Do you know that old saying, “The only certainties in life are death and taxes”? While that may be true for all of us, businesses that market to consumers have a couple of additional certainties:
- Customers and prospects look for the easiest excuse to discard your direct mail postcard without engaging with it.
- You will always need to do all you can to ensure that your postcard promotions rise above the “static” created by the majority of other direct mail advertisers.
If you understand and fully apply the following four points to your future promotions, you will dramatically increase response, conversion, and customer goodwill (which leads to more response and conversion).
1.) Choose and use current, vibrant imagery.
When you use photos or graphic elements that are dull—the same or similar to things customers have seen a thousand times—your campaign becomes just another singer in the “static choir” created by all the other dull marketing efforts out there.
In the entertainment business, it’s understood that every story has already been. It’s never a matter of telling a new story but of how to tell the same kinds of stories in the most interesting way.
So yes, you’ve got to try a bit harder to find (or create) photographic images or graphics that feel fresh and new.
And so it is with your images.
Do this: Google “freshest direct marketing postcard designs” or similar wording to see what’s catching peoples’ eyes right now. You can also log on to www.prospectsplus.com/pei and sample our customizable design templates, which we keep very fresh indeed.
2.) Reach for the Heart, Not the Mind.
A successful promotional postcard is one that causes your customer/prospect to feel something—and emotional reaction. If you card demands of them to read, think, compare, etc., it’s headed for the recycle bin.
What is the real human benefit that your product or service delivers. Ask yourself how it does one or more of the following:
- Make life (or one of life’s aspects) easier
- Make the future more secure
- Put them in more control
- Make them better than average
- Make them healthier, smarter, or more attractive
Brainstorm on this and come up with all the different ways. Then brainstorm again on ways to express these benefits. Create headlines, taglines, subject lines that express this.
Do this: Ask some of your current customers why they choose you over your competition. They will tell you in terms of the real human benefit, the emotional reasons. Listen to their words and take notes. They just might give you a testimonial that you can use as the headline for your next campaign.
3.) Seek to Develop Interest, Not Close a Sale.
A postcard is not a sales letter or an email. While it’s true that “the more you tell, the more you sell,” a postcard simply does not have the necessary space for lists of benefits and features or numerous calls to action or the other elements of effective direct response copy.
So don’t approach your postcard design as it it’s just a smaller version of an email or letter.
Instead, say just enough with your to create intrigue and generate interest for the reader…and make sure to include your contact information.
4.) Keep Your Offer Simple and Don’t Push It Too Hard
While you must have an offer always remember these two things:
- Keep your offer simple
- You don’t have to make the offer the central focus of your postcard
Like we mentioned in #2 above, do your best to not make people have to read a lot or have to calculate or compare. Present one offer, such as giving them something for free. People understand “Two for one entrees” or “Seventh car wash free.”
And also as we began to say in #2 above, put most of your postcard design effort into pushing the core benefit of your product or service. Appeal to your customer’s self-interest. Make the offer seem offhand, an afterthought. Put it on the back of the card.
Try these four things on your next postcard campaign and remember to let us know how it went for you.
And you can put these four points to work right now by logging on to www.prospectsplus.com/pei, where you’ll find those fresh design templates we mentioned and a lot more, including targeted list-building and mailing services, all from your computer or tablet.
You can also get your postcard created by marketing and design experts who’ve produced thousands of successful campaigns for businesses just like yours. Just give Opportunity Knocks a ring at 1 (866) 319-7109.