EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail)

Every Door Direct Mail, almost always written as EDDM, is a United States Postal Service program launched in 2011 that lets a business send unaddressed mail to every residential delivery point on a chosen letter-carrier route. The advertiser selects routes by ZIP code on the USPS Mailing Online tool, prints the pieces to one of three approved flat sizes, bundles them in counts that match the route, and drops them at the destination post office. The carrier then delivers one piece to every mailbox on the route along with the regular mail. The postage rate, at the time of writing, is set as a discounted flat-rate cents-per-piece — well below the cost of individually addressed direct mail because the USPS does no sortation or address-matching.

EDDM exists only inside the United States. There is no equivalent Canada Post product at the same price point. Canada Post's nearest analogue is the Personalized Mail and Neighbourhood Mail (formerly Unaddressed Admail) programs, which work on similar route-based principles but at materially different rates, with different size and weight rules, and with different lead times. A Calgary contractor who reads American marketing literature and asks for "an EDDM drop in Bowness" is asking for a product that does not exist in Canada — the closest local option is Canada Post Neighbourhood Mail, which is priced and operated differently.

The category-defining characteristic of EDDM is that the advertiser pays for the postal carrier to do the walking. That externality is why USPS EDDM rates can undercut private door-hanger distribution on per-piece price in dense urban American markets. It is also why EDDM cannot offer GPS-tracked proof of delivery: the USPS does not surface per-stop telemetry to advertisers, only aggregate delivery confirmation by route.

EDDM has structural limitations that often surprise contractors comparing it head-to-head with door hangers. The piece must conform to flat-mail dimensions (typically 6.5" × 9" minimum up to 12" × 15"), which excludes the doorknob format entirely. It lands inside the mailbox alongside utility bills and the local pennysaver, so the dwell time and visual isolation that drive door-hanger response rates are absent. And targeting granularity is the postal carrier route — usually 400 to 600 homes — rather than the block-level zones private distribution can build.

For Calgary and Alberta advertisers, the practical takeaway is straightforward: EDDM is a US-only product. If a US marketing playbook references EDDM, the local substitute is either Canada Post Neighbourhood Mail (mailbox delivery, no GPS proof, postal carrier handles distribution) or a privately operated door-hanger drop (doorknob delivery, GPS-trackable, walking carrier). The two options solve different problems at different price points and should not be treated as equivalents.