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Every Door Direct Mail : EDDM : This New U.S.P.S. Program Will Blow You Away!
19
Apr,
2011
You can mail postcards for 14.2 cent postage without buying a mailing list!
If you currently mail postcards for your business and target your customers by a geographic area then this new mailing program by USPS is for you. EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) is a new promotion being rolled out by the US Postal Service that enables regular retail businesses to mail at an astounding 14.2 cents per postcard without even having to have a mailing address. Sounds great? Read on…
Every Door Direct Mail Retail lets you market your business to every address in the neighborhood without the need for addresses or names. You save the cost of purchasing a mailing list and you save the annual cost of a postage permit. By eliminating these two expenses, you save hundreds of dollars on your mailing campaign. Combine that with a 66% savings in postage compared to a first class stamp and mail becomes the most powerhouse marketing tool in your arsenal.
Key Benefits of Every Door Direct Mail
- No Postage Permit Required for EDDM: When mailing a postcard through the post office traditionally you need a permit which can cost as much as $450 just to open your account. This annual fee has been waived to mail EDDM Retail.
- No Mailing List needed for Every Door Direct Mail: The post office is promoting what is called a simplified address so no mailing list is needed. You simply have to have the words “Postal Customer” and the post office will deliver your piece to the mailing routes that you request.
- Large size card = better response: A Mailing flat is atleast 6.25″x11″ or larger size which means you have plenty of room to get your message to your customer. This is over 3 times the size of a 4″x6″ postcard and costs 9 cents less!
- As close as your local post office: No need to go through the challenge of finding and understanding how to work with a business mail entry unit. EDDM Retail can be mailed from any post office and you can pay for postage with cash, check or debit card. You can have your printing already prepared and shipped to you and dropped off directly at the post office. This way, you get the lowest postage rate, and you know that your direct mail is being delivered quickly and efficiently.
How To Get Started With Every Door Direct Mail Services:
Using the EDDM Direct Mail program is simple and pain-free. If you need assistance please contact us and we’ll be glad to help you at no charge.
Here are the simple steps to getting your Every Door Direct Mail Program started easily:
1) Choose Your Mailing Area and Total count
The easiest way to get started with an every door direct mail marketing is to go the USPS website located here to choose your mailing routes: http://smp.usps.gov. From there, choose option #2 EDDM and plug-in your geographic area by city, zip code, or radius from a location. Once you have found which routes you would like to mail. Total the amount of routes and that will determine how many postcards you would like to mail.
2) Choose Your Printed Piece Size
Pick a size that meets the requirement of the program which is any size larger than 6.25″x11″ and up to 12″x15.” Common sizes are located here on our website at http://www.sonicprint.com. The most common sizes we recommend are 6.25″x11″, 8.5″x11″ and 11″x17″ folded to an 8.5″x11″. These are great sizes which will make a huge statement to your customer. Once you have decided what size to print you can print them with us fast an easy.
3) Schedule your mailing and gain new customers
You can either mail your postcard by yourself using the USPS system at http://smp.usps.gov to create your paperwork and dropping off to your local post office. Alternatively, we can prepare the mail for you for a small additional cost. If you would like help creating your paperwork and mailing campaign we will assist you for no charge.
The Every Door Direct Mail Program Is Your Key To Marketing SuccessIf you have any questions or would like to know how this program can work for you, please don’t hesitate to give us a call and we’ll be delighted to guide you through it. We are excited to see the post office create this amazing program for small businesses to grow through effective direct mail marketing. In this current economic climate the Every Door Direct Mail program is sure to help you gain new customers and expand your business.
Good luck!
You can find out more about Every Door Direct Mail here.
USPS Postage Rates are going up April 17th. Probably.
6
Feb,
2011
Well, it’s that time of the year again. The U.S. Postal Service has proposed a small postage increase that, once approved, will take effect on April 17, 2011. While there will be no increase in the price of First Class letter stamps, staying at 44¢, there will be a 1¢ increase for First Class postcard stamps to 29¢.
For direct mailers these are the main price increases that will effect your mailing. The good news is it’s a nominal number!
• First Class presorted postage will increase by just under 1¢, or .8¢
• Standard Mail rates will increase by an even smaller amount of .4¢
• Non Profit Standard Mail rates will remain unchanged.
This is only a proposal, but knowing the postal service, it will be approved and go into effect April 17th.
Killer Birthdays – SonicPrint Style
28
Jan,
2011
Here at SonicPrint we DEFINITELY create fun and a little weirdness, and we sure know how to do birthdays! When the opportunity arose to birthday prank one of our Dexter lover staffmembers we quickly spun into action!
If you are not familiar with Dexter, it is a TV show about a serial killer that likes to get rid of bad people. Not that we condone any acts of violence, but we sure appreciate his neatness. He creates “kill rooms” to avoid leaving any evidence behind including all that pesky… uhm… “magenta ink” he wraps entire rooms in platic, including his victims before performing his deed.
This is our version of a SonicPrint birthday room. We wrapped the whole work area in plastic!
And of course covered up the desk area as to not leave any evidence behind.
We also shrink wrapped our victim to retain all its “magenta ink” and not make too much a mess.
And some motivational torture images to think about…
Just kidding! In reality its a happy celebration! Look at all those balloons!
We love our staff as much as we love our customers.
Printing geeks ONLY need apply. This one is for you!
8
Jan,
2011
Do you want to see something that we think is really cool? Check out this tabletop Kelsey Excelsior 3″x5″ letterpress proudly being displayed in our shop . You want green energy? Nothing is more green than a swoosh of your arm to make a printing impression!
Think about this for a second: our digital press produces high quality, short run color printing instantly. Our digital workflow and CTP system has eliminated the need for artboards, film, stripping and plate frames. Today in 2011, printers are able to produce fully imposed plates in less time than it took to generate unimposed film in the late 1990s.
Compare today’s technology to this little baby which was made from 1875 to 1975 with little modification to the features or function.
This one is from 1974 relatively new with no rust. We have original rotary cut stock that we’ve dug out, making this one of the most fascinating printing presses in our shop. Sure, we love Komori, but, this is printing at it’s roots.
Anyways, we’ve got some real print geeks in our shop and we just had to share our fun. We’ll make a blog post next showing it in action!
Bonus trivia question:
We’ll give the first commenter $50 gift card to SonicPrint if they can tell us what is the official printer’s term for what is going on in this picture.
It is called a Printer’s ___!
Good luck!
———————————–
Original Flyer from 1800s:
Original Rotary Cut Paper Stock From 1974
Original Ink
A Printer’s ____.
The real meaning of “upper case” and “lower case”
Why we are inspired by “Delivering Happiness”
6
Oct,
2010
Although this is not print marketing related post, I wanted to share a “must read” book that is inspiring people and spreading happiness throughout our print shop.
The Book
Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com wrote a book titled “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose.” After picking up this book at the recommendation of a fellow blogger, I felt compelled to share my review and recommendation.
On the surface, Delivering Happiness is a straight forward story about Tony, his professional life, and the growth of Zappos.com. After the first 50 pages, it began to open itself up as a wealth of inspiration regarding hope, happiness, humility and growth both personally and professionally. I’ve recommended it to everyone at the print shop, and thinking about starting our own SonicPrint library of “must reads” beginning with this book.
If you are involved in the world of business, entrepreneurship, or just seeking your own personal growth, Delivering Happiness is a fresh take and a loose roadmap on how companies (like Zappos) should act more like people. The book drives the point home that profits are not as important as the happiness and growth of the employee and customers.
Core Values
Tony talks in detail about the core values of Zappos and how the company culture defines them. Here are SonicPrint, we employ many similar values and the read was a refreshing “nod” to what we strive for everyday. The book inspired us to follow in the footsteps of Zappos and adopt the core values as a manifesto of our culture and what we strive for as well.
We proudly display them on our front office wall (with full credit to Tony H. and Zappos of course)!
At SonicPrint.com, we have one core value that is the favorite among everyone here.
#3 Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
We recommend Delivering Happiness
I highly recommend the read of Delivering Happiness as it moved me greatly. It’s more than just a book about business, it makes great strides in making this world a better place.
Thanks for reading!
SonicPrint.com
P.S. The book tour!
After reading the book and going online to learn more, we found that Tony and crew are delivering happiness in a 20+ city bus tour and it’s coming through Tampa. We’re going to do our part to share the happiness and have the date marked on our calendar. Check the dates to see if they are coming to your town as well.
For the record if the @dhbus wants to stop by, we’ve got our Red Bull machine stocked and loaded and would love to play a mean game of pinball!
Full Color Printing Videos
30
Sep,
2010
Want to see what our shop looks like and how printing works? Take a moment to check out some of the videos of our print shop.
What Elvis didn’t know about direct mail…
1
Aug,
2010
Poor Elvis! If only he knew about CASS certifying and NCOA processing his mailing list, his gal would have received his letter and they would have lived happily ever after! But if that was the case, then we wouldn’t have this classic!
Lucky for you Sonic Print can help reduce the Return to Sender problem!
What is CASS and NCOA you ask?
CASS Certification is the process of verifying with the postal service that the addresses are in the proper format and are assigned a route and a mail carrier. This saves you money in postage because you only mail to the people that have correct addresses.
NCOA(National Change of Address) is when a mailing list is checked for any recipients that have moved in the last 48 months. If your customer moves and leaves a forwarding address we can find it and update for you automatically. This works especially well in making sure that you’re mailing to the right people the first time!
Did you know that we provide both of these services free of charge on every direct mail project that we do?
Only if Elvis knew it!
Twitter Employees Use Paper Business Cards?
10
May,
2010
SXSW: Gasp! Twitter gives out paper business cards
Posted: 09:56 AM ET
Ever since Twitter made a big splash at South By Southwest in 2007, the micro-blogging site has seen a lot of milestones. The site has won support from celebrates like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher, signed search deals with Google and Yahoo!, recently hired their 140th employee, and even had the 10 billionth tweet sent out early in March.
But the hip, San Francisco company was missing something that, in the general business world, seems rather basic: It never had business cards. Employees just gave out their Twitter names instead.
But that, too, has changed. At SXSW this year, Twitter employees are handing out paper business cards just like the rest of us. Instead of eggshell white, the company went with an earthy brown color for its cards.
That may seem like a silly bit of news, but first consider the context. At SXSW, everything is going digital. Instead of handing out cards, many tech professionals just download a smartphone app called i-Nigma and then scan a barcode on other attendee’s name tags. That person’s contact info automatically downloads onto the phone. Others use an iPhone app called Bump, which, when two phones are tapped together, exchanges a business-card’s worth of data through the air.
A Twitter spokesman poked fun at the idea of business cards even as he listed the benefits of paper-based networking.
“This antiquated thing called ‘business cards’ is a helpful way for some of us to bridge our online and offline worlds with potential employees, partners and the thousands of developers who make Twitter applications,” said company spokesman Sean Garrett.
So, is paper really the new mode of social networking? Next thing you know, maybe Twitter employees will be spotted in ties.
