The Post Office is trying to get into the direct mail marketing business with Every Door Direct Mail®.
As a good friend of mine used to say, “Good luck with that.” If the USPS, losers of BILLIONS of dollars, can find customers to use the service to plug that deficit I say, HAVE AT IT.
So what exactly is Every Door Direct Mail®?
Rolled out by the US Postal Service in April 2011, Every Door Direct Mail® (Let’s just call it EDDM for short) allows you to mail flyers, brochures, coupons, menus, store maps, oversized postcards, saddle-stitched catalogs, booklets and more for as low 14.5 cents per mailing piece, delivered with the day’s mail to every household by carrier routes.
These types of mailing are known as saturation mailing, because it hits every home on a route and cannot be targeted like a normal direct mail campaign (except by geographic area).
The USPS refers to it as a “Simplified Mailing Process.”
Your first clue that EDDM isn’t quite as simple as it claims to be is the 25-page User’s Manual.
Next are the post office regulations.
With EDDM you don’t need to put an address on the mailer. Big whoop….instead you have to wrap them in bundles of 50 with a form on each bundle. And without an address, how can you make sure you know where your mail is going? Do most people even know what a carrier route is?
Then you have to take it to the individual post office(s). You can travel within a two-mile radius of your business and hit three different ZIP codes. That means trips to three different post offices.
Are you schooled in graphic design?
Can the average small business person design a mailer that will be attractive and generate response? That just MIGHT be important to the success of your direct mail campaign.
What about printing?
Oh yes, that minor detail. The average person probably doesn’t know how to go out and source the most economical print costs.
What about a mailing list?
It’s only the MOST important element of an effective direct mail campaign. Demographic information is critical if you want to target and reach your MOST LIKELY customers.
Yeah, but what about those HUGE postage savings?
For about a half penny more you can have your mailing drop shipped to the area Sectional Center Facility (SCF). Is saving a half penny REALLY worth having to jump through all of those other hoops?
So what is YOUR time worth? At the end of the day, dealing with a full-service agency like GamePlan Advertising & Marketing will not only save you a lot of headaches, we’ll handle the entire process from soup to nuts so you won’t have to, all at a price that will fit any budget.