Save Hundreds with EDDM Marketing
Looking to get the word out about your business in a larger market or a specific area? EDDM, which stands for Every Door Direct Mailing, has proven to be the go-to solution for physically mailing your postcards. Not only does it let you target your campaign to hundreds or thousands of potential clients, at the rate of 200-5000 addresses per day, but it lets you do it for half or third of the cost of mailing the same pieces on your own!
Getting Started... With Who!
The first thing you will need for EDDM is to determine the purpose and intent of your new advertising campaign! Who are you targeting? New clients or existing customers? Certain age ranges or incomes? Begin by figuring out who you will be mailing to, who you want results from, and what sort of results you would like. Start writing down the main ideas and points you would like to get across, keeping it short and sweet as possible.
The Bigger the Better?
EDDM allows you to mail a variety of sizes of postcards to get your message across. Depending on the amount of content and context you have, you will need to determine the best postcard size. For example, if you are a real estate agent mailing your EDDM campaign with one or two main pictures, a main CTA (Call to Action) and a few bullet-points worth of text, the smallest size of 8 inches wide by 6.5 inches tall can work well, with 1 or 2 sides. If you have a few paragraphs worth of wording and 3 or more pictures, you will want a 2 sided postcard to avoid overcrowding, and a larger size so the text is large enough to remain legible. Your size options for this scale range from 4.25 tall by 11 inches wide, up to 9 inches tall by 12 inches wide - either way, we always recommend two sided mailing, as it only cost $15 to $25 more, and lets you fit twice the information, further increasing the chances to reel in your audience.
Eye Catching Design
The next part of EDDM mailing is one of the most important, yet often overlooked aspect of marketing, which is a colorful and comprehensive layout of your content! If your postcard is too bland, too wordy, or does not have the right structure, it will be one of the first to go in a potential client's junk mail. However, with proper spacing and design elements, such as the curves, gradients, and layering created at Very Smart Design, your EDDM postcard will be noticed and have a higher rate of return. There is a perfect balance of content, colors, and layout, which we help you find during our design collaboration stage.
https://verysmartdesign.com/postcardsDating your Destiny
Once the EDDM design is done, the next thing you need to pick is when you would like for your campaign to mail out! Is this a time sensitive marketing effort, such as a coupon with an expiration date? Or will your piece be a general PSA? Either way, make sure you have the right information ON the postcard (prompting your audience to respond by a certain date has shown higher response rates overall), and also be sure that your physical product will be to the post office with enough time to spare... Usually two weeks to a month before you would like customers to respond!
Pick Your Mailing Routes
Now it is time to pick where your postcard will end up! Visit the link below to the official USPS website and enter in a city and state, or zip code, and you will be shown a birds-eye-view map of eligible EDDM routes. When you highlight different roads, they will turn purple, and show you information about who is on that route - This includes the total number of addresses, the average age range and income, household size, and the price it will cost to mail it. If the route looks good to you, click on it to add it to your Order, adding as many routes as you need. Keep in mind, you need enough postcards to cover or exceed the number of addresses you are mailing to, so be mindful of the total addresses you have on your total! When you are ready, click Continue, pick your date, fill out the form and submit to USPS (we recommend to pay them up front online, rather than waiting to pay in person). Alternatively, we can handle this part of the EDDM process on your behalf - Let us know who and what area, and we will pick the routes for you - As a bonus, if you are local, we can even drop off the postcards and mail them out, all while keeping your prices ultra low!
https://eddm.usps.com/eddm/customer/routeSearch.actionBundles of Joy
After getting your postcards printed and paying for your route, you have reached the last step of the process, which is dropping them off to be sent out! If you will be dropping off the EDDM campaign to the US Postal Service office yourself, and have not paid to have Very Smart Design pre-package and prepare them for you, you will need to take a few extra steps. For one, you have to bundle your postcards by quantites of 50 or 100 per bundle, wrapping them in a rubberband or shrink wrap. For example, if you are mailing 5000 postcards, you will need 50 bundles of 100 postcards each. Next you will need to print a facing slip for each bundle (Link Below), which includes the zip code and route number that bundle of postcards will mail to, the date, the number of postcards in the bundle, and the total number of bundles - Continuing with the example above, you would number one facing slip as 1 of 50, the next would be 2 of 50, and so on. Be diligent in your counting, and make sure to affix a facing slip to each bundle, bringing in all forms with you to your drop off!
https://www.usps.com/business/pdf/eddm-retail-facing-slip.pdfTime for Results!
Once the postcards have been dropped off at the USPS with all correct forms and information, your job is done! Now you can sit back and relax as the USPS drops them off to every address on your route. For the most effective results and the lowest costs on printing and mailing, visit the postcards section of Very Smart Design (Link Below), or email us directly with any questions, to vsdesign@live.com !
https://verysmartdesign.com/postcards
