A direct mail service takes the busywork out of a promotional mail campaign: They’ll print, stamp and mail all of your flyers, give you tools to create a list of addresses and even even templates to help you design your ad.
In this guide, we review three of the top direct mail services for small businesses: PsPrint, VistaPrint and Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM). See our recommendation below followed by a detailed comparison:
Best Direct Mail Service: VistaPrint
We recommend VistaPrint as the best direct mail service because they have the most flexibility for small businesses: You can design a postcard online from one of their many templates, or seek help from a VistaPrint designer. There’s many options for creating a targeted mailing list, and there’s no minimum order size.
For a walkthrough on how to use VistaPrint, check out our guide How to Launch a Direct Mail Campaign.
Price for 1,000 standard postcards (printing + residential mailing list + postage) | $520 | $510 | $530 (only larger sizes available) |
Price for 1,000 brochures (printing + residential mailing list + postage) | N/A (only postcards available) | $1100 | $620 |
Other Products & Sizes Available? | VistaPrint has many different products, but only postcards are eligible for mailing service | ||
Do they offer templates or editing tools to create your postcard? | Yes | No | Yes |
Will they design your postcard for you? | Yes (additional fee) | Yes (additional fee) | No |
Minimum Order Size? | None | Must order at least 500 | Must order at least 1,000 |
Delivery Time? | 5 to 12 business days Expedited available | 4 to 10 business days Expedited available | 10 to 20 business days |
VistaPrint
PSPrint
Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)Why We Recommend VistaPrint
What makes VistaPrint great is that they’re an all-in-one service: You can design your postcard, select your address list and launch your campaign all in one session. They also have by far the best selection of templates. There’s over 4,000 options to choose from for postcards alone, which ensures you’ll find a unique design perfect for your business.
To create your list of addresses, VistaPrint helps you locate potential customers in your area. Using demographic variables like age, gender, estimated income you can send your postcard exclusively to people who are more likely to become potential customer. VistaPrint even lets you target by lifestyle factors like hobbies, renters vs. homeowners and more.
VistaPrint is also our recommended service for printing business cards. Additionally, they offer menus, bookmarks, magnets and many many more marketing materials. Only postcards are available for their direct mail service, however.
When to Use PSPrint: If You Don’t Need Templates
If you already have your postcard or flyer designed, then PSPrint can actually be a better option. They’re slightly cheaper than VistaPrint, have faster shipping and have a lot more printing options besides postcards.
Like VistaPrint, PSPrint also gives you a huge range of targeting options. Some unique options include targeting credit card users and organ donors. They also have a lot more options for targeting businesses, including owner credit rating and store square footage.
The main downside to PSPrint is that you can’t use any templates or design your postcard online. While their website has these tools (and even give you the option of designing a postcard when you checkout), they cannot be used on direct mail orders. So if you want to use PSPrint, you have to design your postcard on your own, or hire an outside designer. PSPrint, like VistaPrint, does have designers available for an additional charge.
When To Use Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)
EDDM works great if you need to hit up every house in a neighborhood. It’s not great, however, for more specific targeting. Their unique mapping tool lets you select individual postal routes. You can enter the demographics of the audience you’re looking for (say, parents, aged 30 to 40) and system will generate a heatmap showing you where a higher concentration of your audience lives.
Once you have the map up, you can select which postal routes you want to target. The downside, however, is that EDDM will mail every single address, regardless of whether or not they match your profile. Even if there’s an abandoned building on the route, you’ll be mailing them.
EDDM can still work great if you want to reach every home in a neighborhood – say, to advertise a grand opening. Their rates are slightly cheaper than the other services, especially when it comes to brochures.
Detailed Overview:
Price: Printing & Postage
There’s 3 main costs associated with direct mailing services:
- Printing your postcard or flyer
- Building a list of addresses (if you do not have one already)
- Mailing your postcard or flyer
The 1st and 3rd charges are usually grouped together. Printing and postage vary from about $0.40 to $1.00 depending on the size of the flyer and speed of delivery. Here’s how the 3 services compare:
VistaPrint | PSPrint | Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) |
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|---|---|---|---|
Price for standard postcard + postage (run of 1,000) | 46 cents (4.21” by 5.47”) | 46 cents (4” by 6”) | N/A |
Price for oversize postcard + postage (run of 1,000) | 61 cents (5.47” by 8.52”) | 59 cents (5.5” by 8.5”) | 53 cents (6.25” by 9”) |
Price for brochure or Flyer + postage (run of 1,000) | N/A | 93 cents (11” by 17” with option to fold) | 62 cents (11” by 17” with option to fold and add coupon strip) |
PSPrint and VistaPrint have similar rates for standard postcards. EDDM has by far the best rates when it comes to brochures.
Price: Mailing Lists
In addition to printing and mailing, each of these services includes the option to buy a mailing list: By selecting zip codes and demographic factors like age and family composition, you can choose the specific audience you want to reach. The system will generate a list of addresses and ship to them automatically.
Here’s what each services charges for mailing list:
VistaPrint | PSPrint | Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) |
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|---|---|---|---|
Price per address (residential) | 6 - 7 cents | 3 - 6 cents | Included (no charge) |
Price per address (commercial) | 12 - 15 cents | 6 cents | Included (no charge) |
Other Options | Build a list of new movers/homeowners for 18 cents per lead | You can also save phone numbers of leads for no additional cost | N/A |
Note: EDDM does not charge for mailing lists. This is because they don’t offer targeting by demographics (age, income, etc.) but rather, they deliver flyers to every address in a chosen postal route. We’ll explain this more in the next section.
How to Create a Mailing List
While each program gives you the ability to create a mailing list, they differ in how closely you can target an audience. VistaPrint and PSPrint offer the most variables: You can narrow down your audience by age, income, home value, level of education and much more. Every Door Direct Mail, on the other hand, has no demographic variables – you can only select geographic
Variables for Residential Mailing Lists |
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Variables for Commercial Mailing Lists |
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Why does targeting matter? Well, if you can find just one factor that helps you close in on potential customers, you can dramatically increase your ROI.
For example, let’s say you run a childcare business. Considering about 50% of households do not have children, the ability to target just parents would effectively save you 50% of your investment. Now narrow that down further by selecting the age range of children relevant to your business. This can save you, what 60%, 70%, 80% more?
The Bottom Line
VistaPrint combines three important tasks into one: designing and printing your flyers, choosing your recipients and sending them the mail. It not only saves you loads of time compared to doing each of these yourself, but combining services means you get a single low rate.
