When marketing your product or service with postcards, you need three competitive advantages to succeed. The postcard must get attention, it must be fast, and it must be cheap enough to fit in your marketing budget over the long term. Small businesses can t afford to pay for marketing that does not stand out or get noticed. If the postcard mailing is too expensive to mail more than a few times the power of the message will be lost on the potential customer. The faster a postcard gets in a customers hand the faster they can buy your product or service.

3 Keys to Postcard Success: 1. Get attention 2. Deliver fast results 3. Inexpensive so it can be repeated (often!)

These three ingredients are important for traditional postcards.

But used in conjunction with on-demand postcards, your results will accelerate many times over. Because a postcard doesn't need an envelope, your message has a head start at getting the recipient s attention. Today's full color, digitally bright postcards practically jump out of your prospect's stack of mail. With on-demand postcards, you can send a second mailing the same day you analyze the results from your first mailing -- how s that for speed?

Postcards are less expensive than other types of mail. Using on-demand postcards means smaller run sizes and more refined testing. You don t have to buy 50,000 postcards to get a price break. It is just as economical to print and mail 50 postcards as it is 5,000. With smaller mailings you can target potential customers better and bring results that can match, in revenue, that of an expensive print or broadcast campaign.

Goals of a postcard campaign First figure out what you want your postcard to achieve. What results do you want with each mailing? Once you know your objectives, measure your results and adjust your mailing accordingly. Are you looking for leads? Do you need to get more people into your store or to your web site? Are you trying to boost sales of a featured product or service? Some of our customers use postcards for:

Open house

Just sold

Just listed

Special sale announcements

Classes

Thank you

Grand openings

Tradeshow notices

New locations

Your postcard's main message needs to be simple and direct. Create a sentence or two that zeroes in on your main objective. Postcards are excellent for conveying a simple one-part message-- Buy this , Just Listed or Now Open in Your Area. Consider sending a series of postcards if you want people to do more than one thing. Each card can concentrate on motivating readers to do a different task.

For example, one of our customers ( Scott ) uses postcards to increase attendance at his oneday training class. The full color on-demand postcard is sent out two weeks before the class to a list of 5,000 potential customers in his local area. Targeting like this can increase response by 40 percent. The postcard focuses on a single item, learning how to trade stocks for a large profit. The results of the mailing have been very positive. Over 250 people sign up for each class yielding over $60,000 in lifetime value for a cost of less than $2,700.

Targeting Customers Your potential customers can be split into one of two broad categories, consumers or businesses. When you target consumers, consider the ways of breaking down your audience into subcategories: location, income range, ages, men or women, and type of dwelling are common. Targeting a business is a bit different. Business-to-business audiences can be classified according to industry, number of employees, annual sales, and industry groups t

hey may belong to. Once you have identified the appropriate subcategories, then it is very straightforward to purchase a list of mailing addresses. It is even possible to instantly download mailing lists from websites such as www.zairmail.com.

Another great way to use postcards is to target your existing customers. With on-demand postcards you can segment your customers into groups, and send each group a different postcard designed specifically for them. One postcard mailing can go to people who buy often and in large amounts. Another postcard can go to customers who buy less frequently or haven't purchased in a while. Unhappy or one-time customers could comprise a third and fourth mailing. Building your own house address list will be invaluable part of your overall marketing approach.

How to design your postcard Like any marketing document, start with a headline. Begin with an action word. Promise an irresistible benefit customers will receive when they buy from you. With postcards, the shorter the copy the better, so cut out extra words. Headlines work best when they are black, bold type on a white background. White on a dark background works well, too. Avoid colored type-- it can easily blend into the background making your headline less attention getting. Write in a mixed case (like this sentence). Capitalizing The Beginning Of Each Word or PUTTING YOUR HEADLINE IN ALL CAPS makes your headline harder to read.

Use a full-color photo to make your postcard look more impressive and stand out from other mail. Templates are provided on our website that allow you to use Microsoft Word to generate custom, professional-looking postcards that are ready to upload and mail.

Finally, take advantage of the different sizes of postcards that are available; 4.25 by 6 inch cards are conveniently-sized and perfect for short messages. The larger, 6 by 9 inch card can hold more information, attracts attention and can still be mailed at a reasonable cost.

Inexpensive, fast, and effective, postcards are a great way for a small business to gradually build its customer base and sales. Postcards are also an effective tool to augment a larger company's print and broadcast campaigns. By following these simple tips, you can ensure your postcard gets noticed and creates results.

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