Is Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM®) Right For My Business?

That depends on your goals, industry and size of the business.

Traditional targeted mail though is still the best option for the majority of businesses, especially if you want to create a custom mailing that will help clone your best customers to maximize the response rates and return on investment.

But to determine whether EDDM®  (Every Door Direct Mail) is even an option for your business, first, you have to ask yourself: Expense or Profit, what is more valuable for my company?

If you look closely at any EDDM® piece, you will see the “junk mail” at its worst. Isn’t this the first thing we attempt to avoid when creating direct mail piece? The people in the post office who created this EDDM® madness, I don’t want to use a stronger word here in respect to the institution, would have you believe that instead of sending marketing messages to the “right target at the right time”… You should distribute your message to “Everyone -Every door - Every time”.

Let’s take a closer look at both sides of the question above.

Expense

First - in order to comply with the regulations and qualify for EDDM® rates, you must mail to every single household in a particular carrier’s route… even to the vacant properties….

Second - to have enough pieces for every household, you must print extra so you can cover the entire carrier route! What if your best customer is a family with children and has an income of at least $90,000? The result,  instead of printing and mailing 500 pieces which is the count for your target audience you have to print and mail to all 5,000 physical addresses in that same area.

Let’s compare only postage and list expenses which make difference in our case

To send out Targeted Mail of 500 pieces - for list + postage you will pay on average 30¢ per piece vs. EDDM® where for 5,000 you will spend roughly 17.5¢. In other words, to mail to target mailing list, you will pay $150 vs. $875 to send to every household. Also, calculate the added printing expenses to print 5 to 10 times more pieces, then you do the math yourself!

Profit

Not every prospect is a good candidate!

Targeted marketing is effective marketing; that creates MORE REVENUE and PROFITS!

The average rate of return on direct mail campaigns is generally 1/2 to 2 percent, according to JWM Business Services; The numbers increase immediately when the customer gets more exposure to your brand and when you narrow the market with specific parameters.

Yes, some businesses can benefit from the simplicity of the EDDM® aka “saturation mail”, but it’s certainly not as simple, or cost efficient, or as profitable as the USPS® advertise. The businesses who can benefit the most from an every door mail are small shops with local services like pizzerias, dry cleaners, bakeries, barber shops, etc. to which higher customer acquisition cost does not make sense and cannot be correlated to their revenue.