BY MATTHEW BIRCHARD

As an agency, we’ve helped many clients who’s sales depend upon customers walking into their brick and mortar location(s).  Their geographic location(s) heavily influence our marketing strategy.  Oftentimes, to drive traffic we look to various media opportunities where we can place a well-crafted message to entice customers into our client’s businesses.  Particularly if our client has a mass-appeal consumer product that most anyone can utilize, we’ll consider outdoor media (billboards, bus signs, etc.) as well as broadcast like TV and Radio.  Problem is, in some localities outdoor media is almost non-existent due to local ordinances prohibiting billboards. And in many cases TV and Radio may just have too much waste to have a valuable ROI.  Online advertising and social media are all well and good, but with both it’s hard to target by location.  So, direct mail continues to be a powerful part of the marketing mix for a lot of businesses.

Now the United States Postal Service® has a new tool that can help deliver more local leads.  It’s the Every Door Direct Mail™ program that allows businesses to generate mailing lists for surrounding areas without needing to have names or addresses. This is as they say, “a marketer’s dream”.  The program allows you to:

• Use an online tool to target areas you want to saturate with mailings — choose routes by neighborhood, ZIP Code™, or city.
• Get your mailing to every mailbox along the chosen routes.
• Spend as little as 14.2 cents per piece on postage.

This is a huge upgrade from the tried and true zip code sort that marketers had available previously, and by using newer technology, the targeting is vastly improved.

The USPS has a very informative website devoted to the EDDM™ including some well made overview videos.  Take a look at:  www.uspseverydoor.com and when you’re ready for that well-crafted direct mail piece to send out to your prospects, contact us at Rains Marketing for the design and strategy that will stand out in the mailbox.