The first time I received one at my place of business, I called the Post Office to ask about it, before wasting my time looking through the perimeter security camera logs.
Talk about junk mail on steroids!
I think I’ve gotten those. From people wanting to pressure wash my house or mow my lawn. I was surprised to find them in the mailbox.
Tonight’s haul was the 4000th version of flyers from two FL Republican Senate candidates working hard for me to hate both of them.
In your mail box beats a scruffy plasma seller sticking it under your wiper blade if you ask me...
It’s called EDDM or every door direct mail and is actually a pretty good idea and a pretty good deal for several reasons.
First it saves both the mailer and the USPS money.
The only cost to the USPS is for a business mail or window clerk to verify and bill the mailing. If the mailer wants to, they can pay retail and take the mail to their local PO for the transaction, avoiding the requirement to open a business mail account, purchase a permit and pay one time application and yearly presort fees amounting to just under $400 currently.
For a small business start-up with an intermittent, one time or seasonal mailing this provides the flexibility, choice and responsiveness to market conditions that folks on this site advocate.
The USPS cost is for the carrier to transport the mail piece from the carrier station to your mail box.
The customer transports the mail to the delivery office themselves, the USPS has no sortation costs and minimal transport costs, the carrier is going to deliver on that route anyway.
The mailer gets a rate comparable to non-profit prices and saves money on addressing and preparation costs, ideal for a small business trying to get started or grow.
The service allows a user to reach a targeted audience without the costs of purchasing address lists or paying the mark-up to a mailing house for the lists, printing, inserting, addressing, etc.
The only requirement is for the mailer to tie out the mail in bundles with a facing slip identifying the number of pieces in the bundle, the zip code and the carrier route and to mail to all the addresses on a given route.
EDDM service also serves folks in the public square, allowing political candidates or advocacy groups access to the public ear at a fraction of traditional costs.
I’ll confess, I’m a USPS employee, a business mail clerk, a working stiff, not a (mis)manager or PR man flak catcher.
The job is mostly revenue protection, making sure the mailers adhere to the rules for the type of mail and service they are using so we don’t lose money; basic things like class, category, size, shape, weight and count as well as machine sortation issues about bar code qualities, address accuracy, reflectance properties of the inks and paper used, etc.
Commercial mailers get deep discounts over full rate first class prices based on a work-share concept, we make sure they do the work but I don’t pencil whip anybody, I point out deficiencies and offer alternatives.
It’s also to help the customer avoid costs and achieve the aims for which they purchase our products and services.
Most folks using EDDM are local political candidates running insurgent campaigns outside the local “old boy network”, charities and non-profits with a one time fund-raising event and small businesses starting up, like the 2 tour vet trying to get a new lawn and landscaping service off the ground.
That guy was very happy with the concept, he and his wife looked up incomes by neighborhood on line and decided to mail just to those areas.
Ya know what? It worked, his brother and he bought some new equipment and hired a couple of guys too. I like to think we helped in a small way by suggesting the service, only just a small way, but small business is about margins.
Also as an aside to those here that think the USPS is a full employment for minorities program, guess what? I’m lily white and most of my co-workers are too.
If you live in an urban area and the hiring is local, who do you think is going to be hired? If you get substandard service, complain and be persistent, bureaucracies have inherent inertia and managers take the easy way out like most people.
There are rotten apples in every group, we just got rid of a crazy person in mine, Exorcist quality, head turned backwards, possession type.
I also had slugs in the military units I served in, cooks with vile personal habits in my first paid jobs in high school, drunken house painters that passed out in closets and fell off ladders when I was schmearer...well, rant off.
I like my job, I like it when a customer says thanks or I waited for you so you could handle my mailing, it gives me warm fuzzies, that and the pay check every two weeks!