Want to send a targeted direct mail marketing campaign but don’t have the staff or budget to do it? Does the data required seem out of reach? Consider using Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM).
EDDM is a free service from the U.S. Postal Service that allows companies select targeted neighborhoods based on demographic data, then mail to every address in those neighborhoods at a steep discount. Mailings cannot be sent to individuals by name, but you can still use the USPS’s free online tool to filter neighborhoods by average household size, average age of people in the household, and average household income.
EDDM in Action
How does this work? Let’s say your company offers professional tutoring services in a mid-sized town. You have additional tutoring capacity, so you’d like to build up your student base of elementary, middle, and high schoolers.
First, you use the EDDM Online Tool to set a precise location (say, the downtown post office) to set the mailing radius. Then you select the demographic criteria that match your campaign goals. The process might look something like this:
- Set the tool to “residential.”
- Use the sliding tool to set the average (adult) age in the household to the desired range. As an example, you might set it to 30-45 years old.
Now you will see a list of two dozen or so neighborhoods from which you can select, listed by carrier route.
- To set the filters, change to the “table” view.
- In the columns next to each carrier route, review the values for the available demographics.
- Choose the neighborhoods to which you want to mail, such as those with higher than average household incomes for the area and the higher percentage of families with multiple children.
Get ready to send your mail!
Won’t Social Media Do the Same?
Can’t you reach this same demographic with social media? You can, but the proof is in the results.
Here at Full Sail, we have a client that sends out tens of thousands of EDDM pieces every week. After doing the program for more than a year, the company was consistently receiving calls that turned into revenue. With such a steady stream of high-quality leads, the company thought they no longer needed EDDM, so they stopped. To their surprise, their pipeline of leads dried up, too. Now the company is back sending EDDM mailings every week. You can’t argue with results!
Want to give EDDM a try? Test it for four to eight weeks.
If you want to do precise targeting, we can help you filter the neighborhoods to get the best match for your campaign goals.
If you don’t get a higher than average return on your mailings, then stop. But if you get the kind of results our other clients are getting, you just might become an EDDM super fan, too!
