EDDM to boost your brick and mortar business sales

EDDM to boost your brick and mortar business sales

A lot of companies out there know you can send mail to people in your neighborhood in order to get them as some extra foot traffic and boost your sales, but not many people go the extra step to actually figure out how to do this for their own businesses and they avoid it.  Yes, this is a detailed oriented type of marketing that isn't always the cheapest, but it works well if you optimize your letters or whatever it is you're trying to mail out to the public.

EDDM means Every Door Direct Mail and basically means you can get your mail advertisements to XXXX amount of people in a specific area if you can afford to do so.  You'll need to set up an account with UPS, select your routes, create the type of mail you want to send out, get the mail pieces printed, choose a drop off date, prepare the mail, fill our processing forms, pay for the postage, and then submit everything to be sent out.  There are a lot of steps to do this, and that's why a lot of companies outsource this work to EDDM services that will do everyhting for you at a slight markup, but you don't need to be one of those businesses because this isn't that difficult lol.

In this discussion I'll focus on the main points that you have to do yourself, the ones that have no guidance, in order to help you out the most I can

Essentially, you'll have a 3 step process in order to get this started (besides the obvious registration and paying for postage type steps), which are:




Selecting Your Routes
Now, you'll have to register an account on the USPS website in order to actually start this up, but you can view any routes without registering just to see what you'll have to do.

You can view the routes here: https://eddm.usps.com/eddm/customer/routeSearch.action


Type in your targeted town name paired with the state or just put in your zip code and see what pops up.  Once you figure out where you want to send out your mailings to, you'll then be able to filter them based on income, which I highly suggest you do

In the image below I've only selected household income routes over $200,000 a year, which is a fairly high amount, but I knew where to look since I live about 30 minutes away and know rich people live here haha



As you can see, there are over 3,200 households at this location and it will cost me around $580 to get the mail sent out.  Now, that's just to send the mail, that doesn't include postage which is roughly $0.15 per mailing and would be an additional $488.40.  That means my total for mailing this set of houses would cost me $1,067.97 for 3,256 pieces of mail.

Some of you are saying this is a crazy amount because there's no guarantee that you'll make your money back, and you're right, but this type of mailing isn't for everyone and I would highly suggest a digital service like web design and online marketing avoid it at all costs.  Now, for a business like a restaurant or a service like a plumber or a handyman, this type of mailing service works extremely well because you can profit from just one mailing and you can create lifelong customers that will always come back to you for your services when needed


Creating the right mail and adverts
Your EDDM campaign is only as good as the mail you're sending out.  This means you need to focus a lot of time and effort on what you're actually sending out and be sure it's top notch and will create some buzz within your community in order to profit from your first mailing and not lose much if you don't have the best possible outcome.

What I suggest is you sell the sizzle, not the steak, which means you need to advertise what the enticing parts of your business and let the business itself seal the deal when the mail recipient walks in the doors. 

High-quality images are a necessity for something like this, as well as a great font, and the images of pricing is never a bad thing if you can show you're the best price in town without actually saying it   You'll need to leave a blank section on the back for the printing of each recipients address, which will take up a lot of your advertising space, so only think about the front of each piece of mail as your selling space.  The back will have a little bit of space to put images on, but not much, so don't add too much text there unless it's absolutely necessary. 


Printing your mail
When you get to this point, you're pretty much done besides the forms you need to fill out and the additional postage payments, so good job!

Usually, you can just go into a local printer and they will know what sizes are best to print for your desired EDDM campaign, and they will have their own price which I can't say how much it is because I don't know who you'll be going through.  The printing can be anything from $0.05 to $0.50 per piece depending on how many you plan to send out.  For my campaign, I was going to send out postcards, which are smaller than half sheets, and that would likely cost me around $0.07 per piece since I'd be needing over 3,200 at one time.  When you go over the pricing, you'll be asked what type of paper you want and if you want a gloss or UV protection for your mailings, and I highly suggest a thicker paper as well as a gloss finish without UV protection since the mail will go right into someone's box and not be in the sun very much.

Of course, the paper and extras you add on will cost more, but they are definitely worth it in the long run


In conclusion
EDDM isn't for everyone since it costs more than a basic Adwords or BingAds campaign, but it works extremely well with brick and mortar type business if it's done right.  You need to target the higher income areas near your business, build the perfect advertisement, and print everything on high-quality paper with a gloss finish in order to make it look amazing.  After you do that, you'll need to set a drop off date, prepare the mailing bundles, fill out any processing forms, pay for the postage, and then submit your mailing package to the USPS in order to get it sent out to your targeted location.  Normally, you'll have to wait a week or two before you'll see a benefit in this type of service, mainly because people will hold onto the adverts you sent out before the cash them in or come to your business, so don't write this off a few days after you sent out the mail


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Thanks!

Tommy Carey