Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)

Do you like walking door to door, greeting neighbors with no introduction?

If you do, then go do it. You will be wildly successful, if not injured in the process.

There is no substitute for face to face interactions. Most people don’t like it though. Why? Because it is intrusive.

With that said, as if reading our collective minds, the USPS has graciously created a kick-butt product that actually solves the problem of walking door to door as the only method to meet new clients.

Every door direct mail (better known as EDDM) is offered to send print pieces on behalf of marketers. The USPS does not require you to provide an address list. You just need to pay. Sound good?

The challenge here is cost versus potency. It is expensive to get your brand mailed directly to a consumer household. So you don’t want to blow it.

Let’s define blowing it. Blowing it means that you spend $0.15-0.40 per household, and all of the time it takes to develop a pretty collateral piece. You write it. You draw it. You have a designer do it. You throw out their design and re-do it yourself in google docs. Then, you send it to the printer. Then the printer re-designs it. (cmon – we all know how this goes). Then, you haul it down to USPS and sit through two days of basic loserdom, lost in procedure, finally to get the package bundled and delivered. But none of that is

blowing it – no! Blowing it is going through all of that and then reaching the consumer. And, the consumer literally throws it away before walking in the front door after retrieving their mail three days after it was delivered.

So, to not blow it, we have to prevent the throw away.

How to prevent advertising pieces from being tossed in the garbage

There is a very basic framework to successfully not get something thrown away.

1. Don’t send consumers garbage
2. Don’t send consumers something that looks like garbage

What is garbage?

1. Garbage is something without value. ie.
2. a picture of yourself,
3. your contact information,
4. your company’s logo,
5. high quality paper stock,
6. something that benefits your and not them.

Do you follow?

What is not garbage?

1. Valuable information.
2. Something that brightens their day.
3. Something nostalgic
4. Something Free, but not cheap
5. Something they want

5 Non-Garbage Ideas to EDDM

1. Information about local schools
2. Information about local sports
3. Information about places that support kids
4. Information about how to make more money with less work
5. Information about the good life
6. Information about your neighbor’s wife (just kidding)