What is geo-targeted direct mail?

Geo-targeted direct mail is a campaign that sends physical mail only to addresses that fall inside a defined geographic boundary, such as a zip code, neighborhood, postal carrier route, or a radius around a location, so marketing reaches the area most likely to respond and nowhere else.

How it works

The marketer defines the target geography on a map, often a radius around a store, a set of zip codes, or selected carrier routes. Addresses inside that boundary are pulled from a postal or consumer database, or every door on the chosen routes is covered without a list. Filters such as homeowner status, income, or household type can narrow the footprint further when a list-based approach is used. The piece is printed, addressed or indicia-marked, sorted, and mailed only to that footprint, so no budget is spent reaching households outside the area.

When and why it is used

It is used by businesses whose customers are local, such as restaurants, home services, clinics, and retailers, where reaching the entire country would waste most of the spend. Targeting by location concentrates the budget where conversion is realistic and makes results easy to read against a defined trade area. It is also used to expand carefully, testing one new neighborhood or zip code at a time and measuring the response before committing budget to a wider radius. Mail Processing Associates serves businesses in all 50 states from a single Lakeland facility and builds these footprints for clients daily. To run one, see our EDDM mailing services.

Reviewed by the Mail Processing Associates production team, 35 years in business and over 10 million mail pieces a year.