If you are soft launching a restaurant or if you’re a startup and you want to let people know about your business, the easiest way to reach out to your customers is to use EDDM mailing. EDDM is Every Door Direct Mail and it’s a service provided by the USPS to specifically help startups and local business owners. You cannot use EDDM to send packages – its specific purpose is to mail out postcards or other printed promotional materials to a specific group of addresses.
What’s good about this type of print advertising campaign is that you do not have to put together your own mailing list. If you’re just starting out in the business, it is perfectly understandable for you not to have any sort of mailing list yet. Instead of spending your time on something this tedious, you simply need to pay a small fee for the postage of EDDM postcards.
Basically, you need to get in touch with an online printing company and ask if they offer EDDM postcards. If they do, they will complete the following tasks:
- Print the postcards for you, making sure that the size is acceptable for EDDM mailing. The EDDM eligible sizes are: 4.25” x 11”, 4.5” x 12”, 6” x 11”, 6.5” x 12”, 6.5” x 9”, 8” x 10”, 9” x 12”.
- After printing the postcards, you will be asked where you would like to mail the postcards to. You can either choose by zip code so the USPS will send one postcard to every door within the address. Or, you can narrow down the list to individual carrier route, demographics like age bracket, income bracket, or household size.
- Some print shops will bundle the postcards for you in 100s, which is a requirement of the USPS. They will also take care of the other paperwork requirements.
- Once done, the print shop will deliver the postcards to the local post office for individual mailbox distribution.
To get the best value for your money, there are some EDDM mailing services providers which give out promo codes. Search for this online or ask the print shop if they offer such promo codes. These will entitle you to discounts so that you can save even more when having the cards printed out. During the design process, make sure that the overall look of the postcard fits your brand’s image. Also include a call-to-action and promo codes that the customers can use. This way, you will get a positive response after the USPS sends out the marketing postcards.
