Postcards Get Your Message Out
Cheaply And Effectively

Why even consider postcards as a marketing tool?

One of the chief needs of your business is getting information into the hands (and minds) of your customers. There are many methods for doing this, from internet advertising to door hangers to full on television commercials. One of the most cost effective ways of doing this is through postcards and direct mailings.

There are several benefits to using postcards and other direct mailings, beyond their cost. The first is that they . A first class postcard will be sent back to you if there's a bad address – this is critical for culling dead addresses from your list. This feedback process is one of the hidden benefits of the cards that's often overlooked.

Postcards done right can have a high impact. Unlike a mailing letter in an envelope, there's a reduced chance of the package will be thrown out with being read. A well designed postcard grabs the eye and gets read, making it almost impossible to toss unread.

Fortunately, high impact postcards can be simple to make and print and send. The labor involved is greatly reduced – there's no stuffing envelopes, no collating, folding or assembly. The only labor needed is putting postage on them, and even that can be taken care of with other services.

Now that you're excited about using postcards for direct mailings, here are some do's and don'ts to get the most effectiveness possible from them.

First, brevity is more than the soul of wit, it's also the heart of marketing. Use your postcards to generate leads, provide teaser information and otherwise induce potential customers into making the next step – think about where you're going to lead them for the next bit of information, be it your web site, or a recorded message or talking to a sales agent.

Second, text is more important than pictures. Yes, big four color postcards can catch the eye, but that's the responsibility of a good headline. Oversaturating with pictures gets the postcard tossed. Use text, and its lovely information density, to get the message to your reader, and have a good, punchy headline that focuses on the core problem your audience needs to solve. Make it as easy as possible to find the information needed to get to your next information source – make phone numbers large and prominent, make web site URLs easy to distinguish.

Third, qualify your prospects. Make sure your mailing list is well sorted and sifted; use your in-house list rather than renting a list. If you must rent a mailing list, use the services of a list broker, talk to her about the demographic you're hitting, and how you're getting information to them to solve their problem.

Lastly, there are two ways to look at any direct mailing campaign. You can play the odds; assume that you get a 1-2% response rate, note the zipcodes you sent them to, and use that for targeted followups. This works well for low ticket price items – the classic example is pizza parlors. The second way to look at them is the "lightning bolt" response – you have a high ticket item, and it doesn't matter if only a few people buy because the profit margin is that good, or most customers become repeat customers from an initial purchase. There are services that can not only help you print postcards on a budget, but they can also help you gain access to lists and mail your cards efficiently. For example, Vista Print is currently offering 50% Off All Postcards .

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