They are affordable, efficient, easy/quick to launch, versatile, and offer excellent branding opportunities. What are they? You guessed right — postcards in envelopes.

Contrary to popular misconceptions, direct mail postcards are not a thing of the past. Instead, they are fast gaining traction and causing so much buzz in modern-day marketing campaigns. And they have proven to be profitable for marketing tools.

If you are just learning about postcards in envelopes and the myriad of potentials for target marketing, you don’t need to beat yourself over it because we have got you covered.

We will discuss postcard marketing and share tips on how to make your postcard marketing campaign a success. This brings us to the million-dollar question;

Why use postcards in marketing?

Unless you are new to marketing, you will know that marketing with postcards is arguably one of the most popular and successful ways of building a profitable business. It’s even applauded for its ability to send targeted organic traffic to websites.

Adopting postcards allows you to leverage both print and digital marketing strategies. It provides businesses with many opportunities, convenience, and flexibility in connecting with their target audience.

But that’s not all.

It may interest you to know that direct mail postcards rank very high among other marketing channels and are applauded for their high household response rate.

Compared to the 0.6% for emails and paid ads, postcards in envelopes boast of a stunning 5.1% response rate. With social media coming in at 0.4%. Did you know that for every 167 dollars invested in direct mail marketing, 2000 dollars’ worth of goods is sold?

In addition to these figures, 57% of people say postcards marketing makes them feel valued, and it creates an authentic bond between them and the seller/product. Another 60% + of people say direct mail postcards mostly influence them to visit a website, and most of them are first-time shoppers.

With all of these figures rolled out in front of you, you will agree that direct mail marketing is powerful and efficient for your marketing campaign. Now imagine how much they will make when you deploy postcards in envelopes near holidays and special occasions. The result is best left to your imagination.

At this point, you are probably itching to know how to get started with direct mail marketing. Not to worry, we will share our guide to postcard marketing with you. But, before then, let’s quickly touch on the top benefits of using postcards in envelopes for your marketing campaigns.

What at the benefits of using postcards for marketing?

• Postcards are affordable

If you are looking for an affordable and effective means of marketing your products or services, you should consider postcards. They offer high-quality marketing without putting a hole in your pocket.

In the business of targeted ads, postcards are regarded as the most cost-effective option. In addition to the low cost of printing them, postage is also inexpensive. As such making, promotional postcards an ideal option for virtually all businesses, regardless of their size or niche where they operate.

• Postcards are versatile

Speaking of versatility, there is a lot you can do with postcards in envelopes. For example, they can influence sales at discounted prices, launch new products, and attract new customers.

In addition to attracting qualified leads to your products or services and announcing special offers, direct mails can also be used to motivate existing customers to reach for their wallets and announce and invite people to seminars, trade shows, and other similar events.

And yes, postcards in envelopes can also serve as coupons. Postcards fit in almost any marketing idea you have. If you can think of it, postcards will bring your marketing goal to fruition.

• Postcards are impactful

What other way to get your message across to your customers in the most catchy and precise words than postcards in envelopes?

Unlike other marketing campaigns that use multi-page content (like a brochure) to get the message across, postcards are single-piece card stock or pasteboard. Postcards don’t beat around the bush, and you have so many options to explore, including the color, font size, and riveting designs.

Other benefits of postcards include but not limited to:

• They are tangible
• They are ideal for target marketing

Last but not least, promotional postcards bring stealth to the game of marketing. With postcards in envelopes in your arsenal, your competitors won’t know about your promotional offers and ideas until the results start to materialize.

Which is the opposite case scenario with marketing via billboards, newspapers, and other mass marketing approaches. That way, only your target audience gets to see your marketing messages. Think stealth, efficiency, and personalized marketing campaigns.

Guide to postcard marketing

While postcard marketing campaigns are easy and quick to launch, it’s always best to get started on the right foot — put your best foot forward. Speaking of putting your best foot forward, here is our guide to help you get started on your postcard marketing.

• Plan your postcard marketing campaign
• Don’t hold back on your copywriting prowess (while crafting your offer and call to action).
• Make use of catchy designs — the use of white vs. Black and White and imagery.

If you check all the boxes in this guide, the result will be a compelling direct mail postcard marketing campaign.

Plan your postcard marketing campaign

Planning your postcard marketing campaign entails defining your goals, identifying your target audience, creating a compelling offer, and determining the recipients’ actions.

Having defined your postcard marketing goal (which we discussed earlier), your focus should shift to identifying your audience. Suppose you are reaching out to new customers; some demographic data you should gather include age, gender, location, occupation, buying habits, hobbies, and annual revenue among several other factors.

Creating a compelling offer

For you to be able to create a compelling offer, ask yourself what your customers need—put yourself in their shoes. You can start by asking yourself these questions.

• What do your target customers?
• What problems do your customers have (their pain point)
• How do you intend to solve their problem and make their lives better — What is your proposition?

Having answered these important questions, you need to find a way to motivate customers to respond quickly. You can tinker along offering discounts, freebies or put out a buy-one-get-one-free deal. The idea is to get your customers to respond quickly. Think outside the box and be creative.

What actions should customers take?

Some ideas of customers’ actions include calling a number, visiting a physical store/location, visiting your website, or subscribing to your social media page.

Mind you, customers’ response is dependent on the nature of your business and the offer you made. So while you are at it, it’s always best to prepare for their response.

You can consider having staff on standby to attend to customers if you expect them to visit a physical location. On the other hand, if the customers are expected to visit your website, you should put up a responsive and informative landing page and catalog to look through.

Don’t hold back on your copywriting prowess

Earlier, we mentioned the need not to compromise copywriting in your marketing campaign. Recall that your postcard is intended to be compelling and motivate the recipients to take the desired action.

Most of the time, your promotional postcard’s effectiveness depends on the contents and how the message is presented. For example, it would be best to have a catchy headline that is themed to create excitement, address your customer’s pain points, make a special offer, or announce benefits.

Always make use of call to action

Call-to-actions are an important aspect of your postcard marketing campaign — They have to be compelling and powerful. Call-to-actions can be used to reiterate the benefits of your selling proposition, direct customers on what to do next, and maybe remind them of a deadline.

You can spruce things up with other offers like customer satisfaction and money-back guarantees and offer coupons/coupon codes to make your postcards stand out.

Postcard design

Before rounding off on postcards marketing, let’s take a second to answer one popular FAQ about postcards marketing. The chances are that you have asked the same question before now, or you have it in mind right now.

Colored postcards vs. Black-and -white postcards

On this particular subject about postcard design, colored postcards are catchy and vibrant. And of course, they have a higher tendency to rake in more profits than their Black-and-white counterparts.

While colored postcards are virtually everybody’s favorite, simply printing them doesn’t guarantee high ROI. You still need to follow the basic rules of making your direct mail marketing successful.

The idea of printing a colored postcard is to make your cards more appealing and give your presentation more power. That way, you are making your message more likely to be read and acted upon by the recipients.

Some creative ideas include using color to outline images, shapes, texts, and graphics. You can also draw the reader’s attention to your selling proposition and use contrasting colors (not the regular White-and-Black) to make your postcards particularly catchy.

We are Rounding off

If you are not considering postcards in your direct mail marketing plan, you should because they are affordable and offer higher ROI than other direct mail marketing strategies. Not to mention their personal feel, which makes them ideal for target marketing.

So, plan, identify your audience, create a personalized postcard with a clear call-to-action, and you are set to get your postcards in envelopes direct mail marketing campaign off the ground.

Zairmail (www.zairmail.com) is the fastest and easiest way to send (real) postal mail. Give us a call anytime at 888.898.0066, we would be happy to help with your direct mail needs.