by: Bob Leduc
If your marketing activity doesn't include postcards, you're overlooking a highly effective and very low-cost sales tool. Here are 12 of the many reasons postcards should be part of your marketing program...
1. Postcards Work for Any Business
Postcards can produce all kinds of sales activity for all types of businesses. For example, they can produce web site traffic for online marketers, floor traffic for retail stores, sales leads for direct marketers...and just about any other type of sales activity a business wants.
2. Designing Postcards is Simple and Uncomplicated
Designing an effective postcard is not complicated. It can be as simple as printing your best small ad on a 4 x 6 card and sending it to a list of potential prospects. Postcards usually work best when the message is brief and the postcard looks at first glance like a message from friend.
3. Printing Postcards is Easy and Inexpensive
You can print postcards with your own computer for about 1 or 2 cents each...or have them printed professionally for about 4 to 8 cents each.
4. There's a Special Low Postage Rate for Postcards
You can send any quantity of postcards by First Class Mail in the US for only 23 cents each. The only requirement is that your postcards must be at least 3 1/2 x 5 inches but no larger than 4 1/4 x 6 inches.
5. Postcards Nearly Always Get Read
Because postcards are delivered "ready to read", almost everybody will read it - even people who usually throw out other types of direct mail without opening it.
6. Postcards Produce Fast Results
Because postcards are simple and easy to use - they produce results fast. You can mail postcards within a few days of deciding to use them...and you'll start getting sales activity 2 or 3 days later.
7. Postcards are effective for Generating Web site Traffic
One of the most effective postcard formats simply lists a few benefits of a product or service on the card and tells the reader to where they can get more information. This makes them ideal for generating traffic to a web site.
8. Postcard Multiply Themselves
Postcards are like small billboards - and they are easy to handle. They often get saved by recipients or passed on to others...providing additional exposure of your advertising message.
9. Markets Can Be Precisely Targeted With Postcards
You can accurately target your best markets by sending postcards only to mailing lists of prospects likely to be interested in what you're offering...and who also have a history of acting on offers that interest them.
10. Postcard Marketing Results Are Easy To Measure
Postcards normally generate over 90 percent of their total response within 7 to 10 days. This enables you to quickly and accurately evaluate the results of a postcard campaign.
11. Postcards Put You in Control of Your Sales Activity
You can quickly boost (or reduce) your sales activity anytime you want by simply regulating the number of postcards you mail and how often you mail them.
12. Postcards Conceal Your Marketing from Competitors
Most advertising uses mass media where your competitors hear or see what you are doing - and copy it. Postcard marketing is personal. Only you and your prospects are aware of what you are doing.
Postcards may be one of the best kept secrets of modern marketing. They're highly effective, very low-cost, simple to use...and they work for any business. You're overlooking a profitable marketing tool if don't use them.
Copyright 2005 Bob Leduc http://BobLeduc.com