EDDM Explained: Every Door Direct Mail for Local Businesses

Most local businesses can draw their customers on a map. The pizzeria knows which streets order on Friday nights. The landscaper knows which neighborhoods have the lawns. The dentist knows most patients live within a short drive. What they usually do not have is a mailing list for those streets.

Every Door Direct Mail, or EDDM, is the United States Postal Service’s answer to that. Instead of buying a list of names, you choose mail carrier routes on a map, and the carrier delivers your piece to every address on those routes. No names, no addresses printed, no list to rent or clean.

We made the case for print in print marketing still works and covered card design in a postcard that gets read. This piece is the mechanics: how EDDM works, what to plan for and how to tell if it paid off.

How it works, in plain terms

You pick routes, not people. USPS publishes an online EDDM tool where you search by ZIP code or address and see the carrier routes around it, with a count of residential and business addresses on each. You add whole routes; you cannot mail half a route.

The piece is addressed generically, to “Postal Customer” or “Local Postal Customer,” so there is nothing to merge and no data to manage. Every piece in a mailing has to be identical in content, size and weight.

There are two ways to send it. EDDM Retail is built for small businesses: no mailing permit, postage paid online or at the counter, and you drop the bundles at the Post Office that serves the routes you chose. Retail has daily limits per ZIP code. Larger senders use the version entered at a business mail entry unit, which needs a permit and is usually handled by a printer or mail house.

Choosing routes that match your customers

The map tool can filter routes by residential or business addresses, and it shows census information such as age ranges, household size and household income for each route. Your own data is better.

Start with what you already know:

• Where do your current customers live? Export addresses from your booking system, invoices or point of sale and look at the ZIP codes. The routes near your best customers are a good first bet.
• How far will people travel to you? A coffee shop and a kitchen remodeler have very different radiuses.
• Who is the piece for? A lawn service wants routes full of houses, not apartment buildings. A business-to-business offer wants routes with business addresses.

Start with a set of routes small enough that you can afford to mail them again.

What the piece has to be

EDDM pieces must be “flats,” which in postal terms means larger than a standard letter. That is why EDDM mail is usually an oversized postcard or a folded mailer rather than a standard card. USPS sets minimum and maximum sizes and a weight limit, and those rules are published in its EDDM requirements. Check the current spec before your designer starts, not after the proof is approved.

The piece also needs an EDDM indicia, a small printed block that shows postage is paid, in a set position near the address area, along with the “Postal Customer” line. Printers who handle EDDM know the layout; leave room for it.

The postcard rules still apply: one reader, one job, a headline that works alone, a specific offer with a deadline and one strong image.

The costs to plan for

There are three parts to the budget, and owners often plan for only one of them:

1. Design. A layout built for the larger size and the indicia, not a resized flyer.
2. Printing. Oversized pieces cost more to print than standard postcards. Get quotes on the exact size and paper.
3. Postage. EDDM postage is charged per piece and is generally lower than mailing to named addresses. Check the current rate on the USPS site, since it changes.

Add your time if you are doing Retail yourself. The pieces have to be bundled in set quantities, each bundle with a facing slip, and brought to the right Post Office with the postage statement. Many printers will bundle and deliver it for a fee.

Making it measurable

EDDM has no names attached, so you will not know which households responded unless you build that in. Pick at least one way to count responses before you print:

• A dedicated landing page the QR code and short link go to, built for the offer on the card. Our piece on where your ad clicks should land explains why that page matters.
• A promo code used only on this mailing.
• A phone number that rings through to your line and only appears on the mailer.

Then compare responses to what you spent. A first mailing is a baseline, not a verdict, and mailing the same routes more than once often matters, because people notice a business the second and third time. Measuring what your marketing actually does covers how to keep that tally without a data team.

Before you mail

A quick checklist:

• Are the routes based on where your customers really live?
• Does the piece meet the current USPS size and weight rules?
• Is there room for the indicia and the “Postal Customer” line?
• Is there one clear offer with a deadline?
• Is there a way to count responses?
• Do you know which Post Office takes the drop, and who is bundling?
• Is a second mailing to the same routes in the plan?

How we help

We design and produce print on the same brand as everything else we make, from business cards to large format, along with the photography, the landing pages and the digital campaigns a mailer points to. You can see that work on our print and content production page and across our marketing services.

Planning a mailer and want the design and the landing page done together? Talk to us.