Q: “Denise, I am thinking of mailing to an area, but I am worried about costs! I heard there is another option available for mailing to an area that costs less. The Post Office runs it. What do you know about it?”

A: Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) may be a good option for you to consider depending on your MLS area and how the postal routes work for your area. In order to use EDDM, you have to mail to every home on the postal route. Postal routes usually have between 500-700 homes per route.

One of the benefits of using EDDM is that the cost to mail is only .175 cents per piece as opposed to paying for a First Class stamp. In addition, because the mail-pieces don’t go through a postage-cancelling or sorting machine, they are delivered crisp and in good shape.

There are only three challenges with EDDM. First, you do have to create a mailpiece for everyone on the route, so you have to print for that number of people on the route, meaning the printing costs need to be taken into consideration. But remember, you are reaching more people. The second challenge is that whomever is doing your printing has to get the mailers to the post office – and it has to be to the post office that is handling that route. There is usually a cost to do this, which needs to be budgeted for. Third, the mailing routes don’t always coincide with MLS neighborhood boundaries. So you need to do some research with the mapping tool in EDDM and take a look at your MLS areas to determine the best content to send in order for it to apply to most of the people on the mail route.

Here is the link to the mapping route tool: https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm

EDDM can be a great solution and can indeed help you saturate an area. If you are sending mail to a geographical farm, it is worth looking into.