If you own a restaurant and want to grow more business or make customers aware of your current menu, mailing menus through Every Door Direct Mail, or EDDM services, is the perfect solution. Direct mail menus
EDDM is a USPS service designed for small businesses to market mailers for a fraction of the cost bulk mail costs. The benefits of EDDM services include:
Target Audience
With EDDM, you are able to target your audience. Whether you want to reach newcomers to the area, established customers, all residences within a given location, or any other specific sector, EDDM can do that. Simple specify the demographic audience you wish to reach and USPS will take care of the rest. If you’re not sure which audience to target, think of the group you serve or the group you don’t serve much of but would like to. Do you have senior specials? If not, why not start a campaign and cater to seniors? Send them menus of your senior specials. Perhaps you’ve just opened a subsection of your restaurant to ice cream and floats. You can print out that section of your menu and mail to everyone in your general area, or target young people who tend to love ice cream. If you have just added the option of catering, advertise that. Whatever creative angles you can come up with, incorporate into mail marketing and take advantage of EDDM services.
Cost Effective
EDDM typically results is a 66% savings. EDDM services are much less expensive than bulk mailing or mailing on an individual basis. For a minimal fee, your menus will reach the hands of your specified audience which eliminates the cost of sending them out to those who aren’t your targeted group.
Convenience
Mailing through EDDM gets your menus out to your targeted audience without the hassle and dangers of having to go door to door.
No Mailing Permit
No permit is required with EDDM. All you have to do is to drop your batch off at any US Post Office and the work is done for you.
No Mailing List to Purchase
With EDDM, there is no need to purchase a mailing list. USPS tends to the distribution for you.
Easy Instructions
There are minimal rules when it comes to EDDM. Simply have at least 3,000 mailers that are within the specified size, printed on the required weight of paper, and a few other specifics and you’re in business. The limit is 5,000 menus to be mailed per day. Using a print shop that is an EDDM expert is helpful and makes the instructions even easier on your part.
Now that you know the many advantages to using EDDM services to market your menus, here are 5 steps to making it happen:
1. Decide what your purpose is for using EDDM. If you are wishing to scale your business in general, you can send out your main menu to new residents in town. Maybe you’ve added a salad section to your menu and want everyone around your location to know about it. Did your menu change with the seasons? That’s worth mailing menus out too. Figuring out your purpose of sending mailers will greatly help you accomplish the four remaining steps. Once you’ve decided the basics, you can move on to the next important steps.
2. Design or freshen up your menu. The graphics of your menu really matter. If your menu looks like a cluttered, jumbled mess, your readers will assume your restaurant is a mess too. Your menu directly reflects your restaurant so make sure it is neat and legible and free of grammatic errors. You’ll also want to add some photos or graphic art. If you’re including your entire menu but have a focus on your steaks or new salads, have that area pop with images that capture your audiences’ attention. If you use a restaurant program to do your menus online or hire a service to design them, it’s worth the extra mile to have your mailers done nicely just as those in your restaurant are. You can find programs to help you format on various online sites. If you are using the same menu as the one you already have, a full-service EDDM-friendly print shop can help you scale the size and tend to the other details.
3. Decide on the demographic audience you wish to use. The nature of your campaign will help determine the demographic audience you are looking to target. You can send your mailers to certain locations, specific age groups, new or established neighborhoods, and practically any other designated target. Figure out which group will benefit most from your marketing angle or those you would most benefit from and there you have your target audience. You will then communicate this information to the Post Office when you drop the mailers off.
4. Have your menus printed. There are certain requirements for mailing through EDDM such as the size, thickness of paper, and so forth. Working with a printer than is familiar with these specifications makes all the difference in the world. Getting those requirements wrong could be a costly mistake so stick with an EDDM-friendly print shop.
5. Drop your menus off. The last step is dropping your mailers by a USPS location. You can go online to find the one that is the closest to you and their hours of operation. Simply speak to a postal worker and let them know who your targeted audience is, when you want them to go out, then pay for the service.
A Powerhouse for Marketing
Many food establishment businesses aren’t aware that EDDM exists and many that do, don’t utilize the valuable services. That gives you an automatic upper-edge over your competition.
EDDM is a powerful tool for your restaurant. Highly effective for a wide variety of purposes, you can now market the people you want through the service and all for much less that you could any other way.
