Tweet Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) has been available to mail marketers for a little over a year, and it looks like the USPS is finally responding to customer feedback. New rules governing EDDM will go into effect on Monday, May 7th, 2012 . What’s changed? **Updated From An Earlier Version** Targeting Businesses Only : Under the original EDDM rules, carrier routes that were comprised of businesses exclusively (those with no residential addresses) were excluded. Under the new rules, these specific carrier routes will qualify for business-only EDDM. If you’re a business to business marketer targeting one of these areas, then this is a substantial victory; however, for the other 99% of mail marketers, this represents no change at all. Carrier Routes that include a mixture of both residential & business addresses will still only permit EDDM to be sent to residential only or both residential & business. Over 99% of carrier routes have mixed records (residential & business), so what may seem on first blush like a substantial change is really inconsequential for most marketers. As of Monday, May 7th, 2012, you can use the EDDM website to see if there are any business only carrier routes in your target areas. Why is this such a big deal for those who qualify? Postage for Every Door Direct Mail is just 14.5 cents apiece . With this change in place business to business marketers now have complete access to the most cost effective direct mail marketing program offered by the USPS. As with other forms of Every Door Direct Mail, there’s no need to purchase a mailing list or print addresses on the mail piece. For marketers targeting other businesses, this will save on the cost of having to purchase a mailing list. Size Requirements : One of the most puzzling features of EDDM is the size requirement. The USPS has conditioned us to assume that smaller pieces require less postage, but with EDDM the opposite is true. In fact, for a mail piece to qualify for EDDM, is must be larger than a certain size. To qualify under the original rules, pieces had to be wider than 6.125” and taller than 11.5″. Under the revised rules, the minimum height requirement has been reduced from 11.5″ to 10.5″. Although this sounds like an improvement, it’s a much less significant change, however, because the post office currently allows mail pieces as small as 9″ x 6.25″ to qualify for EDDM based on loopholes with the definition of “height” and “width.” As I interpret these rule changes, this minimum size will remain unchanged. Caution : If you haven’t yet sent your first EDDM

Excerpt from:
New Liberalized Every Door Direct Mail Rules: Great News For Marketers