3 Reasons Postcards Are The Best Way To Advertise

When I say postcard, maybe you think of the old fashioned, jagged edged dull pieces of card stock.  Think again!  Today's postcards are vibrant, high-impact creations with clip art so real that it'll jump off the page at you.  And the best thing about them...

1. They're Short and Personal
Let's face it, people just don't have time to sort through a lot of advertisements and junk mail.  If the truth be known, they immediately identify ads and pitch them into the trash without ever slitting the envelope.

Postcards get read!  It's already open, and the message is "in your face" without exerting any effort to absorb it.  Even if the reader isn't trying to read it, he'll get the impact of the short message before he tosses it.

Personal messages have a greater appeal than mass mailings. Postcards keep the old time charm of a personal greeting while implement new high tech marketing strategies... a combination for success.

2. They're Easy And Cost Effective
Hey even the postage for a postcard is cheaper!  Go to your printer and have them print you up several thousand for 7 or 8 cents apiece.  Not too bad!  For about 30 cents you have a cutting edge, high impact marketing tool ready to be put to use.

You don't even have to bother with putting them in the mail.  Many print warehouses will take care of it for you.  Hey, what could be easier?

3.  They Keep Your Marketing Strategy Hidden From Competitors
Do you get tired of spending countless hours agonizing over new marketing strategies, only the have your competitors jump right in and ape your campaign?  Yeah, it's pretty frustrating, but hard to do anything about.  Everything you do is right in front of them shouting "Copy Me."

Postcards are private interactions with the individuals who read them.  It's a one-on-one campaign that lets you keep the results quiet from prying eyes.  Heck, they won't even know what you're doing, much less how to copy it.

There's another sneak tactic that I haven't mentioned yet... using postcards to direct traffic to your Website.  That's right!  Most of us think we need to use Internet marketing tools to drive up our Internet sales.  NOT SO!  That's what everyone else is doing, but think about it.  A postcard with your slogan and visible information that directs the reader to your Website... yeah, let's hope the competition doesn't catch on for quite a while!

There's not another marketing campaign that can guarantee 100 percent readership!  It just makes sense that when more people read your ad, it will be more effective.  Use postcards to market and count on a high response rate!

2 Step Marketing

<b>Do it Right.</b>

I receive postcards all the time. The other day I received a postcard trying to sell me a copy machine. It had tiny, tiny lettering slathered all over the front and a large portion of the back of the card.

It was extremely hard to read, so hard in fact that I threw it away.

Several days later I received a postcard with 32 words on it telling me that I could get complete information on unrestricted long distance telephone service for 5.5 cents a minute with no additional monthly fee by calling the 800 number on the card.

I did call.  I got the information, had my questions answered and ordered my long distance service changed.
The company who offered me the long distance service was using a time tested 2 step selling process:

<i>Step 1.</i> Generate a lead - Get me to call their 800 number.

<i>Step 2.</i> Provide the requested information - Provided to me on the phone by one of their sales representatives, who was able to answer my questions and make me feel confident that I could save quite a bit of money on my long distance bill and that the service would be as good or better.

<b>What's So Good About 2 Steps?</b>

It is much easier to create interest (a lead) than it is to get a person through an entire buying process (a sale).

You aren't getting the prospect or existing customer to part with any money just yet.

You can use postcards to inexpensively promote to your target prospects and customers and generate leads (inquiries about your products and services) to then be followed up on and converted to sales.

This 2 step process also helps you to create a list of people who were interested enough in what you offered to contact you.

You can then recontact the one's who you didn't complete a sale with when they first inquired, preferably until they do buy from you.

<b>IMPORTANT:</b>  Be sure to get the information you will need to recontact the people who responded to your postcard offering.

Repetitive follow-ups with the people who contacted you <b>will</b> result in increased sales. Make it a company policy to follow up with those people who contacted you about your products and services.


<b>The Most Effective Use of Postcards:</b>

The purpose of your postcard's message is to generate a sufficient level of interest in the mind of your prospect to get him/her to contact you to ask you about your offer.

You are generating interest, not collecting their money (not yet anyway). That is what the 2 step marketing process is about. Generating interested prospects and customers who contact you for more information.

Your message needs 3 parts to be most effective:

1.    A clear statement of the biggest benefit of your product or service (in the long distance example, it was cost savings).

2.    A good reason for them to contact you NOW.

3.    A simple, easy way for them to respond (an 800 number for example).


Your message should be short and to the point. Short messages on postcards produce more leads than long ones.

<i>For example:

Call 800-555-1212 for Your Copy of Our Free Report:</i>

<b>What 99% of Business Owners Don't Know and Will Never Find Out About Using Postcards to Explode Their Profits </b>

<i>Offer ends 5-5-01 (Print a date 3 weeks from your mailing date to create some urgency)</i>

Lots of people will respond to find out what they might not know. Don't forget, they responded, which is least some interest in the information you have created a curiosity about.

This method works and is sure to produce a large number of inquiries if sent to your proper market.

<b>This 2 Step Marketing Process Works.</b>

Use the tips you have read here to create your next postcard's message and see what happens.

You will generate a bunch of leads from people who are truly interested in your products and services.

6 Things I Know About Postcards That You Don’t

In my plethora of experience tucked away between these ears, I have managed to cull out for you what I consider the “best of the best” – in other words, I took the most proven details about postcards that were significant to you starting a postcard campaign and really winning at it.  So here goes the most incisive highlights about postcards.

<b>1)  I know that a postcard is better than something in an envelope.</b> 

For many reasons, the main one being, in an envelope you can’t make your potential customer see your message.

People are fast.  We see and read very quickly – actually much more quickly than we even realize..  Think about yourself – how fast do you go through your mail and process out what you want to keep and what you don’t want to keep?   Pretty darn fast.  It takes fractions of seconds to go through and process in your mind “bill, bill, advertisement, bill, advertisement, letter…”  And it also takes fractions of seconds to decide whether you are even going to bother giving more attention to the pieces that you designated as advertisements.

With a postcard, even if they throw it away, they already saw your message regardless of whether they think they did or not.  They saw it enough to throw it away, didn’t they?

And the next time they get that same postcard in the mail, they see it again as they throw it in the trash.

Let’s face it - junk mail gets thrown away.  And postcards are junk mail to a lot of people.

Although they may be junk mail, postcards get read no matter what – even if thrown away without reading them, they get seen.  It’s like the phoenix rising up from the ashes.

<b>2)  I know that if you are not doing repeat mail with your postcards you are flushing your money down the toilet.</b>

Repeat mailings cannot be repeated enough.    DO REPEAT MAILINGS!  DO REPEAT MAILINGS!  DO REPEAT MAILINGS!  A one shot in the dark postcard mailing is not going to change your business, your bottom line, your life or your anything.

The long and the short of it is, if you are not up to confronting that you need to do a campaign then don’t bother being in business.  Sorry if I sound a bit harsh!

<b>3)  I know that the best price is not best necessarily the best postcard.</b>

The cheapest is not necessarily the best.  The old adage “you get what you pay for” applies here.  Get whatever potential postcard company you interview to send you samples.  Make sure the postcard is a very good, quality, stiff card that catches your attention.  Get them to give you customer references.  Call those references and find out what they think of that company’s service, product, etc.

There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into getting your postcard done right.  If they screw up printing, if they don’t get your mailing out on deadline, etc. – doing it dirt cheap might not mean getting the quality service you need or want.

<b>4)  I know that although most people, if surveyed, say they like full color on both sides, the truth is black on white on the back of the postcard gets a better response.</b>

Why?  Because full color on both sides is confusing.  On the other hand, if you have a very aesthetic, pleasing-to-the-eye front - with a great headline  - you just want to turn that postcard over and simply get the message on the back.  You want good eye trail.

Eye trail is where your eye goes when you look at the postcard.  You can have good eye trail with full color on both sides – but it has to be done correctly.  Usually when you give people a choice to do full color on both sides they go overboard and the creative juices start flying, not flowing, flying with, “WOW!!! full color on both sides?!!”  And they make it too busy.  You don’t want it to be dispersing – you want it to go like a trail.  Have a start, a middle and an end. 

<i>Example:</i>
     
<b>Did YOU Notice this Postcard?

Your Customers Will Notice Yours Too!
5000 Full Color

Super-glossy

Postcards

for only

$389</b>

Look at it from the customer viewpoint – really look at it from their viewpoint and you can see what I mean by eye trail.

<b>5)   I know that you should promote only one thing at a time on your postcard.</b> 

Even if you sell lots of different products, you only promote one of them.  It is fine to mention them on the back of the postcard bullet pointed.  But your main focus on the front of your postcard needs to be one product, service, item, what have you – just one thing.

Say you have a flooring store and a furniture showroom in the back.  Your postcard should only talk about flooring.  It is not that people who are looking for flooring are not also looking for furniture – it’s just too much information on the front of postcard.

The purpose of a postcard is to get your prospect interested with one thing.  You can put on the back as just a mention:  “We also have a giant showroom full of furniture.”

But on the front – one item!  ONE ITEM!

If a company sells hot tubs, above-ground pools and jungle gyms they need to pick the one that gives them the most income and make their postcard about that.

<b>6)    And I know that a person could grow a company with no other marketing media.</b> 

With postcards alone, one could take a company from zero to over a million bucks in revenue or more.  How do I know?  Because I did it.

We mailed postcards every single week, and the more postcards we mailed out, the more we grew.  Yes, it is good to diversify and as we grew and became more successful and had more money to try other media, we did.  Some we kept and some we nixed.  Postcards are a staple that works no matter what. 

These six points of postcard marketing data are proven techniques of making your postcards WOW your prospective clients while at the same time being faithful to the time-honored methods that have proven to get more bang for your buck.  These tips are what will put your postcard in a class all by itself.

2 Little Words That Work Marketing Magic

In his classic best-seller, <I>How To Win Friends And Influence People,</I> Dale Carnegie's second chapter is entitled The Big Secret of Dealing With People. The secret is summed up in this principle: Give honest and sincere appreciation.

Carnegie said there is only one way to get anybody to do anything -- by making the person want to do it. How can you encourage customers to say good things about you and give you referrals? By giving them what they and all human beings crave: honest and sincere appreciation.

<B>The Two Magic Words</B>

The big secret of dealing with people (or customers) is often overlooked or forgotten. It's simply saying "thank you" consistently, personally and, above all, sincerely. These two words work marketing magic because customers want to feel important.

Saying "thank you" is an act of kindness, besides. But don't say "thank you" for the sake of flattery. It must be sincere. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "You can never say anything but what you are."

<B>"Thank You" Promotes Referrals</B>

The uncertainty of referrals can be disconcerting. Can you control them? No. Can you influence them? Absolutely.

First you must provide a valuable product or service for customers. (You're already doing this, right?) But perhaps you can make an even bigger difference in their minds by your continued interest after you've delivered the product or service.

Each customer has a different level of satisfaction with your products and services. However, all customers to whom you say "thank you" are satisfied that they're important to you. This can determine whether you'll continue a relationship with them and get referrals.

<B>"Thank You" as Direct Mail or E-mail</B>

If you've never used direct mail and are considering it, start a thank-you correspondence program. If you've used direct mail or e-mail but haven't sent thank-you letters or e-mails, start now.

The thank-you letter or e-mail to your customers is targeted (you know them, they know you), personal and effective. It's guaranteed to receive a positive response.

Furthermore, it's a pleasant surprise if it's snail mail. They see your envelope. They think, this must be something for me to review, to sign, or worse a bill. Surprise! They're appreciated; they're important. And you're the one telling them so.

Write a thank-you letter or e-mail at every opportunity. But don't send one with an invoice or other correspondence. Always send it separately.

<b>Writing the Thank-You Letter or E-mail</B>

The thought behind a thank-you letter or e-mail may seem simple, but writing one can be tricky. Here are 9 tips for writing a winning thank-you letter or e-mail:

1. <I>Keep it brief.</I> A half dozen lines (or fewer) are sufficient.

2. <I>Make it sincere.</I> This is crucial. If you aren't careful, it can sound awkward, even when you're trying to be sincere.

3. <I>Start with "thank you."</I> Dear Ms. Johnson (or first name, if appropriate): Thank you for ...

4. <I>Make the tone warm, but professional.</I> Be friendly, but keep it businesslike.

5. <I>Reinforce a positive.</I> Jog their memory of a positive aspect of the relationship.

6. <I>Offer your continued support.</I> If I can help, please call ...

7. <I>End with "thank you."</I> Thanks again for ...

8. <I>Use an appropriate closing.</I> Sincerely, Best regards.

9. <I>No ulterior motive.</I> Make it a pure "thank you," otherwise sincerity is jeopardized.

Remember: Saying "thank you" is part of building strong customer relationships over time. Use these two magic words consistently and watch your repeat business and referrals grow.

(c) 2005 Neil Sagebiel