We’ve mentioned the new “Every Door Direct Mail” service from the USPS a time or two. It’s a great way to reach a specific geographic area with a timely direct mail message. It can be an extremely effective way to reach people who have an affinity for things going on in their neighborhood. It’s also a great way to reach a group of people (i.e. a lunchtime crowd) that you know are going to be in a specific area at a specific time.
But what does it cost to “open every door?” That all depends on how many people you want to reach. Here’s an example of how it can work.
Let’s say you have a restaurant in downtown Colorado Springs (area code 80903) and you want to reach the lunch crowd. You don’t know where all the people who work downtown live, so you can’t mail to their homes. But you can mail to their offices. Of course your don’t want to ignore the people who live within walking distance of your restaurant, so you’ll want to mail to those people as well.
You don’t even need to know names or street addresses. Simply identify the neighborhoods you want to target and your printed piece is delivered to every active address in your target area. And now, with demographic filters, your mailings can be even more targeted to the customers you want to reach.
You simply enter your ZIP code on the USPS Every Door Direct Mail site and you’ll be presented with a map and options for which carrier routes you want to cover. When you select a route it’s highlighted on the map—and it even tells you how many addresses are in that area.
Let’s say you start with the route closest to your restaurant (highlighted in blue). That generates 393 residences and 83 businesses and will cost you $83.30. That’s not bad, but you realize that people living a little farther away would be willing to walk a few blocks for a great lunch.
So you expand your area by another carrier route where you know there are even more businesses. That adds 456 residences and 58 business addresses to your list and increases your cost by $89.95.
It’s pretty simple—and affordable. And one of the beauties of it is that you can see the actual area that you’ll be reaching. You can try it yourself at the USPS.com website by clicking on the “Use the Tool Now” button and then entering your ZIP code.
All you have to do is design and print your mailing and deliver it to the Post Office. They’ll take care of the rest. By the way, if you need help designing your direct mail piece or printing it, we’d be more than happy to help you with that.
If you want to reach every door within a specific area around your business, you’ll want to check out Every Door Direct Mail from the USPS.
