Types of Direct Mail

Types of Direct Mail

Types of Direct Mail

These days, many people consider what lands in their mailboxes pure junk mail, but in fact, it is more accurately referred to as “direct mail” which is a term defined as “unsolicited advertising sent to prospective customers through the mail.”

In any case, we seem to have a stigma about seeing these mailed pieces as unimportant compared to bills, checks or statements. The goal of this article is to explain the benefits of how direct mail can be used to capture the attention of a client base and get your phone to ring or orders to come through to your business in several other ways.

Be sure you look into targeting your perfect audience.

Most Common Types of Direct Mail:

 First Class Live Stamp

This is the most expensive way to mail regular letters, postcards or envelopes, running 50 cents for anything within the normal size range. This method is very fast, usually within 1-3 days anywhere in the continental US. Some people argue that the higher cost shows more opened mail by seeing a live stamp than by seeing a permit number (indicia) or meter on a mailed piece.

First Class Presort

This has the same timeline of the live stamp model, but require presorting of the address list to save the post office the time and cost of doing it on their end, thereby saving about 10-12 cents, bringing the cost to around 38-40 cents each. The downside is you lose a day for the presorting process, and the cost to presort can exceed the postage savings if the mailing is less than about 1,000 pieces.

Standard Presort

This is way more economical, but you also need to presort the data like above, but it also takes longer to deliver to destination addresses, ranging from 3-9 days in the continental US, but even that is not guaranteed. The additional savings is about 10 more cents, bringing the postage down to around 27-29 cents.

Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)

This method allows us to choose carrier routes as opposed to actual addresses, so we would hit all the mailboxes that a particular postal carrier hits in a day, like your local mailman or mailwoman, they may hit somewhere between 300-900 mailboxes. The cost savings is huge, about 15-16 cents per piece, and no mail list is necessary, however the paperwork required and delivery to the post office in proper trays by us can add some cost, depending on the quantity, but usually around $100, unless you choose to do that part on your own.



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