The holiday season is a time of cheer, comfort and warm love. Though many people associate it with personal experiences like getting together with family and friends, businesses also have an opportunity to nurture customer relationships by sending holiday cards via direct mail. However, it’s key to make sure your business holiday cards exude an authentic, heartfelt and classy feel, remain sensitive to the spirit of the holiday season and don’t overly promote your brand. 

The holiday season presents a great opportunity for your business to get in front of existing and new customers, whether it’s by offering exclusive content or offers, or simply sending a corporate holiday card. One of the most effective ways you can do this is through direct mail, because people are inundated with emails and other advertising methods that can seem irrelevant within the blink of an eye. In this post, we’ll focus on ways to get your business holiday cards noticed during the holiday season. 

In previous blogs, I've maintained that EDDM is a valuable service for many local businesses. However, it's also important to look beyond advertised postage rates of different mailing classes. If you don’t, you will soon be weighing apples against oranges. The services and requirements associated with EDDM, Saturation Mail, Marketing Mail and First-Class service need to be considered when making a choice because each has unique benefits that translate to substantially different costs.  Let's look at some differences. 

The holiday season is chaotic for businesses. Between trying to accomplish everything you need to do before the end of the year and execute on new projects that inevitably arise, sending company holiday cards to your customers may be pretty low on your priority list. In fact, you may either disregard it completely or send a simple email blast or ecard. Although many business professionals think of sending corporate holiday cards as a backburner task, it can actually greatly benefit your brand and ROI if done correctly. Below are three key reasons businesses should use direct mail during the holiday season.    

The value of a personalized direct mail marketing strategy has become widely acknowledged, but often little tangible data is provided by marketers to justify it.  While it's true that some communications don't need to be personalized, in many cases, it's vital and the lack of personalization adversely impacts ROI.    

In our first installment of this series, we went over how targeted mailing lists are the key cornerstone of your overall direct mail strategy. Your mailing list directly determines the types of people who will see your message and consider engaging with your brand. Once your mailings are delivered, it’s then up to the potential customers to determine if your offer is a good fit for them. This is why it’s important to hit the nail on the head within the content of your message. 

While many incorrectly assume the direct mail industry is struggling, research proves otherwise. It’s actually a unique, effective way to form a physical relationship with your customers. Think about how many emails you get in a day that go unread and deleted. Email marketing is a quick way to reach people, but not always effective. Now, think about when you receive a piece of direct mail. You likely read it, even if you do throw it away. You may leave it on the countertop or put it on the fridge, especially if it’s a promotional piece for a brand you like. 

In Part I, I explained what Every Door Direct Mail® (EDDM) is and how it came to be offered by the USPS.  In Part II, I explained how EDDM works.  In this article, I would like to call attention to the unintended consequence of EDDM referred to as Regulatory Required Direct Mail (RRDM) and its impact to the return on your investment. 

In Part I of this series, I explained what Every Door Direct Mail® (EDDM) is and how it came to be introduced by the USPS. To understand how it works, it helps to keep in mind that EDDM is essentially a flyer distribution service that bypasses most of the USPS’s mail processing infrastructure. It also helps to remember that EDDM was originally designed to be a self-service solution for local businesses that only needed geographic targeting. As EDDM has matured, some printers and mail service providers have developed end-to-end services. The cost for their services is essentially a trade-off between the time it takes for you to learn and manage the process yourself vs. having someone else do it for you. 

What is EDDM and how does Every Day Direct Mail work? Every Door Direct Mail®, known simply as EDDM®, has received a fair amount of attention since it was introduced in 2011 and is prominently featured on the U.S. Postal Service’s® website. If you have visited the USPS® website and explored EDDM then you’ll know the USPS has provided a robust mapping tool for geographic targeting with demographic information provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The USPS says that EDDM is a good fit for some businesses but not a good fit for others. More specifically, the USPS acknowledges that it is good for some direct mail marketing communication purposes but not for others. So, whether you are a small business owner, marketing coordinator or even a marketing manager in a large company, you need to understand EDDM’s strengths and weaknesses. In today’s highly competitive marketplace, it’s important to know when EDDM is the right direct mail tool and when it should be set aside for other alternatives.