Marcia Yudkin - Marketing With Postcards: Top Ten Ways to Use Postcards to Promote Your Business

Marketing With Postcards:

Top Ten Ways to Use Postcards to Promote YourBusiness

by Marcia Yudkin

Creative Ways

P.O. Box 305

Goshen MA 01032

http://www.yudkin.com/postcardcourse.htm

(413)582-4052

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Marcia Yudkin

Smashwords Edition License Note

All rights reserved. Please obtain written permissionbefore reprinting, duplicating or distributing this ebook, in wholeor in part.

Because the postcard has too low a profile intodays marketing landscape, this report gives it a boost.

Postcards cut through the clutter.

Postcards reach those you want to reach.

Postcards creatively get your messageacross.

Postcards deliver return on investment.

As youll see, there is not only one way touse postcards intelligently and strategically. Indeed, some of themethods described in these pages are downright surprising.

Any profitable postcard campaign starts notwith a clever image or turn of phrase but with sound strategy.Thats why a report on using postcards for results doesnt have asingle illustration. I want to make sure you build your postcardcampaigns on a solid foundation.

These mighty little message senders are soversatile. In fact, theyre my favorite marketing tool!

Marcia Yudkin

http://www.yudkin.com/postcardcourse.htm

Whether you sell leadership training orping-pong tables, health care plans or lawn mower gizmos, you needa constant flow of potential customers likely ones to turn intoactual clients. Postcards are an inexpensive, easily managed,highly controllable means of generating leads. Theyre as suitablefor high-tech offerings as for low-tech wares. Heres an overviewto help you understand the power of postcards to generate leads foryour company.

Mailing list vendors allow you to zero in onvery specific characteristics of your ideal customer. For example,you can mail to brand managers at companies with annual salesbetween $5 and $20 million within 25 miles of your headquarters.You can send to Nebraska-based owners of hair salons that have beenin business more than 20 years. You can target unmarried womenunder 30 who make more than $80,000 a year and rent rather than owna home. You can get your postcards to married men who hunt or fishand live within 250 miles of your remote resort.

Postcards also have the advantage of gettinglooked at. No one throws them out unopened, and during the initialfive-second lookover time, you have a powerful opportunity to getyour message across. Where there is a gatekeeper who goes throughthe mail first, creative postcards often make it through,especially if they are amusing, interesting, tantalizing orunusual.

If you imagine lead generation to be anexpensive process, think again. With postcards, sending 5,000 at atime can cost less than $2,000. However, you may be better offzeroing in on a smaller number of prospects that you contactrepeatedly say, once a month for five months. Sending monthlycards five times to 1,000 top prospects costs less than $3,000 forthe entire campaign. Yes, these prices include design, printing andmailing! List costs range from 9 cents a name for consumers to 35cents a name for businesspeople.

Be sure you dont send what I call Hello, Iexist postcards but rather ones with a definite action you areasking the recipient to take. This might be going to your web siteto download a white paper or report, calling to request a free,no-obligation assessment or purchasing a low-risk starter servicethat serves as a gateway to a long-term client relationship. Ifyoure sending a series of cards, the call to action can be thesame each time or different.

Once you learn the logistics, postcardcampaigns are so easy and quick to manage that you can turn them onand off as needed. For example, if youve just lost a majorcontract, you can send out twice as many postcards as usual. Whenyoure at capacity, you can stop sending postcards until youreready for additional customers again. And once you discover youraverage response rate, you can send out the exact number ofpostcards at a certain interval to reliably bring in the optimalnumber of leads month in and month out.

Have I convinced you yet to try postcardmarketing? Its not the most glamorous or technologically advancedmarketing method, but those who use it intelligently generaterespectable profits from the leads it brings them.

Youre having a slow week or a slow month. Oryou see a week or month looming thats been slow in the past. Oryoure not sure why, but no one seems to buy on Tuesdays. Or youhave a whatever that no one wants to buy at full price.

Postcards to the rescue.

Postcards today are fun, colorful,eye-catching, cheap, quick to send and effective. And when you sendestablished customers cards bearing a special offer, they bring infast cash.

Design your special offer to be at least veryappealing and even better, irresistible. According to advertisingexperts, a discount of 30 percent gets almost everyonesattention.

But your special offer doesnt have to bemoney off. You can run a two-for-one special, promise a freewhatever with any purchase over $XX or specify that no payment isdue for 60 days. You can even tie the offer to a charity or cause:Bring in canned goods for the poor or a used winter jacket in goodcondition and well do such and such for you. Or you can say youhavent taken new clients for a particular service in several yearsand you have two openings now first come, first served.

If you have a retail location, tell postcardrecipients to bring in the card when they come in, to get thediscount. If customers typically buy online or by phone, provide acoupon code they can read off or type in to get the discount.

Either way, be sure you clearly state adeadline for the offer including the year. Not only does thisprevent misunderstandings about the offer, the deadline motivatespeople to act rather than putting the card aside for later.Usually, later means the card never gets looked at again. Thedeadline should be no more than two weeks from when you expect thecards to land in peoples mailboxes.

Dont think that if one offer is tempting,two offers would be even better. More than one offer sparksindecision rather than desire. So present only one offer perpostcard.

Since you never know which side of the cardrecipients see first, design your postcard so the reader sees youroffer at a glance, whichever side happens to be facing them whenthey go through the mail. Colorful design and images help grabattention, but make sure the graphics support your concisely wordedmessage rather than overpower it.

The quickest way to get postcards to yourlist is to use an online vendor that enables you to design the cardonline and then upload a data file containing your customer list.Postcard Builder, Amazing Mail and several other companies offerthis convenient service. This is totally hands off in the sensethat you never touch the postcards and do not need specializedknowledge of postal procedures and regulations.

Put your own address on the list, and youllknow exactly when the cards arrive in the homes or offices you weresending to. Then wait for the sweet sound of ka-ching! ka-ching! asorders stream in.

Realistically, youre not going to sell cars,houses, executive coaching or cruise vacations with a one-postcardcampaign. But when you are selling something that goes forthousands or tens of thousands of dollars, postcards can certainlyget the selling process going.