EDDM
5 Questions About EDDM—Answered.
by Debi Friedmann of Blue Dog Printing & Design
You’re thinking, “Great, another acronym I need to know…” Believe me, I feel your pain. When I get texts from my nieces and nephews, I have to Google what “SMH,” “IMO,” and “BRB” stand for.
EDDM stands for Every Door Direct Mail. Simply put, the United States Postal Service introduced this method of mail distribution in 2011. According to ChatGPT (yep, even AI knows about it), EDDM is an online tool that helps businesses send marketing mail to specific neighborhoods, cities, or ZIP codes.
1. Is EDDM a good tool for you?
If you service customers within a geographic region, EDDM can benefit you. Here’s a sampling of business types that have successfully utilized EDDM:
- Restaurants
- Realtors
- Auto Maintenance/Repair
- Beauty/Nail Salons
- Karate Schools
- Political Campaigns
- Roofers
- Plumbers
- Landscaping/Tree Services
2. Can it save you money?
You bet! I’m sure you’ve noticed that the cost of stamps has gone up significantly. In July 2024, a first-class stamp went from 68¢ to 73¢. At the moment, the price per piece for EDDM is just 22.3¢. That’s less than a third of the cost of a stamp!
The reason the postage is lower is that the post office can bypass all the sorting, scanning, and distribution required for a stamped piece of mail. Your EDDM mailing is delivered to the post office already bundled and labeled for each mail carrier. While delivering mail along their route, the mail carrier places one of your mailers in every mailbox on their route.
3. How does it work?
First, if you don't already have a USPS Business Customer Gateway account, you need to create one. Once you’re logged in, navigate to the EDDM page and enter an address.
Depending on your industry, you may want to use the address where your business is located (like a restaurant or nail salon). But if your company provides home services, you might want to identify the most profitable projects you’ve done in the past few years and market to those neighborhoods. In that case, you’d input the address of that job.
As you hover over certain areas, they turn a deep pink, indicating a mail route.
When you click on a route, the color changes to blue, and you can see how many mailboxes are on that route, as well as the total mailing cost.
Important note: This pricing only covers postage, not printing or design.
Once you've chosen your routes, you'll be prompted to check out. Simply pay online and download your paperwork.
4. What are the pros and cons?
EDDM has very specific parameters for acceptable mailpiece sizes. Thankfully, there’s a handy online “Mailpiece Size Checker” tool to help you determine if your piece will pass the test.
What I like about the size requirements is that they’re larger than a regular postcard or envelope, so your mailing really stands out when your potential customer gathers their mail.
The smallest size allowed is 9” wide x 6.25” high, and the largest is 12” x 15”. Printing prices vary based on the size, so click here to see price differences for printing our standard EDDM sizes.
Unfortunately, there are a few cons to using EDDM. One is that you are limited to sending a maximum of 5,000 pieces per day.
Another downside is the “throw it against the wall and see what sticks” approach. There’s no way to filter recipients by demographics like age, income, or family size.
5. How do you get started?
That’s the easiest part! Just shoot us an email or give us a ring (610-430-7992), and we’ll walk you through the process. We take care of everything from helping you identify routes to messaging, designing, printing and delivering to the post office. If you want to do a little more research on your own, I recommend checking out this series of videos.