Shweiki Media Printing Company Explains the USPS Every Day Direct Mail Program and How it Can Save Money and Time for Publishers

The USPS has gone and done something that makes amazing sense and is going to be a huge blessing to all small and niche publishers who direct mail. EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) is a new promotion being rolled out by the US Postal Service that enables regular niche publishers to mail at an astounding 14.5 cents per piece. It is not for everyone, but those who meet the requirements are going to love this new program because it saves on postage, mailing house costs and turn-around time.

USPS explanations tend to be very confusing, so here are the nuts and bolts of the program along with highlights of the important information. The facts will allow publishers to know if this is something that they should utilize.

EDDM has 2 categories, EDDM/Retail Entry and EDDM/BMEU (Business Mail Entry Unit).

1. With EDDM Retail it's possible to:

Get a rate of 14.5 cents for each mail piece.

Avoid mail processing costs (such as ink jetting and labeling).

Save on time (usually takes a couple days to process your mail and get it prepped for mailing).

2. To qualify for EDDM/Retail:

A mailing piece must be under 3.3 oz.

One must do a saturation mailing to a mail carrier route (one doesn't have to do a saturation mailing to an entire zip code, just an entire mail carrier route).

The mailing must be at least 200 mail pieces and not exceed 5,000 per day.

The mailing piece must be more than 10 ½ long OR more than 3 1/2 high OR more than .25” thick. USPS doesn’t use the term “width”, they are looking for the “height”. To clarify, regardless of how it is bound, the longest side of any piece is always considered the “length” and the shortest side is always considered the “height”.

The piece must be a standard mail flat.

3. If the requirements aren't met for Retail, one can still qualify for EDDM/BMEU by meeting the following requirements:

The mailing piece must be under 15.994 oz.

The mailing piece must be more than 10 ½ long OR more than 3 1/2 high OR more than .25” thick. USPS doesn’t use the term “width”, they are looking for the “height”. To clarify, regardless of how it is bound, the longest side of any piece is always considered the “length” and the shortest side is always considered the “height”.

One must have their own mail permit number (for a $190 annual fee one can get this at the mailing requirements office at the main post office in their local area). Access can also be found here (http://www.uspseverydoor.com/). It's also possible for the customer to use their mail center or printer’s permit number, so it's important to ask them if they have one available for use (it is very common that they do have one available for use). This is recommended for convenience, and if done one can have the mailing verified at their location and then dropped shipped to the local DDU (usually covers only 1 zip code) or DSCF (covers multiple zip codes w/in a city) that their job is mailing to.

4. Some other things to be considered:

EDDM/Retail must ship to the local DDU to get this low rate (this is the term used for the post office closest to the place where the mailings or carrier routes are) so it's important to get a shipping cost to that location and combine it with the 14.2 cents per piece cost to realize the total mailing expenditure. The printer might also charge a nominal fee to get everything prepared for the mailing, but one should not pay more than $5-$7 per K at most for this.