10 good reasons to market with postcards.
Guest Author: Martha Retallick
Post Card Marketing Secrets
Contributing Writer
Source:
WebProNews.com
Article Date: 11.15.02
1. Postcard marketing is affordable, even for
the smallest of businesses. A year-long postcard marketing campaign
to each name on my mailing list costs less than $6.00 per name
per year.
And, better yet, my mailing list rental costs are zero. That's because I
created my own list for free.
Before I put any name on my list, I ask myself if this person would be
interested in hearing from me on an ongoing basis. If I think so, that
individual goes on the list, and, as mentioned previously, it will cost me
around $6.00 per name per year to keep her there. If I don't think that
someone will want to hear from me regularly, I keep him off the list.
My list includes:
a. My clients
b. Prospective clients
c. People who could send clients or prospects
my way
There aren't too many people on my list who aren't personally acquainted
with me. So, when they get a postcard from Martha Retallick, they know who
this Martha-person is. Thus, they're "hotter" prospects than people whose
names came from a commercial mailing list and don't know me at all.
2. When you're marketing with postcards, your
competition doesn't know it. But they'll sure know it if you're
advertising in the newspaper!
3. It's easy to track your results. Your card
can tell recipients to bring the card into your store for a
special discount. Or it can ask them to use a special ordering
code when purchasing from your website.
4. Postcards are versatile. In a single mailing,
you can seek business from prospective customers, and solicit
repeat business from existing customers. Better yet, a postcard
isn't just something to send through the mail. You can use postcards
as oversized business cards, hang tags for your products and
mini-information sheets.
5. Your postcards can "brand" you and your
business in ways that most marketing materials cannot. If you
start and stick to a regular postcard mailing program, you and
your business will gain quite a reputation, perhaps even a little
notoriety.
6. Testing an offer with postcards is easy.
Just send your card to a small group of people and see how many
of them respond. If you're satisfied with the results, then
roll out a bigger mailing!
7. Postcards don't waste people's time -- they
don't even have to open an envelope to read your message.
8. Postcards don't take up a lot of space.
Your customers can carry them in their pockets, or carry them
in their pocketbooks, for that matter. Hey, some of them might
even create a postcard display on their refrigerator door!
9. Postcards are inexpensive to print. You
could design what's called a "four-up" card -- four cards on
one 8 1/2 x 11" sheet of paper, print the design onto card stock,
then cut the sheet into four cards
10. Postcards are cheap to redeem. Better yet,
they have no cost until your customers redeem them.
About the Author:
Martha Retallick is the author of Postcard Marketing Secrets,
a downloadable manual that shows you how to put postcards to
work for your business -- profitably. Learn more about it at
http://www.postcardmarketingsecrets.com/
