Mapping Tool.
Then, you design and print an EDDM-size-qualified postcard and get them bundled in 100’s, per the USPS regulations.
You then generate a set of paperwork on the EDDM website, and affix the facing slips to each bundle of cards. You typically pay the postage online when you output the paperwork.
You are then required to take the materials to the post office that delivers to the area you are mailing, and they take it from there.
The Good News
EDDM is typically 30%+ less expensive than traditional mailings, because the postage is low, there’s no mailing list or labor associated with a mailing.
EDDM is super targeted, geographically, and typically gets delivered very quickly. So our clients are able to time a mailing for the first warm weekend in March, or whatever ideal timing they are trying to target.
EDDM can be done on a very micro level. You can mail one carrier route at a time, if you were so inclined to mail everyone in a neighborhood where you are working on a landscape project. It’s easy to target small areas.
Caveats
You HAVE to mail to every residence on a carrier route. You cannot omit apartments, and you can’t omit existing clients. It’s really an all or nothing situation on each carrier route.
It’s not a difficult process to take the cards to the post office, it IS still a process. You do have to account for some amount of time and effort by your or your team, otherwise the materials will never get mailed.
For More information about using EDDM for your business, contact us on the form below.