Child Care Marketing and Every Door Direct Mail

What is Every Door Direct Mail?   More importantly, should I use Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) to market my child care business?  Since Child Care Owner specializes in helping child care business owners with their marketing, we are asked these questions several times a month.  This article is to help folks understand how EDDM works and clear up some confusion.

Every Door Direct Mail has been around for many years.  It was initially called carrier route mailing and renamed by the US Postal Service several years ago.  Using the new name – Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) the USPS started advertising the program pretty heavily years ago.

Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) allows businesses to mail to every home or business within a specific area, zip code or mail carrier route.  The piece mailed must meet certain size requires – taller than 6.125 inches or longer than 11.5 inches but cannot be larger than 12 x 15 inches.  And, you must send at least 200 pieces of mail to at least one complete carrier route.  For example, using the zip code location of your child care business, you select that zip code which contains three mail carrier routes totaling 3,050 homes and using EDDM from the US Postal Service send a  4.5 x 12 postcard.  The postage per piece – might be around 20 cents each (Postage depends on the size of the marketing piece and does not include design and printing costs).  In general, EDDM allows you to send a larger marketing piece for a little less than standard postal rates.

So Every Door Direct Mail sounds like a real deal, right?  Well, for some businesses it is a super, great deal but not for all businesses.  Businesses that can benefit from EDDM are those that offer a product or service that anyone can use – car repair, restaurants, dry cleaners, dentists, and similar type businesses.

Since EDDM delivers your information to every door, it would seem like a winner for child care marketing.  However, it is not.  Although EDDM allows for targeting a specific area, it does not allow the targeting of only those homes with children – your target market as a child care service provider.

For child care marketing, it would be better to purchase a targeted mailing list composed of homes within your target market with children within the age groups in which you provide care.  Mailing a postcard or other direct mail piece to this targeted list will cost more than the low EDDM rate.  However, it is a much better deal because every piece mailed is going to a home within your target area with children.

Using highly targeted direct mailing marketing campaigns can provide an excellent return for your child care marketing dollar.  If you are interested in promoting your child care business using direct mail, give us a call we will be happy to answer your questions and help you create a direct mail marketing campaign which will increase enrollments and provide a great return on investment for your child care marketing dollars.

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