Run your business
How to use USPS EDDM to promote your small business (flowchart and checklist included)
EDDM Marketing
If you check your postal mail, you have likely seen an EDDM direct mail piece. EDDM direct mail are marketing mail pieces that get delivered in your mail. They are an effective form of marketing. Though there are several marketing agencies that provide services to design and create EDDM marketing campaigns, business owners can totally create these on their own.
USPS has specific guidelines for EDDM which can make the entire process seem complicated and overwhelming to business owners. Once you understand the various steps involved, you will realize that you can do this fairly easily with a little bit of time. This blog posts includes everything you need to know about creating USPS EDDM marketing campaign from start to finish.
What is EDDM?
We will start by talking about some key terms we all hear about: EDDM, USPS EDDM and Direct Mail. What are all these and what is the difference between EDDM and Direct Mail. Is USPS the only way of sending post cards. Let’s answer all these questions now.
First of all what is EDDM? EDDM stands for Every Door Direct Mail. Often referred to USPS EDDM, it is a bulk mailer service offered by the United States Postal Service (USPS) that allows businesses to reach potential customers in a targeted neighborhood or ZIP code. The real advantage with EDDM is that business owners do not need to purchase mailing lists and addresses of their target audience. They can use the EDDM tool to identify the routes they would like to send mailers to and then set up their EDDM campaigns.
OK, so now what is Direct Mail and how is it different than EDDM?
Difference between EDDM and Direct Mail?
Direct Mail is a marketing strategy which involves sending physical mail to target customers. EDDM is a form of direct mail service offered by USPS and it also involves sending physical mail to clients. The difference between EDDM and Direct Mail is that while EDDM does not require a mailing list, Direct Mail does require you to have a mailing list for your target audience.
USPS EDDM uses the postal routes you select on the EDDM tool to deliver mail. The mail pieces go to every customer on that route. It is a relatively less expensive compared to direct mail, but it is also less targeted as your marketing post cards are delivered to all customers on a route.
Direct Mail is usually a good option to explore if you need to send your marketing mailers to a very specific target audience. Some business owners have the mailing lists for their direct mail. Other business owners who do not have a target audience list have to purchase it from companies. Several direct mail companies offer mailing lists to businesses. where you can specify the criteria for your target audience and buy the list.
Here is a table highlighting the differences between the two:
Another fact to consider is cost. USPS EDDM generally works out less expensive compared to Direct Mail, but Direct Mail can be more effective and have more ROI because allows sending mail pieces to a more targeted audience
How to create EDDM?
Now that you know what EDDM is and how it is different than Direct Mail, the next step is to understand the EDDM process and the main steps involved.
There are 7 key steps to setting up your EDDM marketing campaign. Let’s look at each step in detail.
1. Determine Marketing Goal
The foremost thing when doing EDDM is to create your marketing goal. It is essential to take the time to determine what you are expecting to get from your EDDM efforts. Are you looking for brand awareness, growing your presence, informing your customer base in a new geographic location about your new office or wanting to promote a new service you are offering – you have to be very clear about it in your mind. Here are some other things to consider:
a. Who is your target audience?
Based on the goals of your campaign, write down who is the target audience you want to market to. What is their demographic – gender, age, yearly income etc
b. Which area(s) to target?
Since USPS EDDM is geo centric and focuses on postal routes, you need to do the basic research to know which zip codes and postal routes are of interest. You may decide to do EDDM mailing for a specific area where you have some customers and want to increase your presence. Or you may want to grow brand awareness in a new upcoming area or neighborhood. The postal routes you select will be highly dependent on your marketing goals.
c. What will be the message on your mail piece?
Write down the main things you would like to communicate via your mail piece – about your company, the company’s mission statement, benefits of purchasing products or service from your company, current promotions are some of the things that are usually included in the mail piece. More about this in the “Create Mail Piece” section of the blog.
d. How many times?
Decide how many times you will send EDDM mail pieces for the selected routes. The idea here is to get your target audience to see your mail piece couple of times within a period of couple of weeks so the brand makes an impression on them. Several times business owners only send one round of EDDM mail pieces and while once is better than none, it is definitely more effective to send these two to three times couple of weeks apart.
2. Create USPS EDDM Account
Once you have your marketing goals finalized, create your account with USPS. While it is not required to create an account to explore the USPS EDDM tool, you will need to eventually create an account anyway.
On the EDDM page, there is a lot of helpful information – the video on the page gives a good introduction about EDDM. There are also a list of helpful PDF guides. While these PDF resources from USPS are very lengthy but if you have the time, do read them to get a complete understanding of EDDM.
The important thing to note is that there are two options for business owners: EDDM Retail and EDDM BMEU (Business Mail Entry Unit). EDDM Retail is what most small business owners require. It is great for small businesses, restaurants, and realtors. Allows you to send anywhere between 200 to 2000 mail pieces per zip code per day. It does not require any special mailing permit either. EDDM BMEU, on the other hand, is for companies that need to do large volume mailers. It requires a USPS Business Customer Gateway account and allows you to send any volume of mail pieces.
3. Explore & Select Routes
Business owners can explore routes using the EDDM online tool. In the search bar, enter a full address, city and state or a zip code. For the purpose of this blog, I will enter the zip code 80211 in Denver.
The maps tool shows all the post routes within this zip code. Hovering over the zip codes highlights various postal routes and gives you data for that route above the map. In the image below, I selected 80211-C033 route and there are 383 residential addresses, 12 business addresses on the route coming up to a total of 395 addresses. 23.7% of the population for this route are between the age of 25 to 34. The average income for the zip code is $79,070. The top right corner of the map shows me the cost which is $78.21 for the selected route.
Now, let’s say you want to send mail pieces to an age group ranging between 25 to 60 to residential addresses only. You can adjust this using the filters above and see the data update on the right panel. As you can see below, with the adjusted filters, a total of 383 mail pieces will be required and the cost would be $75.83
You can explore other routes by hovering your curser on the map. Let’s say you want to add one additional route to your marketing campaign and you select a second route. See the Order Summary is updated to show 2 selected routes, total mail pieces updated to 756 and the approximate cost to $159.69
You can also go to the grid view to make selections, but in my experience the sort feature is buggy and does not work correctly when you apply filters.
Once you have selected your routes or at any time during the process, you can select to save your order using Save button.
4. Place Order
Now once you have selected all the routes, you can click on Next Step to finalize your order. On this page, you can select the drop off date, company name and either select to pay online or at the post office.
Once your order is placed, you will get a confirmation page as follows:
5. Design and Create Mail Piece
Before you can get started on the design, you will need to decide on the size of your mail piece. USPS EDDM has very specific requirements regarding size and placement of indicia. You can review their detailed PDF for all the specifications. Here is the summary of it:
Technical Specifications:
An EDDM Retail mail piece must be:
-
-
Flat
-
Rectangular with four square corners or finished corners that do not exceed radius of 0.125″
-
Weigh no more than 3.3 oz
-
and meet at least one of the following size requirements:
-
Length greater than 10.5″, or
-
Height greater than 6.125″, or
-
Thickness greater than 0.25″.
-
Also, the mail piece must be between the minimum and maximum sizes noted below for each dimension.
-
Length must be between 3.5″ and 15″
-
Height must be between 3.5″ and 12″ and less than or equal to length
-
The most popular size of EDDM postcard is 6.5″ x 9″.
The next thing to keep in mind is the Postage Indicia and it’s placement. You would simply address the postcard to “LOCAL POSTAL CUSTOMER”. The postage indicia requirements are listed below as noted on USPS website. It is a great idea to validate these and size requirements on the USPS website directly prior to starting your design work.
-
Every EDDM mail piece must include the EDDM Retail Indicia above and to the right of the address block.
-
The EDDM Retail Indicia does not have a specific size requirement but must be larger than 0.5″ x 0.5″.
-
The type font must be in all caps and at least a 4 point size.
-
It should fit in the area 1.625″ from the right edge and 1.375″ from top edge.
-
Leave 1/8″ of space around the top and right edge.
Note: You can check and it is highly recommended that you check your postcard meets the USPS EDDM specifications using the Size Checker that can be found on the EDDM Online Tool.
Design of Mail Piece:
Yay! With the order created and after getting a handle on the size requirements , the technical part of this project is done. Well, almost done. Now comes in the creative work of creating the mail pieces. This is where you design what your mail piece should look like. There are several online printing companies that provide online tools and templates to design the post card. There is also Canva, which is an amazing tool for every business owner.
Couple of things that would be considered good practice when creating EDDM postcards:
-
Clean Design
Each home owner gets a lot of direct mail everyday. Is is important for your mail piece stands out enough and grabs their attention. Too much text can be overwhelming. Consider adding your company’s logo, a nice picture and your marketing text in a simple, readable font. And very important – don’t forget to include the benefits or advantages of your product or service
-
Branding / Logo
Ensure your mail piece has your logo, company name and call to action on the front and back. Choose a color scheme which matches your branding/ website color theme.
-
Call to action
Add a clear call to action such as “Call Us” or “Email Us” so customers know what they should do in case they want to get in touch. Aside from adding your business’s contact info, you can work with your marketing agency to create a tracking phone number which is separate from your business phone number so you can track calls coming into your office.
-
QR Code
Add in a QR code so customers can easily scan the mail piece and be directed to your company website. It is very easy to create a QR code so don’t skip this step.
-
Promotion or Discount
Depending on the goals of your marketing campaign, don’t forget to add a promotion or discount.
Plan and create for the right number of designs. Design your mail pieces keeping in mind the number of times you plan to send EDDM mail pieces for a given route so that each EDDM campaign has a unique design and you are not having to use the same design multiple times. Let’s say you plan to send mail pieces to the selected routes 3 times, each round 2 weeks apart , then ideally you would design 3 separate designs.
Last but not the least, ensure you include the Retail indicia and address label box per the requirements noted on USPS website.
6. Print Mail Pieces
There are several online companies that print and ship post cards. You can select the right number of cards, the paper type including card stocks, and whether you want front and back printed or just one side (although I would HIGHLY recommend printing on both sides). An important consideration here is whether you want bundling for the cards. USPS EDDM specifications require that the mail pieces should be bundled with a facing slip. Recommended bundle size is 50 to 100 and a piece-count should be included per bundle. Each bundle should not be higher than 6″. Here’s a link to the USPS EDDM Facing Slip
7. Drop off mail pieces at USPS
The last step is to drop off the mail pieces at the Post Office. Here’s a list of items to keep in mind at this step:
-
Fill out EDDM Retail form
-
Keep the order summary / confirmation handy as it will show the name of the Post Office for the drop off and also payment confirmation if you have opted to pay online when creating the order
-
Ensure the mail pieces are bundled appropriately with facing slips and bundle count
-
Drop them off at the post office mentioned in your order confirmation
EDDM service usually takes a few days longer than direct mail to be delivered. Ask the USPS associate for an estimate on when the mail pieces will be delivered on the routes you have in your order.
This blog goes through all the details you need for setting up your EDDM campaign. Don’t forget to download the free checklist for USPS EDDM marketing to ensure you have checked all the boxes before going to the post office.
As most business owners know but often forget – marketing is all about diversifying and trying different techniques to see which one gets you the best results. Just like any other marketing campaign or strategy, you can only determine the success of your EDDM marketing campaign by measuring it. Check out our blog which shows you the key marketing metrics to track to analyze the success of your marketing efforts.
