Every October, churches across the Phoenix metro open their parking lots to the neighborhood: trunk-or-treat, fall festivals, harvest nights. The events are planned by volunteers, the candy is bought in bulk, and the one question that decides the turnout is usually settled weeks earlier: did the neighbors know?
The invitation is a September job
Mail that should land in mailboxes in the first half of October gets printed in September. A typical full-service mailing takes about 14 days from order to delivery in homes, and delivery dates are never guaranteed, so the timeline is planned backward from the week the invitation should land. Working back from a late-October event: the invitation should land about ten days before, in mid-October, so the order goes in by the end of September or the first days of October.
Why this mailing does not need a mailing list
A church inviting its neighborhood is the textbook case for USPS Every Door Direct Mail. It delivers to every household on the postal routes around your building, street by street. There is no list to buy and no addresses to collect, and saturation postage rates are usually the cheapest way to reach every home. The families most likely to walk over on a fall evening live on exactly the streets a saturation mailing covers.
What full service means for a volunteer team
One phone call and one approved proof. We help you pick the routes on a live map, check the design against USPS mailing requirements before it prints, print the postcards, bundle them by carrier route, complete the postal paperwork, and deliver everything to the post office. The invitation is your invitation, in your words; every piece mails exactly as you approve it. Have a flyer already? We print from your file. Starting from a blank page? Ask us about the design and we will help.
What to put on the card
The invitations that pull the best keep it simple: the event, the date, the time, the place, and the line that matters most, everyone welcome. Free food, games, candy, a safe evening for kids. One picture, one date, one sentence of welcome does more than a crowded page.
The short version
Early-October events are September print jobs. Call 602-433-9101 with your event date, and we will build the timeline with you and price it plainly on the phone. Accurate Mailing Service has printed and mailed in Arizona since 1996, and a person answers.
