Chula Vista direct mail: one city, two mail markets

Chula Vista's five ZIP codes fall into two groups, and the Census table and the USPS route table split them the same way. 91910 and 91911 hold 26,383 and 25,375 households, more than the other three ZIP codes together, and owners are only just the majority there, at 51% and 52%. Their median household incomes, $87,705 in 91910 and $79,334 in 91911, are the two lowest of the five.

91913, 91914 and 91915 are the owner side of the city: 73%, 78% and 72% of households own their home, and median incomes run from $129,412 in 91913 to $164,398 in 91914. USPS delivers the 91910 and 91911 routes from one delivery unit and all the routes of the other three from a second, so an EDDM mailing to either side, priced at DDU entry, is drop-shipped to a single unit.

For an offer only a homeowner can use, such as a remodel, a new roof or a listing appointment, the line sets the method. EDDM on the routes of 91913, 91914 and 91915 lands mostly with owners, while in 91910 and 91911 close to half of the same pieces would reach renters. There, count the owner households in the Mailing List Builder, order that list and mail those households an addressed piece, alongside the EDDM drop, as one campaign.

The first side is also the denser one: 2,096 and 1,993 households per square mile, against 1,358 to 1,878 in 91913 and 91915 and 733 in 91914. For a business customers walk or drive to, such as a restaurant, the same distance around the door takes in more homes there. That side also holds most of the business deliveries, 1,800 in 91910 and 2,130 in 91911, so switch business deliveries on only when offices and storefronts belong in the audience.

USPS runs 34 of the 133 carrier routes in these five ZIP codes as rural routes: all 13 routes in 91915, 17 of the 22 in 91913 and 4 of the 45 in 91911. That is about a quarter of the routes, in five ZIP codes averaging 1,726 households per square mile.

The label describes the kind of carrier service a route gets, not the neighborhood around it: 91915 has 1,358 households per square mile and no city routes at all, and 91913 has 1,878. In the EDDM Route Builder, those rural routes are picked and mailed like city routes, with a piece for every residential delivery on them, plus business deliveries if you include them.

Where 91913 and 91915 do differ is route size. 91915 carries 12,007 residential deliveries on 13 routes and 91913 carries 20,163 on 22, so their average route holds more homes than a route in 91910, where 28,105 deliveries are spread over 46. A small test, or a budget that stops partway through a ZIP code, therefore moves in bigger steps in 91913 and 91915; the Route Builder shows each route's count before you settle on a quantity.

The drive from Plavidian's Vista plant to Chula Vista is 51 miles, about 66 minutes in free-flowing traffic, which puts the city farther from the plant than Mission Viejo in Orange County, at 48 miles. Those are routing figures for comparing places; real drive times are usually longer, and none of them is a delivery time.

For a Chula Vista business, the distance matters mainly for pieces you hand out yourself. Door hangers and yard signs are never mailed, so they wait for you at will call in Vista, free but 51 miles each way by road, or they are shipped to you, because Plavidian's local delivery is offered around North County.

The mail's path is set by USPS entry, not by that drive. Plavidian enters mailings under its own permits, at its local entry point or by drop shipment to the SCF or to the two delivery units that serve these ZIP codes. Plan the timing from the date the pieces should be in Chula Vista homes, not from the mileage: the Mail Date Planner works backward from that date to the artwork, proof and mail entry deadlines.