Marketing:

    Postcard Marketing Tips

We can't emphasize it enough: ALWAYS use postcards that are full color on BOTH sides! Studies have shown that 83% of the general public read their mail with the address facing up. If your postcard isn't full color on the front and back, you may be missing out on the opportunity to grab your customer's attention effectively.

    Top 10 Advantages of Using Postcards

1. Your postcards can "brand" you and your business in ways that most marketing materials cannot. If you start and stick to a regular postcard mailing program, you and your business will gain market recognition.

2. Postcards are versatile. In a single mailing, you can seek business from prospective customers, and solicit repeat business from existing customers.

3. When you're marketing with postcards, your competition doesn't know it. But they'll sure know it if you're advertising in the newspaper!

4. Postcard marketing is affordable, even for the smallest of businesses.

5. Testing an offer with postcards is easy. Just send your card to a small group of people and see how many of them respond. If you're satisfied with the results, then roll out a bigger mailing!

6. It's easy to track your results. Your card can tell recipients to bring the card into your store for a special discount. Or it can ask them to use a special ordering code when purchasing from your website.

7. Postcards don't waste people's time - they don't even have to open an envelope to read your message.

8. Postcards don't take up a lot of space. Your customers can carry them in their pockets, or carry them in their pocketbooks, for that matter. Hey, some of them might even create a postcard display on their refrigerator door!

9. Postcards are inexpensive to print.

10. Postcards are cheap to redeem. Better yet, they have no cost until your customers redeem them.

    A Successful Postcard Marketing System

Your cards will grow your business when you think of them as tools in a marketing system. A successful postcard marketing system consists of the following six steps:

Step #1: Idea Generation

Step #2: Card Creation

Step #3: Printing

Step #4: Mailing

Step #5: Follow-up with Prospects and Clients

Step #6: Cost-Tracking and Evaluation of Results

Use this system by starting with Step #1, proceeding through the next five steps, then repeating the process, over and over again. Why the repetition?

Many marketing experts today are big proponents of what he calls the "Rule of Seven." What it means is that people need to be exposed to your message at least seven times in 18 months before they're ready to buy from you.