Postcard marketing is just about the most cost effective form of direct advertising, for both on line and bricks and mortar businesses. However, it can easily turn into a failed project if the following essentials are ignored.
1- Understand your target market’s profile.
Without understanding your target market you may end up wasting a lot of money, purchasing a mailing list that will simply not deliver any results. Depending on your target market, you should also consider the possibility of not buying a list but instead have the post office deliver to every address in particular zip codes, saving a lot of money in purchasing a list, addressing and sorting fees.
2- Use a high impact message.
It is very easy to get caught up in covering too many offers in a post card, which dilutes the message. Use a single appearing, irresistible offer and state it clearly and boldly in as few words as possible. General “we are here” and “We sell widgets” will never work. Special offers and coupons do.
3- Use a high impact design.
Avoid designing a cluttered postcard. Your design should be as bold and focused as your message. Hiring a professional graphic designer could payoff in a big way. Postcard printing is inexpensive enough these days to justify testing a few designs, as the cost of mailing is many times that of printing.
4- Test, monitor, and test again.
Make the offer subject to the client bringing in the postcard to qualify. With this, you can monitor results effectively.
Don’t expect the campaign to hit a home run and put all your resources into a huge distribution. Do test runs. Test for the effectiveness of the list, the design and the offer. Even when you get to a point where you consider the last camping a home run, don’t stop testing other alternatives. Monitor results carefully and keep notes.
5- Do it over and over, and over again.
Post card marketing or any kind of direct marketing for that matter depends on repetition. If you plan your testing carefully, you will end up with the most effective combination of message, offer and design and that message must be repeated over and over to become even more effective.