The EDDM Myth

Higher Costs of EDDM vs. Saturation Mailing
EDDM Mails to Bad Addresses
Have you ever wondered why EDDM counts are higher than a normal Saturation mailing? It’s because you are sending to records that should have been removed. Vacancies, do not mails, and excessive drops have all been removed from regular occupant files. Every “extra” EDDM address–often as high as 10% of the list–is a waste of postage and printing.
EDDM Does Not Allow Removals
To qualify for Saturation rates, you only need to mail to 75% of all addresses in a CRRT or 90% of all Residential addresses–whichever count is lower. So why blanket your mailings to every address? With standard occupant data, we have all sorts of removal options that allow clients to optimize their mailings, while maintaining the best possible rates. Here are three great choices
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Saturation Record Filters:
This allows you to trim a list to the count you want. For example, if you have 11,748 records and only want to mail to 10,000 of them, you can select to remove certain types of records (trailers, apartments, PO Boxes, businesses), or you can trim by lowest income CRRTs first. This gives you a “smart” way to remove those records. -
Penetration Indexing:
By analyzing your existing customer list and looking for areas you’re already successful, we can effectively target areas that contain “look-a-like” consumers that are more likely to respond to your offers.
EDDM Has Lower Response Rates:
Time and time again, we’ve had new customers come to us because EDDM just performs poorly when compared to normal Saturation mailings.
- The postal carrier, sometimes, packages all EDDM pieces together, so EDDM mailings become less of a standalone mail piece.
- EDDM mails to extraneous addresses that normal Saturation mailings would skip thus reducing the overall results.
But What’s the ROI Difference?
- The average cost to address a postcard: .004
- The average cost to purchase a mailing list: .007
- Postal savings will be .001 to 2.3 cents.
- Delivery savings will be .002 to .004, since only SCF is needed for letter Saturation mailings.
- You save 3% to 10% on wasted mail pieces: vacancies, do not mail addresses, and excessive drops (1 to 3 cents).
"Smart" Saturation Mail Costs Less Than EDDM!
All of this shows that saturation mailing generally ends up costing less than EDDM overall. Additional benefits of saturation include narrowing your list selections on a household level (through Saturation Record Filters, Penetration Indexing or Response Boosters) and Saturation mailings typically perform better.
EDDM® & Full Service Mailing Guide | |||
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Tasks to complete in Preparing Mailing | USPS Every Door Direct Mail® (EDDM) Retail Steps | USPS Every Door Direct Mail® (EDDM) Commercial | Full Service Mail Program One-Stop Solution |
Design Your Piece | Spectrum Handles | Spectrum Handles | Let Us Do it All for You! Design, Print, Mail Prep, Trucking, and Postage. PLUS: With Spectrum's Saturation Mail Program:
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Print Your Piece | Spectrum Handles | Spectrum Handles | |
Truck Your Piece to Location | Spectrum Handles | Spectrum Handles | |
Pick a Maximum of 5k Homes | Do-It-Yourself | No Maximum Spectrum Handles | |
Go to USPS.com to select routesbased on 5-Mile Radius | Do-It-Yourself | Spectrum Handles | |
Count Mailing in Bundles of 5 and band two ways | Do-It-Yourself | Spectrum Handles | |
Print Facing Slips and apply one per each 50 piece bundle | Do-It-Yourself | Spectrum Handles | |
Drive to each Post Office and pay on-site for the mailing | Do-It-Yourself | Spectrum Handles |
The Key Takeaway
Less, Waste, Better Campaign ROI!
You will typically get a better ROI with our “Smart” Saturation Mailings Program. While from a pure numbers standpoint, Saturation Mailings tend to beat out EDDM even with their “free data”, but there are other reasons other mail vendors might prefer to use EDDM.
Many mail and print providers don’t have the capability to ink-jet addresses or turn around EDDM jobs rapidly making it difficult to deliver on time. Many also don’t have the knowledge, capability, or expertise to execute them properly.
So if you use EDDM often, think about whether it is the right choice for your marketing campaigns – you may be wasting resources!
Not sure? Spectrum will do a free marketing analysis to help you to determine which targeted mailing list option is best for you.