What Is Postcard Marketing? A Strategic Tool for Your Business

What is Postcard Marketing?

Postcard marketing is the practice of creating and mailing branded postcards adorned with engaging visuals and concise messages directly to potential or existing customers.

Imagine this - amidst the swarm of bills and routine correspondence, your customers find a colorful, personalized postcard with your brand's logo shining from the glossy cardstock.

That's postcard marketing, a splash of color in an otherwise monotonous mailbox.

Why Postcard Marketing Is an Effective Strategy

While you might assume postcard marketing doesn't work or is too old-school a marketing tactic to even consider, surprising statistics demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach.

• Of the US-based marketers surveyed, 66% reported that they used postcards in their most recent direct mail campaigns.
• Targeted direct mail garners a 2-5% response rate on average, significantly higher than non-targeted bulk mail
• About 51% of recipients say direct mail postcards are useful.
• 76% of people trust direct mail when they are making a purchasing decision
• Direct mail, including postcard marketing, still holds an edge over digital marketing, with response rates for direct mail ranging from 4.9% (retail) to 9% (house-to-house) compared to email response rates of just 1%.
• With an average ROI of 29%, direct mail ranks third in marketing performance, only behind email and social media.

Here are some of the reasons why postcard marketing is so effective:

• Physical Presence: Unlike a fleeting digital ad or an email that's lost in the clutter, postcards are physically present. They can stick around on a refrigerator or a memo board, serving as a constant reminder of your brand and services.
• Instant Communication: Postcards convey the message instantly, without the barrier of an envelope. The moment it hits the recipient’s hands, your message gets delivered, ensuring no delay in communication.
• Personal Touch: Postcards offer a personalized touch that carries more emotional weight than an impersonal digital advertisement. This can help your potential customers feel more connected to your brand, increasing brand loyalty and customer retention.
• Versatility: Postcards aren't just for sales promotions. They can be used to introduce new products, send holiday greetings, or update customers about an upcoming sale or event. Their applications are endless.
• Simplicity: Postcards only have enough space for key details, encouraging marketers to keep the message simple and digestible, which can be more effective in this era of information overload.
• Strategic Investment: Postcards have a significant ROI, and their cost-effectiveness makes them a strategically solid choice for small and medium-sized businesses that are working with more modest budgets. Even on a tight budget, you can achieve significant reach and frequency with postcards.

Benefits of Postcard Marketing

Here are some good reasons why you should consider including postcard marketing in your overall marketing strategy.

High Read-through Rates

One of the main benefits of postcard marketing is its high read-through rates. Unlike email marketing, which can often be lost in a cluttered inbox or land in the spam folder, postcards are tangible marketing materials that recipients can physically hold.

This tangible communication enhances trustworthiness and credibility, which increases the likelihood of recipients reading the contents.

Furthermore, the message on a postcard is typically concise and, therefore, quicker for a recipient to read, ensuring that your message gets across more efficiently than other marketing channels.

Instant Visibility

Postcards offer instant visibility for your marketing message, as they do not require envelopes or additional packaging.

As soon as a recipient picks up the postcard from their mailbox, your message, branding, and design are immediately visible.

By eliciting intrigue and engagement through eye-catching visuals and compelling calls to action, you can capture your audience's attention more effectively without relying on them to open an envelope or access a digital platform.

Easy to Produce and Cost-effective

Postcards are easy and inexpensive to produce, especially when compared with more expensive print media such as magazines, newspapers, and billboards.

Postcards do not need extensive production processes and have lower design, printing, and postage costs than complex brochures or other mailers.

You also have the option to customize your card according to your preferences, including size and design.

Highly-Targeted

Postcard marketing allows you to send promotional materials directly to your target audience. By leveraging a well-curated mailing list, you can target recipients based on demographics such as age, income, geographical location, and more.

This direct approach ensures that your marketing message reaches those who are more likely to be interested in your products or services, reducing costs and increasing the probability of conversions.

Additionally, with customization and personalization options, you can create a stronger connection with your recipients by addressing them directly and showing that you understand their needs, wants, and preferences.

How to Implement Postcard Marketing in Your Business

Effective postcard marketing can do wonders for your business, but it requires careful planning, creativity, and execution.

To get the most out of your postcard marketing campaign, follow these seven steps:

Step 1: Set Your Goals

Before diving into postcard marketing, determine the primary goals for your campaign. You may want to:

• Increase brand visibility
• Drive website traffic
• Announce promotions, sales or events
• Generate leads
• Enhance customer loyalty

Having a clear objective from the outset will provide direction for crafting targeted messages, selecting the right audience, and measuring the campaign's effectiveness.

Step 2: Define Your Target Audience

Identify the specific audience you wish to reach with your postcard marketing. Examine demographics, consumer behavior, and customer profiles to narrow down your focus.

Targeted mailing lists can be purchased from reliable data providers or leveraged from your existing customer database.

Effective targeting ensures better response rates and reduces mailing costs by avoiding unnecessary recipients.

For example, if you run a pet supply store, you may target pet owners within a specific location rather than sending postcards to the entire neighborhood.

Step 3: Design Your Postcard

The postcard design is a significant factor in capturing recipients' attention and conveying your brand message. Consider the following elements when designing:

• Visuals: Use engaging images that evoke emotions and complement your message. For example, a travel agency might use beautiful images of top destinations to spark wanderlust.
• Colors: Choose colors that represent your brand and create visual harmony. Attention-grabbing colors can generate interest but maintain a balance to avoid overwhelming recipients.
• Typography: Choose fonts that are clear and appropriate for your design. Use no more than two or three font types to maintain consistency.
• Logo: Include your logo to reinforce brand recognition.
• Whitespace: Leave enough whitespace to avoid clutter and give your design a clean, professional look.

Consider collaborating with a graphic designer to create a visually appealing design that resonates well with the targeted audience and aligns with your brand.

Step 3: Design Your Postcard

Compose a concise, attention-grabbing message that captures your objectives and resonates with the audience. Keep these tips in mind:

• Communicate value: Highlight the key benefits your audience will gain from your offer or products.
• Personalize: Address recipients by their names to create a sense of connection.
• Create urgency: Use expiration dates for promotions or emphasize limited-time offers to encourage immediate action.
• Include a clear call-to-action (CTA): Guide recipients towards the next step, whether it's visiting your website, calling your business, or taking advantage of a promotional offer.

Step 3: Design Your Postcard

Choose the most appropriate postage method to ensure your postcards reach your audience effectively. Two common methods are:

1. Bulk mail or presort services: Ideal for large-scale mailings, these services involve sending out large batches of postcards at discounted rates. Coordinate with USPS or a mailing house to handle bulk mailing logistics.
2. EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail): A USPS service that simplifies the mailing process by enabling you to reach out to every home in a specific area without maintaining a mailing list. This is suitable for localized campaigns, such as the grand opening of a retail store.

Step 6: Measure Your Campaign's Effectiveness

Monitor the success of your postcard marketing campaign to fine-tune future strategies. Track responses through:

• Unique promo codes or URLs
• Phone or website inquiries specifically governed by the campaign
• In-store visits and postcard redemptions

Analyze the gathered data to gauge the campaign's ROI, customer response rate, and conversion rate to draw meaningful insights and optimize future campaigns.

Step 7: Optimize and Repeat

Using the acquired data, refine your mailing list, postcard design, message, and timing to boost the performance of future campaigns. Testing different elements will help you identify the most effective strategies.

Example: A Local Cafe's Postcard Marketing

Imagine a local cafe that wants to expand its customer base and boost lunch sales. It implements a postcard marketing campaign following the seven steps outlined above:

1. Goals: Increase lunch sales and attract new customers.
2. Target audience: Office workers within a two-mile radius.
3. Design: A visually appealing postcard featuring the cafe's best-selling dishes, attractive color palette, and clear branding.
4. Message: Personalized postcards highlighting a limited-time "Buy One, Get One Free" lunch offer, creating a sense of urgency.
5. Delivery: EDDM mailing to reach office buildings in the targeted area.
6. Measurement: Unique promo codes that are used to track redemptions and measure response rate.
7. Optimization: Results indicate a significant increase in lunch sales with new customers. The cafe decides to launch a similar campaign for its weekend brunch, optimizing the mailing list to target families and residential areas.

In Conclusion

Postcard marketing is much more than archaic marketing. It's a powerful, affordable, and versatile method to engage customers and drive results.

By setting clear objectives, targeting the right audience, designing engaging postcards, delivering effective messages, measuring success, and optimizing campaigns, your business can reap the benefits of postcard marketing and expand its reach.