EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) is a serives the USPS has made in an attempt to reduce mailing costs. After doing hundreds of EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) mailings we know that the iniative is not perfect and we have seen lots of issues with EDDM. At Action Mail we prefer carrier route saturation mailings which often tend to be more cost effective, but are happy to help with EDDM campaigns in you prefer.
Below are a few problems we see with EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail):
Delivery: We often see that some EDDM pieces do not get delivered. An EDDM piece does not have an address but instead depends on the postal carrier to provide one piece to every address on their route. We have seen that sometimes route quantities published by the USPS or inaccurate and there is nothing to safe guard against a carrier not picking up all of the mail or not delivering to a household. To avoid these issues we recommend an addressed mail piece. With an address the carrier has a specific location to deliver to and the piece is processed by USPS automated equipment making it much more likely that the mail piece will be delivered correctly.
Cost: EDDM mail pieces tend to cost more. EDDM requires bigger size mail pieces which cost much more to print. This additional printing cost often makes EDDM mailings much more expensive. The mail processing is much simpler but is more of a manual process, so it tends to be a bit less expensive, but any savings are erased by the higher printing costs. There are other mailing clasess where slightly smaller, more cost effective printing sizes are available.
Demographic Targeting: EDDM mailings need to be sent to everyone on a postal carrier’s route. This is great for some mailing campaigns, but many others would send mail pieces to people who would not fall into their target demographic. This can result in money wasted on printing and postage by sending to people who would not be interested in mail campaign. Action Mail can get very specific lists to target your ideal demographic.
Generic Mailing: EDDM mailpieces do not have a name or address on them and look very generic. Action Mail has seen a trend in increased personalization in mailing, and many times a piece without an address looks very generic and does not resonate with recipients. Action Mail can work with you to not only include an address on a mail piece but also additional variable information so that it is personalized for each recipient
These are a few of the problems we see with EDDM. Contact us to learn a bit more about the differences and what type of campaign we would recommend for you. EDDM can be a great resource and is cost effective way to mail large publications but it is not right for everyone as we have noticed many problems. Luckily there are other options which can mitigate these issues.