Targeting
Who should get your postcard? A plain guide to targeting
Every home, homes and businesses, or only the houses that fit your work. Here is how each level of targeting works and when it is worth using.
The short version
- Mail every home when almost anyone could hire you
- Target when the job depends on the house itself
- Always skip your current customers, and mail them separately
Targeting sounds technical, but it comes down to one decision: do you want everyone in an area, or only the houses that fit your work? Our tools give you three levels. Each one narrows the mailing a little more.
Level 1: whole carrier routes
With EDDM you choose USPS carrier routes, and every address on a route gets the card. You make two choices.
Which routes. The route list shows the number of homes and businesses on each route and its median household income. Use it to compare one part of town with another before you click.
Homes only, or homes and businesses. In our North Massapequa example, eight routes held 2,885 homes. Adding businesses raised that to 2,921. If you only work on houses, leave businesses out.
Level 2: the homes nearest a job
Mail the Neighbors starts from an address instead of a route. Choose Every home and it mails the 200, 250, 500 or 1,000 houses closest to the job. Nothing else is filtered. This is the right choice when the neighbors' homes are much like the one you just worked on.
Level 3: targeted homes
Choose Targeted homes and you can narrow the mailing by facts about each house. The facts come from county property records.
| Filter | When it helps |
|---|---|
| Year built | Roofs, furnaces, windows and kitchens age with the house. |
| Home value | Larger projects such as remodeling or solar. |
| Lot size | Lawn care, landscaping, fencing and irrigation. |
| Square feet | Work priced by the size of the house, such as painting or flooring. |
| Last sold | New owners often arrive with a list of projects. |
| Owner lives there | The person who opens the mail is the person who decides. |
| Single-family only | Leaves out condos and apartments. |
| A pool, central A/C, heating on record | Service work for that equipment. |
Target when the job depends on the house. Mail everyone when it does not.
The presets do the thinking for you
Each trade preset in Mail the Neighbors sets the filters to a sensible starting point. You can change any of them.
| Preset | What it selects |
|---|---|
| Roofing | Nearest 250 homes built before 1995 |
| HVAC | Nearest 250 homes built before 2005 |
| Solar | Nearest 250 owner-occupied homes worth $400,000 or more |
| Landscaping / lawn | Nearest 250 single-family homes on lots of 0.15 acre or more |
| Remodeling / kitchen and bath | Nearest 250 homes built before 2000 worth $400,000 or more |
| Real estate: just sold | Every home, nearest 250 |
| Real estate: just listed | Every home, nearest 500 |
When targeting is not worth it
- Nearly every house qualifies. If the whole street was built in the same decade, a year-built filter changes nothing. Mail every home and pay less per piece.
- You filter too hard. Stack enough filters and the tool has to reach farther from the job to find 200 homes that match. The closer the homes are to your job, the more your card means to them.
- Anyone could be a customer. For services every household uses, covering whole routes with EDDM costs the least per home.
Targeted homes cost a little more per piece than every home. In our example, every home was $0.95 each and targeted homes were $1.05 each.
Two lists to handle separately
- Current customers. Paste their addresses into Skip addresses so they are left out of a neighbor mailing. We fill each gap with the next closest home.
- Past customers and old quotes. They are your warmest audience. Mail them from your own list with a card written for people who already know you.