9 Reasons To Use Postcards

9 Reasons to Use Postcards: Mini Billboards for Marketing Your Writing

Posted by Elizebeth on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 · Leave a Comment

When trying to increase your customer base or generate sales leads, you need to be creative to stand out from the crowd while not breaking the bank. Postcards are a simple cost efficient way to generate those leads and can increase traffic to your Web site.

1. Maximum Exposure for Your Sales Message
Postcards allow you to KISS (Keep it simply short) your prospects or customers. Using a postcard forces you to reveal your entire message in an instant making postcards “read ready.”

We tend to associate postcards with pleasant memories of receiving them from family and friends when they’re on vacation. Your prospects will find it hard to avoid reading your message when it’s on a postcard, particularly if you keep your message brief. And because there’s no envelope to open, no paper to unfold, your concise message can be read in seconds.

Postcards are eye-catching. If your customers like your design they will post your postcards on their bulletin board or stuff them in their planner, thus prolonging their exposure to your message.

2. Simple, Speedy, and Low-Cost
Full color postcards are inexpensive to print and cheap to mail. Simple cards work best and frequency is important.

You could DIY; however, commercial printers online are very reasonably priced. You can use their templates and generic postcard prints or upload your own design. And voila, your postcard could be ready to send in a few days.

3. Immediate Results
Postcards produce results quickly. You can mail your postcards and within 7 to 10 days, you should start to get results. Preferably, you will take the initiative and contact the people you’ve sent them too.

4. Control Your Sales Activity
You control how many postcards you put in the mail and how often you send them out. For example, you can send out 5 a day or 25 on a Friday. This is great for your budget and also for your time if you need to call on each of the cards you sent.

5. Your Advertising Dollars and Time are Better Utilized
You don’t have to pay for advertising to a large audience to reach a few good prospects. You can laser focus your message to prospects who are most likely to need your services.

6. Establish Regular Communication
Postcards compel customers to call you. Use the postcard to promote your new services, new e-book, new book, new Web site design, and thank your customers for their business.

7. Postcards are Versatile
In a single mailing, you can seek new business from prospects, and solicit repeat business from existing customers. You can use postcards as over-sized business cards, Letters of Introduction or a mini newsletter. Chuck Green has an excellent tutorial on using postcards for mini newsletters.

8. Postcards Can “Brand” Your Business
If you stick to a regular postcard-mailing program, you and your business will soon gain quite a reputation. People will recognize your postcard and they might even start looking for it.

9. Quick and Economical Results
Testing your offer or design is easy when you use postcards. You’ll know if that postcard mailing was successful or if you need to tweak the message or use another photo within a week or so from when they were mailed and your cash outlay will have been a pittance.

As freelance writers, when you want to generate sales leads or Web site traffic, incorporate postcards into your marketing arsenal. Send them out to prospects to announce the launch of your website, a new project, a new partner, new staff member or a move. And with these mini billboards you pay pennies per postcard to keep your name in front of your customers and prospects.

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