A lot of SMB marketers tell themselves that they are not “creative” or “artistic.” So they naturally approach the design of their marketing campaigns with anxiety and dread.

If this sounds like you then we’d like to put you at ease: Creativity and artistic content in your marketing is not what drives sales. 

Skills for Marketing Success

Marketing success—that is, creating postcards that get great response—is not the result of superior artistic or graphic design ability. Rather, it is the result of a handful of skills that you already have.

We can say this with confidence because we’ve seen it time after time, test after test, with postcard after postcard designed by SMB marketers like you over the last 20 years.

These are skills that most all SMB marketers have and use regularly. Are you curious what they are? Here they are:

• An understanding of your value: Do you know what it is about your business that makes your customers choose you?
• An ability to recognize and utilize a good review: Can you exploit a great social proof to your customers and prospects?
• A practical design sense: Can you select an image that simply helps convey your message? (Yes, you totally can.)
• A willingness to set deadlines: Can you lay down and end date and stick to it?

These are all the skills that are required for effective postcard marketing. (Yes, we are sure of that.)

Your Value

We’re talking about your unique value proposition—the big reason why your customers buy from you instead of from your competition.

There may be dozens or hundreds of reasons but you only need to isolate one that sets your business apart from the rest. (Not sure what it is? Here’s three steps to help you figure it out.)

Not to get too cosmic on you but postcard marketing is a matter of space and time: You have only so much space to work with—enough for a short, powerful message. And somebody finding your postcard in their mailbox is going to devote only so much time to it, so you can’t expect them to read a lot of copy.

Postcard campaigns with a single value proposition do much better than campaigns that try to cram in too much information and too many messages. Solution: hit ’em with a single headline message that communicates your unique value proposition.

Testimonials

Why wrack your brain trying to come up with “creative” copy if you already have some great testimonials? Prospects and customers don’t always trust what you have to say about your business. Of course you think you’re wonderful, valuable, better than the rest. They put much more faith in a rave review from someone who has paid for your services. They identify with the customer.

Let your delighted customers speak for you.

A Great Image

Did you ever get a postcard from a friend or family member who was on vacation? Was the front of the card full of text you had to read to find out about the exotic or exciting locale they sent it from?

Of course not; it had a color photo of a sunny beach or a luxury hotel or a serene countryside. The picture was the message.

Postcards—even marketing postcards—are no different. They’re primarily visual with a little bit of text. So choose one or two images that speak for your product or service. This is not difficult. You don’t need an art degree. In fact, in our experience, it’s the people who are not photography buffs that pick the most effective photos for their marketing efforts.

For instance, if you do landscaping or painting or cosmetic dentistry, use before-and-after photos. If you do auto repair or plumbing or HVAC, show happy people in their car or home. Pictures of smiling, satisfied people are very effective in marketing (Your customers might even be willing to give you a picture of themselves to use with their testimonial, so ask.).

If you don’t have photos of your own, use stock images, like the kind you can get by subscribing to ShutterStock or a donation-based service like Pixabay.

Buy Now

Give your customers and prospects a reason to buy now by putting a deadline on the offer you’re presenting.

People understand deadlines. And because so many of them come with penalties (late fees, etc.), it is possible that people identify any deadline with a penalty. So when you give them a deadline for your offer, they feel they must heed it or they will lose out (penalty).

If you don’t, then people lose the card or cover it up with other things they tack to the fridge door. There’s no sense of urgency, so they forget about it.

So give them a deadline (“Offer good until [date],” “Supplies limited…,” etc.). It will compel them to buy now!

And that is all there is to it—four skills: (1) identify a value proposition, (2) gather testimonials, (3) choose images that tell your story, and (4) set a deadline.

So rather than agonizing about “creative” or “art,” for hours on end, you can get your postcard campaign designed and out the door and get back to the rest of your life and your business.

In fact, you can do all of this from your desktop, right now, by logging on to www.prospectsplus.com/pei. There you will find customizable postcard templates and list-building tools, and you can even handle the mailing with a few mouse clicks.

Or call Opportunity Knocks at 1 (866) 319-7109. Tell our design and marketing pros what you need and want. They’ve seen it all and know what works and will produce an effective campaign and even a targeted mailing list, if you need it.