7
CRUCIAL
STEPS
TO MAKING EDDM® WORK FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Every Door Direct Mail® is a program developed by the USPS and it makes the cost of marketing with
get the most out of Every Door Direct Mail® and following the steps below will help ensure you get the
best possible results and biggest bang for your marketing dollars.
866-443-1442 | www.cactusmailing.com
1) Make Sure EDDM® is Right for You
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way to market your business if... if your potential cus-
every household is a potential customer for a restaurant. EDDM® is great for restaurants.
Now let’s look at a pool service business. The potential customer base for a pool service business is
homes with pools. People that live in apartments and people that live in homes without pools are not
potential customers – they have no need for pool service and never will. Spending money to mail to
them is a waste and will result in a poor return on your money.
So for a pool business, EDDM® is a not a good way to spend your marketing dollars – if you owned a
pools and mailing just to them instead of everyone.
Below is a list of industries that EDDM® works best for:
- Restaurants
- Dry Cleaners
- Florists
- Pest Control
- Heating & AC
- Tax Preparation
- Retail Stores
- Carpet Cleaning
- Auto Repair
- Gyms/Fitness
- Personal Trainers
- House Cleaning
- Electricians
- Handyman Services
- Insurance Agents
- Doctors
- Churches
- Attorneys
- Salons & Spas
- Health Clinics
2) You Need a Good and Effective Design
In direct mail it’s pretty much a given that having a well-designed postcard will increase your rewill decrease the number of responses received. Yes, you could do your own design and not have to
pay someone else to create a design for you – but is it a good idea? – Probably not.
A well designed postcard is not only going to look good and convey a professional image of your busi-
Design services are typically a couple hundred dollars and the question you need to ask yourself is:
How many additional responses/sales would it take for a professionally designed postcard to pay for itself?
Additionally, you only need to pay to have a professional design done once and then you can use it
over and over again making minor adjustments or changes as necessary. If you are still not convinced
that paying for a professional design is worth it – then at the very least go to the design critique form
mendations on how to improve your design to get better results – there is no charge for this service!
3) When it comes to making an offer - put your best foot forward.
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in on the sweet spot.
the best response rates.
ies have shown that dollar value discounts get much higher response rates than percentage discounts
even if the discounts equate to the same value.
though they are equal.
4) Every Door does not necessarily mean Every Neighborhood.
With Every Door Direct Mail® – you select your mailing area by selecting the carrier routes that you
want to mail to. A carrier route is simply a subsection of a zip code. The postal regulations for EDDM®
require that you mail to entire carrier route (can’t mail to only some of the addresses in a carrier route).
And you can choose whether or not to mail to businesses. So many companies just select number of
pieces they want to mail and then mail to the carrier routes closest to their business address.
What many people don’t know is that the Postal Service does provide some demographic information
on each carrier route. For each carrier route you can see:
- Average Income
- Average Age
- Average Home Value
- Percent of Households with Children
the best response possible. For example, a high end furniture store might want to mail only to carrier
routes that had an average household income of $50,000 or higher.
5) Make a Good First Impression to Your Potential Clients.
EDDM® is a cheap way to promote your business with direct mail but what you don’t want to do is
convey “cheap” to your potential customers. So it is important that your EDDM® mail piece does not
look cheap. You should always have your pieces printed in full color on both sides – you never know
what side is going to end up face up in the mail box and you want to make sure your mail piece
grabs the recipient’s attention.
Additionally, you want to make sure that your mail piece is sturdy enough that it won’t get damaged
as it travels thru the postal system on its way to the recipient’s mail box. Having a torn mail piece or
worse yet – half of a mail piece show up in a mail box doesn’t make the best impression. And let’s
face it – Murphy’s law says that the missing piece will inevitably be the piece that contained your
contact info!
The postal regulations for EDDM® only require the mail piece to be .007 inches thick. This is the equivalent of 3 sheets of copy paper stacked together and is not nearly sturdy enough to survive the
postal system. We recommend 14pt stock for all EDDM® pieces as this is twice the required minimum
thickness and will substantially reduce the chance of damage as well as ensure your mail stands out
in the pile of mail when the recipient pulls it out of the mail box.
6) Repeat Regularly and then Repeat Some More.
When we recommend to a new client that they mail to same area every 3 to 4 weeks – frequently
their initial response is:
Why in the world would I want to spend money sending postcards to the same people that didn’t
The answer is simple: Because it works.
Search the internet for articles on marketing with direct mail and you will quickly see that most (if
not all) of them recommend repetition with direct mail. It has been proven time and time again that
repeatedly mailing to the same people will produce better results than mailing to them once and
results get better and better.
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. Because It Works!
7) EDDM® Won’t Work if Your Postcards Never Get Mailed.
EDDM® is a great way for small businesses and new businesses to take advantage of direct mail at dissome of the work they would normally do. This work includes creating bundles of postcards for each
carrier route (a typical 5,000 piece mailing requires over 50 bundles), creating an online account, select
the routes you want to mail to, completing the postal paperwork which includes the postage statements and a facing slip that needs to be manually completed and then attached to each bundle, haulThis is not meant to scare you – it is a fairly simple and very manageable process but it does take time ®
sit in the corner and never get mailed because you don’t have the time necessary to prepare your
want to do or have time to do. You can do it all yourself – we print and ship the cards to you and you
do the rest or we can do it all so that you can focus on running your business.
SUMMARY
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tus Mailing, we have helped over 5,000 companies throughout the U.S. be successful with direct mail
a call and speak with one of our friendly and experienced marketing consultants.
16121 N 78th St, Suite 103
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
866-443-1442
www.cactusmailing.com
Contact us today for a quote!
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