How to
Successfully Use
Postcard Marketing
Postcard Marketing
Postcards are a great way to break
into direct mail. Although online email marketing is the rage
these days, there is a lot of money being left on the table by
advertisers who have failed to use postcard marketing in their
overall business strategy. Cheap, easy to design, not a lot of
writing needed and quick response are some of the benefits you can
expect when using postcards.
For what can you
use postcards?
Uses of postcards are many and
varied. Some ideas include:
-
Prospecting:
Postcards can be used to get new prospects into your business
and product lines. In this case, the postcard would be
your first step in the advertising campaign and lead to a more
complete explanation of the benefits in the next step.
-
Information:
Informing prospects about new or improved features and benefits
is a perfect use of postcards. Again, just give the short
bullet version of the benefits you want to get across on the
postcard, then lead the prospect to another information source
such as a website, 800# info line or store location.
-
Announcements:
Stores use postcards to announce sales, specials, limited time
offers and other event-driven occurrences. Postcards are
easy to design and get printed, low cost and easy to target to
the benefits of your offer.
Where in the
sales process are postcards used?
Postcards most often are used in a
multi-step marketing campaign. Basically what that means is that the
postcard will just cover one
of the
AIDA steps, usually the initial step of getting the prospects
attention and/or interest. Subsequent steps in the process
will further inform the prospect of the product benefits and
features.
It all depends on how much 'selling' you need to
do to get the prospects Interest and Desire high enough to make them
take Action. You may have to give them a detailed brochure,
pamphlet or website to review all of the features and pick out sizes
and colors. Or you might just need to take the order for
immediate delivery.
What are key
points to remember about postcard marketing?
Postcards are not expensive and
come with tons of features. Success with postcards depends on
you understanding where the postcard fits in your marketing strategy
and keeping that in mind when designing the words and structure of
the postcard. Some of the important things to
keep in mind are:
-
Keep the design simple.
Don't try to cram too much information on the postcard.
-
There must be a definitive call
to action on the card that stands out above all else.
-
Color will not buy you much in
extra response.
-
Use the benefits of your
product on the postcard... not the features of the
product. This will engage the reader better and encourage
him to take the action you want him to be taking.
-
Test your postcards.
Use a small mailing sample to test the effectiveness of your
card in getting the prospect to take action.
-
Once you find a good card and a
good list that is proven with your tests, roll out as fast as
you can for maximum profits.
Related
ideas
Once you start collecting prospect information
from your postcard marketing efforts, you will want to followup
with those people to generate "Interest, Desire and Action" for them
to buy your product or service right? Well, if you can't
collect their email address for your
autoresponder as we suggest
strongly, the backup is that you get the prospects phone number.
One thing to think of is if you start getting
hundreds to thousands of prospects, you will not be able to call
them all back... especially enough to close sales on them all.
Again, we can let technology assist in taking the burden off of you
to make thousands of phone calls. Let machines do it and give
them your follow-up recorded message. Well, there are two cool
services (maybe more) that let you follow-up with folks via phone...
but you don't have to call them all.
VoiceShot and the
Phone
Broadcast Club both let you put in lists of phone numbers
and record a message and the system sends it to them all...
automatically. How cool is that?
Enjoy your new-found postcard marketing
knowledge and profits!
Listen to this
short audio recording to understand the importance of
establishing an Email Marketing Campaign to add to your bottom line.
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