COMPLETE PRINT+SHIP GUIDE

Follow our STEP BY STEP:
 

• 1st, The Graphic Design Setup

The first step is always the design concept. You may provide your design to us or you may use any of our pre-design templates available with our online designer tool, completely free.

You are also welcome to download any of our empty guideline templates for guidance with your own design-build. EDDM® Postcards printing guidelines templates are available in the following sizes – 6.5" x 11", 6.5" x 8", 6.5" x 9", 6" x 11", 6.5" x 12", 8" x 10", 4" x 11", 4.25" x 11", 8.5" x 11", 9" x 11", 9" x 12".

Please keep in mind that we provide free Every Door Direct Mail® INDICIA inclusion to your art. Indicia is also already included in our templates for you to download.

• 2nd, USPS® INDICIA (Free inclusion by request)

EDDM® (Every Door Direct Mail) indicia should be downloaded from the site of USPS® (or here) and added to the back page of your EDDM® postcard. The indicia will require a free space of 2 x 3 inches minimum, preferably on the upper right corner of the postcard.

• 3rd, How many EDDM® Postcards are you going to need?

Quantity is going to be a very important factor for your campaign and you should figure out how many of these postcards you need before placing the order. This is a very simple step. Go to the USPS® Mapping Tool Link and introduce the zip code where you plan to target your mailing campaign. 

With this tool, you are able to see different zipcodes' populations and figure out the total number of recipients available for the area of your campaign. 

• 4th, Placing a print order for the EDDM® Eligible Postcards

Place the EDDM® printing order with the most affordable pricing available worldwide for EDDM® eligible flyers at 55printing.com or any other printer of your preference.

If available, please select the "Free Manual Design Proof" to receive a review on your design completely free of charge in less than 2 hours after the order has been placed.

Note: Your order will not start printing until the art/design is approved via e-mail.

• 5th, Bundle the Postcards before dropping them at USPS®

For bundle services at 55printing, please visit our RUSH EDDM® Printing product.

You may include the bundle service while ordering from us (for an additional charge) and we take care of this process for you, or you could do this yourself.

Very easy to do and we also provide all the instructions and graphics needed for this process. If you decide to do the bundle yourself, then after choosing the right print store, the order has been placed and received, then make sure the print materials are being bundled in packs of 50.

Bundle-facing slip file to download and print at home available: Download it here.

6th, USPS® charges mailing services

The USPS® will charge you per unit sent, the price will not vary and should be around $0.19 per postcard mailed. Flyers will be sent to the doorsteps of a targeted zip code area for households or businesses. This service doesn’t require registration fees.

Best Quality Every Door Direct Mail postcards printing online

If you are in the need of creating an impacting marketing campaign for specific demographic, EDDM-eligible postcards are the perfect solution and an easier marketing tool available for all of us. With USPS® Every Door Direct Mail program you are allowed to send flyers of specific sizes to any targeted zip code area residents without the need of a mailing list and for very affordable costs. Use it for local marketing or to expand your current business coverage.

Most popular postcards sizes for affordable Every Door Direct Mail eligibility

Among the top ordered sizes, we find the 6.5" x 9" as the most ordered size, in second place we find the 8.5" x 11" and for lower cost printing, customers opt for the 6.5" x 8" size which is one of the smaller sizes that still qualifies for the EDDM® program.

• 6.5" x 9" = Most Popular
• 8.5" x 11" = Bigger sized 
• 6.5" x 8" = Most Economical size

Cheap EDDM® Postcards Printing Physical Guidelines 

Paper: Best quality 14pt Thick Glossy paper is used for the printing of our EDDM® eligible postcards, but other papers are available upon request including the 16pt thicker paper, we encourage you to stick to the standard paper as many customers face difficulties at their local USPS® store when using thinner or thicker paper stock.

Size: We print anywhere from 6.5" x 8" up to 9" x 12" to stay within the most accepted postcard format for the Every Door Direct Mail program.

Quantity: As much as we wish to be able to print just the exact amount of postcards needed for the campaign, with our gang-run printing methods that is not possible. So we limit the quantities to the most common ones as they are: 250, 500, 1000, 2500, 5000, and 10000, it continues to increment by 5000 until we have a maximum printing quantity of 100,000 units.

Shape: For the shape of the flyer, they require a rectangular finish with four square corners and/or specially finished cor­ners that will not exceed a total radius of 1/8". This is not for you to worry about, as 55printing is already taking care of this requirement during the confection of your order.

Glossiness: As standard, all of our postcards are printed with a thin Aquoaus Coating film that protects the flyer from water, sun, and other factors. This is completely fine with the requirements and acceptance of the flyers. UV (UltraViolet) protection is also available and accepted by the USPS.

Difference Between Direct Mail and EDDM?

It is very easy to differentiate one from the other, as they serve very different purposes, and depending on your market, one will serve you better than the other.

Direct Mail Postcards: Best for customers with a mailing list, name, and address is required for the use of direct mail postcards. Each flyer should be written by hand or by a printer with the exact mailing information of the recipient, before being handed to the USPS® for mailing.

EDDM® Postcards: Best for customers that are starting to market their business for a local approach or to expand their current service area without investing a big amount of money and without all the complications related to getting an active, real and accurate mailing list.

How to make an effective design for my low-cost EDDM® Postcard campaign?

Campaign Purpose: We always recommend staying in to focus on the purpose of the flyer. For most cases, we encourage to display a direct call-to-action design in the front only of the postcard and leave the back for contact details along with the indicia and USPS® labels. This way, by the time the customer grabs your flyer, will identify immediately what side of the flyer is the correct one for the promotion or message you want to communicate.

Keep it Readable: A clean and easy to read/see flyer has more impact than a clustered flyer. Make sure to stick just to the essentials, large text, large clean images and include something related to the demographic area you are targeting which is always a good idea to catch a customer's attention. It is always a good idea to research first the demographic colors, flags, most common activities, and anything related to the area for a higher impact graphic design.

Keep it short: We all know that there is a lot to tell about a product or a service, but we need to keep it to a minimum on the amount of text and amount of images used especially on the front side of your EDDM® postcard design. Remember that the recipient should understand the main purpose of the flyer with a glance, and if interested, then they will go deeper to read the content in it.

What information is requested to fill the EDDM® bundle slips?

Not much information is required to fill out the bundle slips. This is the list of questions shown with every slip:

1. ZIP

   ---

   (Target area)
2. Delivery type (residential or business address)
3. Route number (provided at USPS® mapping tool)
4. Drop off the date of your EDDM® postcards to the local USPS®
5. Number of mailers per bundle (Depending on demographics)
6. Number of mailers per bundle (How many different recipients per package)
7. The total number of bundles (Total amount of packages to mail)

Commun questions about our cheap Every Door Direct Mail® printing services

Should we include a return address in the design? When designing specifically an EDDM® Postcard, there is no need to include a return address. Unless your postcard requires feedback from the customer where they need to send the same postcard back to the sender.

Can I get a full-service EDDM® Postcard printing and mailing service? At this time 55printing is only offering support with the design and confection of the design and printing, sometimes even the bundle is also done by us. But the final steps must be done by the customer which consists in getting the flyers to their local USPS office for mailing.