Postcard Marketing

Powerful - Easy - Very Effective

By David Carleton

Six Reasons Why Postcards Work

Smart business owners and marketing professionals all agree sending postcards works. Why? Because they have the perfect combination of the “right stuff” that results in marketing that gets you the biggest bang for your buck at the lowest cost. The following are six specific reasons why you should be considering postcard marketing.

Reason # 1
Sending postcards gives you the ability to precisely target your best potential customers and clients. Instead of blasting your message to a wide group of people who may or may not be likely candidates for your product or service, postcards allow you to deliver your message to a very specific and narrow group of people who have a high propensity to buy from you.

Reason # 2
Your advertisement gets seen 100 percent of the time. When you receive a postcard in the mail, you look at it and, since it’s not stuffed in an envelope, the message is in plain view. A large percentage of letters get thrown away without ever being opened. Not the postcard - it gets seen.

Reason # 3
Postcards give you the ability to hide your offer from competitors. When you advertise in magazines, trade publications, radio or on the internet, your offer can be seen by your competitors. Postcards allow you to send your message in private to only those people who you want to view your message.

Reason # 4
Postcard marketing is inexpensive. For only .32 (at the time of this writing), you can send your marketing message to your best prospects and get it read. You can almost send two postcards for every one letter that you send. That’s a great deal.

Reason # 5
You can quickly get your message out to your prospects or customers. In fact, with today’s technology, you can have an entire postcard campaign developed and sent in less than one hour! That’s fast.

Reason # 6
Postcards allow you to easily track your results. There are several methods of coding your postcards to track how many people responded to your offer, allowing you to know your exact return on your marketing investment.
 

When to use a postcard

Business owners and independent professionals sometimes get confused about when to use a postcard and when not to use a postcard. Postcards do have some obvious limitations. The normal 4’ by 6’ postcard only leaves you with a small amount of space to deliver your message. So here are five instances when it’s a good idea to use a postcard.

1. When mailing to customers
Your customers know you, so you don’t need a lot of space to introduce yourself and explain why the recipient should believe you.

2. Part of an ongoing marketing program
Because postcards are so inexpensive to mail, you can send them over and over again cost effectively.

3. When your message is short
Sometimes you just want to tell your clients something, such as announcing a new product or asking them to visit a Web site. Postcards are perfect for these marketing jobs.

4.When you have a large amount of potential prospects
Postcards are great when you want to send your message to a lot of people such as large neighborhoods and communities. It allows you to deliver your message, at the lowest possible cost, to the most people.

5. When its hard to find the right audience
Sometimes you may want to market to people you cannot target very well. For example, if you’re trying to sell services to people who are frustrated with their marriages, there are no lists of those people, so you need to resort to mass marketing with postcards.
 

How to design a killer postcard that gets results

The key to getting a great response from your postcard marketing efforts is to deliver a compelling and relevant message to the right person. There are six steps that I take each time I sit down to design a winning postcard.

Step 1
Determine your campaign objectives. Ask yourself what you want your postcard to accomplish. Is it to generate a telephone call? To get a prospect to visit your web site? Is it to drive customers back to your store? Always start with the end in mind, and your postcard design will be much simpler?

Step 2
Understand what really motivates your market. In order to get people to do anything, you need to know their hot buttons. Once you know their hot buttons or what motivates them, then it’s easy to create a message and an offer that will move them to action.

Step 3
Create a compelling offer and a reason why they should take advantage of your offer. The heart of your postcard message should be your offer. Once you know what you’re offering, then you can create the copy that supports your offer. You’ll also want to create a reason for your prospect to take action right now, rather than waiting.

Step 4
Decide on the size of the postcard. Traditional postcards are 4’ by 6’. But today, savvy businesses use many different shapes and sizes of postcards. The larger the postcard, the more it will stand out in the mail and get noticed. Sometimes, its better to spend the extra money to send an oversized postcard, depending on what you’re selling and how important it is to get your message noticed.

Step 5
Design your postcard layout. There are myriad ways to structure your postcard. I usually start out by taking a white sheet of paper the size of the postcard and the drawing squares rectangles to define the blocks of space where the design elements of the postcard will be placed.

Step 6
Write your postcard copy. I’m not a big believer in using postcards that are purely photos. Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but many times, only a small percentage of the people will understand the idea your trying to get across in the photo. So I use a good amount of copy in my postcard designs. (Especially big bold headlines and strong calls to action.)
 

You can create powerful marketing campaigns that get amazing results with simple postcards and a little creativity.

The most important Element of your postcard marketing campaign- the Mailing List
If you are using postcards to get leads for your product or service, then you need to send them to a list that has a high propensity to become a customer. In other words, when it comes to lead generation using postcards, you can have an awesome postcard with an irresistible offer, but if you don’t send it to the right people, it will be a surefire flop!

You can acquire mailing lists through a number of means, but I would strongly suggest that you use the help of a qualified list broker. List brokers will help you find the right mailing list for your business. That’s what they do for a living. The best part about using list brokers is that they wont cost you a penny.

List brokers get a traditional 15 percent advertising agency discount, which is how they get paid in other words, they are paid by the list owner, not you. Its in their best interest to find you a mailing list that works with your offer so that you’ll come back to use them again, so there’s really no reason not to use a list broker.

Do it yourself postcard marketing
It doesn’t take rocket scientist to do a simple postcard mailing. Here’s one way to do it. Go down to your local office supply store and buy Avery postcard stock (paper that is especially made for creating postcards). Next go to Avery.com and download and use their free "Avery Design Pro" software that allows you to design your own postcards. I often use photos from istockphoto.com for my postcard designs. Then print your postcards out using an inkjet printer. Finally, you can print out labels using MS word (I use the Dymo Label Printer for my label printing - its so much easier.)

Another way to send postcards yourself is to use an online service. USPS.com has a postcard mailing service that will allow you to take advantage of discounted mailing rates. All you do is upload your design and your list and push a button, and your postcards are sent. Other popular online postcard mailing systems are AmazingMail.com and ModernPostcards.com. In addition, www.SendOutCards.com will allow you to send automated sequential postcard campaigns with the push of a button.

Conclusion
As you can see, postcard marketing can be a simple way to keep in touch with your customers and clients and create compelling, yet cost-effective marketing campaigns to sell your products and services. If you’re generating leads, make sure you use the services of a qualified list broker to help you select the right mailing list for your needs. If you’re just sending cards to your customers or known prospects, don’t feel shy about jumping on the Web and using an online postcard mailing service. The humble postcard can be a powerful tool that can put your marketing efforts into overdrive and produce big results on a small budget.

To your success.

David Carleton

Street Smart Sales and Marketing