The United States Postal Service may be in the midst of trying to sort out some pretty big financial problems, but it seems they are also busy trying to help small businesses reduce costs and obtain new customers. Your heard correctly! The USPS recently launched a new service called Every Door Direct Mail. This service is designed to help small business owners more easily undertake a direct mail campaign to find new customers (and of course to increase business for the USPS).
Our initial reaction to the Every Door Direct Mail service is that it actually makes sense. Since the USPS has all the data anyway, they can lower the cost of a direct mail campaign by cutting out the middleman. A traditional direct mail campaign had several elements. With even the simplest campaign there was…
– the design and printing of the mailing piece;
– assembling a targeted mailing list;
– and of course the postage for each piece mailed.
The new service attempts to eliminate one of these elements. Companies that supply mailing lists often charge a minimum of $100 or so for even the shortest list of sales prospects. An extensive list can cost hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. With Every Door Direct Mail, you get a free list of all of the residential addresses OR all of the residential and commercial addresses within the area(s) you are targeting. You can be as precise in your geo-targetting as you like. Also, with this program you don’t need to print the name (they don’t give it to you) and address directly on the mailing. It seems your pieces just get added to the carrier’s loop.
We give the Every Door Direct Mail service a “thumbs up,” especially as a way for local businesses and service providers to target particular areas. It’s important to note that if you want to target specific demographics, you’re going to need to purchase a targeted mailing list as in the past. But if blanketing an entire area with your message would be helpful, EDDM makes it easy. And, if you’ve been reading any of our other articles, you know we are big proponents of tracking and improving the success of marketing campaigns, including direct mail. With a little planning, tracking and analysis of the results, you can help your business grow — for less — with this new service.
Do you have any questions about this service, or about direct mail? Feel free to ask them here. We have tons of tips for getting your mailing pieces noticed and opened, thus increasing your conversion rate.
