Truths and Myths of Every Door Direct Mail

First, let’s recap the difference between EDDM and targeted mailings. With EDDM, you do not need to purchase a mailing list, so your mail piece lands in every mailbox of a specific neighborhood. Think of it like a blanket mailing. With targeted mail, you must purchase a mailing list, so your mail piece will land in mailboxes of specific, more targeted addresses.

Truth: EDDM Can Help Local Businesses
If your local business has mass appeal, EDDM can absolutely be a viable option. Since every direct mail piece is delivered to every door (literally) within a carrier route, the product you are selling must be attractive to everyone. In that case, think pizza restaurants or fast food chains, local gyms, tax services, grocery delivery businesses and anything else that can appeal to every household in the area.

Bonus: Modern Postcard supports EDDM services in-house and can eliminate the burden of all of the hand processing it entails, saving you time and money.

Myth: EDDM Saves Money 
More often than not, our clients are initially attracted to EDDM by its upfront, lower postage rates. But businesses that select this mailing option over more targeted options simply because of the postage savings tend to see less success and more waste with their campaigns due to lack of targeting. For example, if you mail with EDDM and only half of the households within a designated area are not your best prospects, you are wasting money by mailing to them since they probably won’t respond. Printing and mailing to untargeted data adds to the cost of your campaign and hinders its big-picture success. So, any upfront savings may turn into additional costs by the time your EDDM campaign launches.

It may seem obvious, but we always recommend selecting your mailing option based on what will produce the best results and overall success, rather than choosing the method with the least upfront costs.

Myth: EDDM Improves Your Direct Mail ROI
Using a real-life business scenario, here’s a look at the potential return of EDDM versus targeted mail. Let’s say your business is a daycare center that’s launching an EDDM campaign to target local carrier routes with a demographic profile of people that 1) have children and 2) earn incomes that can afford childcare. In reality, those carrier routes may only have 25% of families with age-appropriate children for daycare services. This means, 75% of the mail will be sent to people that don’t require your services and would never do business with you.

To break it down even more, if your business used EDDM to mail 10,000 pieces, you would spend about $3,000 at $0.30 per piece. If your business used targeted mail to focus on the 2,500 specific targets (25%) within the same area at $0.45 per piece, you would spend only $1,125 reaching more qualified prospects with age-appropriate children and the financial means to support daycare. Not only would targeted mail help your business save $1,875 compared to EDDM, you would get the same results with a significantly positive impact on your ROI.

Truth: EDDM Lacks Personalization
Another issue with EDDM is, there’s no name associated with each address. This can create two problems. First, there is no personalization to the recipient which hurts any type of relevance or connection you are trying to build with them. Second, you cannot suppress your existing customers from the mailing, so you would be sending them direct mail pieces designed to attract brand new customers. This can cause confusion or issues with a current customer base — and make your campaign less effective — since your marketing messages and offers are not tailored to them.

Hopefully, we’ve provided some clarity on EDDM versus targeted mail. Every business has different challenges and goals, which is why the experts at Modern Postcard can listen to your needs and determine the best-fit mailing solution for your business. Give us a call today to learn more about EDDM, prospect lists and all things direct mail marketing.

By Keith Goodman, VP Corporate Solutions, Modern Postcard

Call a Direct Marketing Specialist at 800.959.8365.