EDDM vs. Marketing Mail

EDDM, or Everydoor Direct Mail, is actually a type of Marketing Mail.  It offers a relatively low cost and simple way to market your products or services, though it does have significant drawbacks.

​

The "Retail" version is a roll your own marketing system. Your cards are printed up with a generic 'Local Postal Customer' label and a "retail" mailing permit (indicia). You then go online to the US Postal Services EDDM website <https://eddm.usps.com/eddm/customer/routeSearch.action>.  Select postal carrier routes that you are interested in targeting, print out all of the paperwork and slip sheets, make bundles of 100 mailpieces, put a slip sheet over each bundle, then mail them at the local post office that handles those carrier routes. No mailing list, no expensive software, no expensive machinery and no trip to the main post office. This has a limit of 5000 cards per day at the local post office.

​

The BMEU (bulk mail entry unit) version removes the 5,000 piece daily limit and has slightly lower postage. The mail is prepared in properly tagged sacks and delivered to the main post office (BMEU).  A nationwide EDDM mailing could be sent this way from the single main BMEU post office. Whereas the retail EDDM mailing would require hand delivery (your hand!) to each and every local post office that delivers your selected routes.  You would most likely require the help of a mail service provider (MSP) to do a BMEU EDDM mailing.

​

That was the good stuff on EDDM. Now the not so good.  EDDM mail targets potential customers strictly based on geography. You have to select entire postal carrier routes, whatever that quantity of addresses that may be (typically 200 -1,000 address per carrier route).  You can select between residential only addresses or a combination of all residential and all business addresses. No business only (though some routes are predominately business or residential).  There really is no other targeting, you select entire (no partial) carrier-routes based on location. This is fine for a take out food restaurant, but maybe not so good for a realtor that only wants the high value homes in a route.  If you were to do regular marketing mail campaign (which would use a targeted mailing list), you would be able to target prospects on an individual basis. You can target just the $1 million + homeowners in your whole city instead of the handful that are in each carrier route (along with everybody else).  With a mailing list you can target the individual prospects no matter where they are in the whole USA.    With EDDM, in effect you are casting a huge wide net to reach your target audience. That's ok if you can afford it, but if 90% of the EDDM mail is not actually your target audience, then you are throwing a lot of money down the drain for printing and postage.

​

The mailpieces have to be larger 'flat' size pieces, larger pieces cost more to print. Unfortunately, the US Postal Service handles 'flat' size mail much slower than 'letter' size mail and the EDDM version seems even slower. Often it seems that mail carriers deliver the non-addressed EDDM pieces quite haphazardly. 

​

Overall, EDDM can be cost effective if your target audience can be found in a small number of carrier routes. Most frequently however, a targeted mailing list and appropriate mailpiece design will have a higher return on investment.