Everyone loves receiving postcards.

But did you know, they are also a low cost and highly effective way to grow your business?

 

When done right, postcard direct mail marketing can be a highly effective direct mailing method to market your brand, products and services. Who doesn’t like to receive a postcard? The thought that someone has taken the time out of their day to send you a short note is a special moment and businesses can channel that same feeling. However, for a successful campaign there are seven steps to keep in mind.

Postcard Marketing tips

 

1. Target the Right Audience

It sounds logical but you would be surprised how many companies get this wrong only it’s very important you send your postcards to the right audience, so data is key. Every detail of your campaign should be focused on and tailored to this specific audience including your design, messaging and call-to-action (CTA).

Go one step further, use the design capabilities of digital print to personalise each postcode to the individual, which will significantly increase the response rate and your return on investment. You need to understand your audience’s wants and needs and show how you can solve their problems.

2. Call to Action (CTA)

The aim of your postcard campaign is to drive recipients to take action. So, adding a clear, simple and easy CTA to your postcard will encourage the readers to make this desired action. This action should align with your business goals and be the next step you want the receiver to take, such as to call the business, visit the website or use a discount code.

We suggest creating a desire to further motivate users to act by adding a limited time on the offer or incentive. You may also want to consider adding voucher codes to assist in controlling and measuring the campaign’s success.

3. Great Design

Your postbox is far less cluttered that it was five years ago but great design will help make your postcard stand out and get noticed. You only have a couple of seconds to make a lasting impression on the recipient, so you need to ensure maximum impact to attract their attention.

To make your direct mail postcard stand out and get noticed, use a bold and stunning design but don’t be afraid of white space. Be sure to utilise both sides of the postcard and incorporate your brand colours, use striking fonts and add high-quality images. You should always use a professional print company, like PostSmart, to ensure premium quality.

4. Clear Messaging

Your postcard must have a clear message to maximise the effectiveness of your campaign so content is very important. You only have a couple of seconds to capture the attention of the receiver and to convey your message in a way that can be easily understood and invested into – it needs to be clear and concise.

Start with a short, attention-grabbing headline to hook the reader and pique their curiosity. Stick to your main benefit and clearly communicate one key message that focuses on the reader’s needs and how you can solve their problem. Don’t try to say everything as you have limited space and are dealing with short window of opportunity.

Use plain language and keep it brief and concise, avoiding jargon and long paragraphs, instead choosing short sentences and bullet points. Don’t forget to proofread your postcard as copy that is full of grammatical and spelling errors will have the opposite effect on your campaign results. It’s beneficial to have a professional content writer to help with your campaign; the PostSmart team ensure that your core brand message is showcased with clarity from the beginning.

5. Contact Info

You should include your business contact information on the postcard including your phone number, email address, social media handles and website URL so that recipients can contact you or learn more about you.

Even if your recipient is not ready to follow through with your main CTA straight away, they can use your social media or website to get to know more about your business, which can lead to them using your services further down the line.

6. Integrated Campaign

By including your postcard campaign as a tactic in your integrated marketing mix, alongside your SEO strategy, it can increase your return on investment by up to 12%. There is a wide network of online and offline methods for communicating your messages to a specific target audience. However, one tactic alone will rarely be enough to ensure a conversion.

Most people will have specific buying habits, this may be utilising social media like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or perhaps they like to watch videos on YouTube, or maybe they like personalised mail in the post.

It’s important to create a consistent brand across all channels so that no matter where your target audience engage with your brand they will receive clear and consistent messaging that meets their needs.

7. Set Goals & Review Results

Again, it may seem obvious, but it’s often overlooked. Set goals so that you have a clear idea of what you want your campaign to achieve. This could be brand awareness, sales, leads, conversions, increase in website traffic, to name but a few.

Once you have determined your goal, you need to identify what success looks like for this campaign, how will you know you have achieved target. This key performance indicator could be the number of calls to your business either using a unique phone number on your postcard or via a voucher code, or it could be the traffic to a personalised URL on your website.

You can then use these results to assess your campaigns performance for your next mailing run. A single campaign won’t be enough, you need to test, and test again to figure out what resonates most with your audience. Fine-tune your messaging, call to action, and design to analyse what produces the best response rate to maximise your campaigns success.

Postcard Marketing with PostSmart

Try these tips on your next postcard marketing campaign to help maximise your campaigns success rate.

The team at PostSmart are on hand to help you create a successful postcard campaign including design, content, data, print and posting, so you can be confident that we’ve covered the seven steps outlined above and more.

To help get you started for a limited time only we’re offering *FREE DESIGN of your first postcard mailing with PostSmart. So, what are you waiting for?

Get in touch with PostSmart today and our expert team will be happy to help you get started.

 

*Subject to our terms and conditions.