There are many services online that will allow you to create a postcard and have it printed. They usually have very low prices because they deal with large quantities. For companies trying to save money these services can be a great option, however you get what you pay for. Generally you can’t do a lot of customization. The designs available or the custom designs provided may not be what you were expecting and there generally isn’t a lot of interaction with the designers since they are an online company.

I recommend spending just a little bit more and working with a graphic designer or marketing firm. Look for samples of magazine ads or postcards that you like and have a design or look you like. Your sample doesn’t need to be from your industry find something you like and then you can have photos of your product or showing your service. Designers have access to stock photography and can find generic photos online that range from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars. Having a good idea of what you want will be very helpful and cut down on several rounds of revisions. Designers usually charge by the hour like many professionals. So going back and forth can some times add up. Some designers charge per project and will usually let you know how many rounds of revisions are included in that price. If they don’t, make sure to ask.

Once you’ve got your postcard or direct mail piece designed you’ll need to get it printed and have it mailed. There are several different things to consider when printing a direct mail piece. When contacting a printer you will need to tell him the following:

• What size is your direct mail piece?
• If it folds, they will want to know the “flat” size before it’s folded and the size after it’s folded.
• Do you want to use 4-colors (full color) or one color? (The one color is usually black, so it will be black copy and black and white images on the white paper.)
• How many do you need? What is the quantity? Usually printers print in increments of 500 or 1000.
• How many pages? If it’s a postcard it will have two sides and each side is counted as a page.
• What type of paper? There are hundreds of brands of paper but two main types – Text and Cover.

Text is light weight and usually used for inside pages of brochures magazines, etc. Cover, is a heavier weight and like its name implies is used for covers of brochures, magazines or even postcards. Cover “stock” (to understand paper weights go to theprintguide.com/poster-printing/faq5.html) is similar to poster board. They are also going to ask you if you want matte or glossy. Glossy already has a bit of a shine or finish to it. Similar to putting on a coat of clear nail polish or a lacquer on a piece of wood furniture.

If you don’t know of a good printer in your area, you may want to get estimates from three printers. Make sure to give them all the same info so you are comparing apples to apples. Most you can call over the phone or visit their print shop in person. If you are dealing with an online printer make sure you read all the details of what you are getting.

The printer will most likely give you a “proof” sometimes when you see a design on the computer screen it will look different when printed. And your office printer may print colors slightly different than a professional printer. So you’ll want to see a “proof” of what it will look like. Plus this gives you one last chance to check that your message is correct, the spelling is right and double check the website address and phone number. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone get one digit off on a postcard or direct mailer and then all those people are calling the wrong phone number.

There are additional costs to expect besides design and printing. They include addressing and postage. Check out our other articles for details on these.

Many people who set up an Internet based affiliate marketing business tend to focus all their marketing efforts on online promotion and neglect off-line marketing techniques altogether. This is a pity because there are many excellent ways to promote a website or an affiliate program off-line as well as online.

One such method is direct mail marketing. The great advantage of promoting your business by direct mail is that you can very accurately measure the results of your marketing efforts. Many affiliate programs include attractive promotional postcards as part of their marketing portfolio. Promotional postcards allow affiliate marketers to run their own direct marketing campaigns without the hassle or expense of writing their own copy. Promotional postcards can be bought in bulk from the affiliate company at attractive prices and posted in bulk for cheap rates at the post office.

Some affiliate marketing companies may also supply their marketers with the names and addresses of leads, so all they have to do is address the postcards, add their affiliate code and drop them in the mail box.

Another option for more ambitious marketers is to obtain the services of a list broker and purchase a list of people who have responded to offers in the same niche market as your affiliate business. This kind of list is called a “response list” and it will consist of several thousand names and addresses. At this stage you do not want to send your postcards to every address on the list. Instead you need to run a test mailing to see how responsive the list actually is to your offer.

It would be a good idea to check with your post office to find out the minimum number of cards you need to send to benefit from their bulk shipping rates. You will want to send several hundred postcards in order to get a reasonably accurate result. Another point to consider is the amount of time you will need to allow for people to respond. Two months is a reasonable amount of time, although you may get a trickle of responses coming in even after that amount of time.

Now you need to work out the total cost of your mailing and divide that by the number of leads you received, and/or measure it against the total sales that were generated. If the finances work out in your favor, you can now roll out your postcards to the rest of the list and feel reasonably confident that you will get a good result. On the other hand, if you have lost money it may be that you need to more closely define your target market. Contact your broker and see if you can exchange your list for another one that is more tightly defined, or find a different broker and try again.

Prewritten postcards for affiliate marketers are a cheap way to get into direct mail marketing however, there is one big disadvantage to using prewritten postcards in this sort of campaign. They do not give you the scope for running a split test. Split tests are a great way for marketers to improve their results over time. If you’re affiliate marketing company only offers one type of promotional postcard you won’t be able to run a split test.

On the other hand, if you design your own postcards you can easily make two versions each one with a different catch copy on it, and each one pointed to a different squeeze page on your website. Test the cards by sending out 500 copies of each version and see which squeeze page gets more signups to discover which postcard is more effective. You will want to keep that postcard and drop the loser. But don’t stop there. Now you will want to replace the loser with another card with a different catch copy on it to compete against the winner and run a second split test. Each time keep the winner and replace the loser.

You could apply to a similar split testing technique to your list brokers until you find the ideal combination of the most effective postcard and the most responsive list. That way your marketing efforts will gradually yield better and better results. You will then be able to duplicate in growing your downline to achieve dynamic affiliate marketing success.

A large amount of planning often goes into a campaign of direct mail, including research on their customers, the creation of marketing itself, the design of everything, and that form the best mailing list you can get. But all this depends on the customer really opening their letters to see what he has to say inside. If you do not do this then all of that other hard work is not really going to amount to much.

So what can you do with your envelope printing to ensure that their customers are going to open them? There are two approaches you can take, and each will have a completely different impact.

The first is the strong strength. These are the ones with flashy colors and large letters across the front of the envelope. It screams out at the villagers mail to encourage them to take a closer look. Just looks so colorful and interesting, how can they help but take a closer look at her?

If you plan to use this be sure to take note of some things. The first is that the outside of your envelope must tell people what we are going to find inside. View the outside as you would with the title of other ads. This is what first draws attention and should be able to encourage them to look further. If they do not know what we will find that probably will not bother to open it.

The second approach is moderate, seeking more staff. These are largely white, with only the person’s name and information on the front. The point here is a place for them in the intrigue of seeing more. They do not know what it is, and because it is so weak that he does not know immediately that this is an ad. Once you have opened and start to read what you have to connect them quick, but do so in a more formal, more than the strongest form of the other approach.

What type of envelope printing is going to work best for your company? This is the third and final thing to consider. You have to have a good idea of who are their clients before taking any decision on which route to take. The first approach allows a person to know right away you’re looking at an ad, and for people who like to get this kind of information in the mail, this approach would probably be better.

The other type is better for those who just want the facts and none of the striking nature of the publicity normal. If they see that this is an immediate announcement that will probably just throw away.

You have to be sure what kind of clients before you choose what kind of envelopes to do.

Direct mail will always work to some degree. But there are some instances where other forms of advertising, such as magazine, newspaper, television or radio, will work more to your advantage.

One example came to light recently. A group is trying to locate individual investors to back a rising and promising sports figure (a person, not a horse). They need $500,000 and are willing to sell shares in minimum $10,000 blocks.

Where do you find these high-risk investors? A list of people who read sports magazines will generate a lot of young, average income non-investors who couldn’t spare $100, let alone $10,000. A list of high income individuals will eventually yield the needed investors, but you’ll need to spend all your money just to find the one in 50,000 interested in backing your venture. At an average cost of 50 per mailer, you’re going to lose your shirt fast.

A better method would be to advertise in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times or one of the few broad-spectrum investment papers or magazines. Investors look through these publications daily, so you’re going to get the readership you want. And the average reader is going to have, or know someone who can get, the type of money to invest at the risk level this venture is going to require.

At a cost of $2,000 to $5,000 (or less) for the ad, you’re going to get several dozen bona fide requests for more information. Instead of spending several thousand dollars to develop each lead, your cost per inquiry will be down to about $100 each, assuming you’ve created the ad with enough drawing power to catch the right prospects’ eyes. And at $100 per inquiry, you should be able to generate enough investment money to make your efforts worthwhile.

Direct mail is a worthwhile venture for most selling efforts, but occasionally there’s a better avenue. This is one of them.

Direct mail is effective but notoriously difficult to measure. Once a project is dropped off at the post office, it seems to fall into a black hole. Until recently, the best you can do is to pay attention to how often your phone rings and evaluate the return on investment through gut feeling.

New options are available to help measure your direct mail project more objectively. Personalized URLs or PURLs represent a new way to track, test and tweak your campaigns.

What is a PURL? Think of it as a mini site devoted to your direct mail campaign. If your company has a website at acmewidgets.com, register a new domain at acmeoffers.com (or whatever else you like) and build your PURLs there. Using a company like MindFire Inc or BlueTreeDirect, you can set up a page for each member of your mail list. Then you can print postcards or flyers with your prospects’ personalized URL right on it.

Once they arrive at their PURL, you prospect will be greeted by name. You can also show different content to different members of your list. This can be useful when you’re introducing them to their territory representative or trying to cross sell relevant products to your past customers.

By sending them to a PURL, rather than your main site, you can view the results of your mail more closely. Using reporting features, you can see which prospect responded to your mail and when they responded. You can see what they clicked on and how much time they spent there. You can also set up triggers so that a sales representative gets an email the instant a prospect clicks on a certain link.

With so much trackability, you can test different offers and see which one gets the best results. Or you can add or remove pages based on how long users stay on the site. By fine tuning your project, you’ll enjoy better results on your direct mail campaign.
PURLs usually cost $.04-$.08 each to set up so they are an affordable solution for most businesses. Take advantage of this new technology and get more control over your next direct mail campaign.

What are you going to read first?

· A full colour postcard with attractive photos and visible offers

· A plain envelope with an unmarked sender

That’s the beauty of it, you know the answer to the question and it sells.

You’ll get an incredible high readership just because it’s visible and in front of the reader before they even decide to read it. What the recipient reader doesn’t know that whoever has supplied the direct mail campaign may have spent more on the plain envelope campaign than the postcard campaign. There is less labour involved in postcard campaigns and now days full colour printing is affordable. The said thing is that you will spend less and receive higher readership and results with the postcard campaign than the plain envelope campaign.

What can I use Postcard Marketing for?

· Announcement (new product, new store, event, address change, Just sold or listed, etc)

· Publicize your web-site to drive traffic to it

· Newsletters to keep in touch with

· Building your brand

· Follow up’s

· Mail Orders

· Thank You’s

Is it worth it?

You need to have a good idea of your goals going into a campaign. Postcard Marketing or Direct Marketing for that matter is great because everything is trackable. You can use the numbers for your campaigns to tweak your efforts and grow your business. There are a number of things to keep in mind going into your next postcard marketing campaign:

· Know the number you want to boost your sales (ex:$50,000 extra sales/month)

· Know the number of sales you will need to make in order to achieve that

· Understand the % of leads you will need from your campaign and the % of those leads that will close on a sales (Ex: A 5000 postcard campaign produces 250 leads(5%) and of those 250 leads, 25 of them close a sales(10%)

· Multiple the closed sales predictions by average sell price (ex:$2000) In this case you would achieve $50,000 in sales and make your goal.

· Inform customer service of the mail campaign so they are ready for an increase in call volume
· Make sure you can track the campaigns(tracking code on postcard or ask how they heard about your services)

From 5000 postcards going out you generate an extra $50,000. Not bad. Think of the possibilities it could create for you. It may take some test mailings to figure out if you have the right target market. 40% of a successful campaign comes from the mail list so you want to ensure this is not overlooked.

What will increase my ROI:

There are things inside your postcard marketing campaign that will also help increase ROI. Your design and wording is key in any campaign and are the obviously precise factors to build your success. But there are other things that many direct marketers don’t include for their customers.

One great addition to a postcard campaign is to make sure it’s full colour. This will increase your results and your read results.

Another great addition we use is VDP(Variable Data Printing) which means the mail piece is personalized to the reader(ex:uses their name).

Another powerful marketing driver in our campaigns and what we offer to our customers is Purls (Personalized URL’s) This will drive the reader to a customized web-site that will gather info, advertise a precise product, etc. Once the reader visits the web site it tracks who has visited the PURL, how often they were on it. These results or leads can be then sent to you through e-mail or your cell phone. This method will increase your close % and bring your ROI up by up to 200% of what you would normally get out of a basic campaign. The power is in hitting the customer with multiple avenues and giving the buyer the confidence in your product.

If you want to check out a ROI calculator that will bring you confidence in your Postcard Marketing Campaign visit:

http://www.marketingtoday.com/tools/roi_calculator.htm

Novice marketers give up the minute their mailing did not go as they expected – and quite frankly, what they expected was not realistic. You cannot count on total abundance in response where you are just starting out. You may rocket there, but you have to be able to maintain it. Marketing is a game of gradual increase, if you do it right, by testing and tracking all along. That way you don’t go into overwhelm and are able to organize your business structure as you expand from the constant new, but gradual business.

What should you be spending on your marketing?

This depends on how you want to grow your business and what your goals are. Also, each industry is different on how they market to their clients and through what marketing channels you choose. It’s good to diversify in what you do and spread your marketing out through different avenues (SEM, direct mail, radio/TV, Billboards, etc)

Postcard Marketing Group uses postcard marketing as a main avenue as it is our medicine and the results are proven and trackable to what we do.

There is no right answer but the fact of the matter is you should have a marketing budget and know what is working for you. As mentioned above, do not give up the moment something doesn’t get you the ROI you expect. It takes time and continuously trying new things to increase your postcard marketing results

To Recap:

You need to do:

• Test mailings

• Track your results

• Make sure you understand where your money is going and how it directly relates to your ROI

When you send out 1000 postcards on average only 10-20 people will respond to your offer. That means 98% of people will throw your mail piece in the trashcan.

I truly believe in the power of using postcards but there are 3 issues that I want to address to help you improve your response rates.

1) Sending out boring, generic postcards. With todays technology you are able to personalize every piece of direct mail you send. A few years ago you had to print 1000′s of postcards and the only thing that could change with the address of the recipient. Today you can use Variable Data Printers and every single postcard can be printed differently. So for example you could write “Jim, we value you as a customer….” and the next one could say “John, we look forward to you being one of our valuable customers..”

2) Postcards are too small to include your full message. Postcards have very limited space to get your full message across. You could send them to your main website but then they are distracted by all of the information.

Did you know 42% of people would rather respond online to a direct mail piece then call a phone number? The solution to getting your message delivered to the recipient is create personalized landing pages (PURL). So for example the url would be www.mysite.com/joe.smith and when Joe visits that page it is personalized to Joe. It could include his name, company name, products he has purchased in the past and it could even include a personalized message for him. This technique will dramatically increase your response rates as recipients feel a connection with you because you are speaking directly to them. You can even display different pictures on the landing page depending on if the visitor is a Male of Female.

3) Sending postcards can be expensive. If you design professional personalized postcards you can actually decrease your marketing expenses because your response rates will go up. I have seen response rates from 10-46% by using personalization techniques. Now instead of receiving 10-20 people respond you might get 100-460. You can capture the recipients email address on the personalized landing page and if they do not buy from you on the first visit you are able to automatically send them email messages. On average it takes 7 marketing messages before a customer buys your product. With traditional postcard marketing you are unable to capture the names and emails of prospects that are interested in your product but do not buy right away. It is very valuable to have an email list of prospects for your product.

Using these 3 techniques should help you increase your response rates and decrease your marketing expenses.

Author Clint Steiner – we have a software product PurlBlitz that automatically creates thousands of personalized landing pages and audio messages. Visit Personalize Direct Mail using PURL’s

If you want to increase your response rates and decrease your marketing costs you need to personalize all of your marketing messages.

Many small business owners that I work with equate direct mail with large corporate mailing campaigns. When I ask them if they have ever coordinated a direct mail campaign the answer is usually no. They usually tell me that it’s too expensive and time consuming to try to sell their products or service using direct mail.

I’ve found that the best way to use direct mail is to create an offer that your specific target market will find irresistible. This should be a free offer that requires the reader to take an action to receive his or her gift. Preferably, the prospect should go to the web page indicated on the mailer which requires them to fill in their email contact information in order to benefit from the mailing.

You have now created a leads generating machine. If you can do the research necessary to find your target audience, you will be able profit from your mailing campaign. Here are 10 essential tips for conducting a leads generating direct mail campaign.

1.Start small; test your market with a relatively small sampling of your mailing list. If you have 10,000 names and addresses, start with a 1,000. Test your ad copy, test your offer; be sure of the results before committing to a full blown campaign.

2. Don’t get greedy, know your averages; stick to your averages and make an initial free offer. Your prospects don’t know you from a hole in the wall. You job is to sort through the list of un-proven addresses and qualify the mailing list. That means those who immediately value the offer will stop to take action. Those people have been qualified. The mailing campaign should continue to qualify your list.

3. Once is not enough. If you have experience dating, you know that most people take a few dates to decide if they really like a person enough to commit to “going out”. Most people don’t get married after the first date. Remember that the idea building a relationship with your prospects will pay off very well in the long run if you take the time to pursue them properly. You will need to follow up with your list a few times to let them know that you are serious.

4. Separate your new subscribers; the ones who took advantage of your free offer from the rest of your mailing list. Don’t send them the same mailing with the same free offer again. They now go on your warm prospects list. These folks are ready to see an offer for your retail products or services.

5. Once you have someone on your email list, send them a series of emails. Give valuable information on their topic of interest. Your communication should be brief and lead to a link where they can read more or view more material. If you pitch a promotion to them, follow up if you don’t make the close.

6. Vary your direct mail source. If you are sending letters, send a postcard next. You will want to test postcards the same way you tested letters. People will be trained to identify your mail piece after a while.

7. Always match the look and feel of your direct mail piece to the intended market. Design the mailer in a professional regardless of the style. Be sure to consistently deliver a professional project. If you seriously consider the market you are shooting for, you’ll get the required results.

Direct mail can be a very profitable marketing channel for the small business owner. With much emphasis on website and search engine marketing, many companies have forgotten the power of a strong direct mail package to pull in quality leads and convert prospects into customers. This article outlines four tips for ensuring direct mail success.

Strategy #1: Match Your List to your Target

There are basically two types of direct mail lists; rentals lists and house lists. The reason you rent a list is to bring new prospects into your business. A list rental, when purged of any existing prospects or customers, is a list of suspects. A suspect is someone you think might be interested in your products or services, but you aren’t sure.

Your goal for any suspect mailing is not to sell – it’s to convert them into a viable prospect by building up their trust and confidence. If you immediately put on the hard sell for a suspect, chances are good that you’ll be ignored. Good suspect mailings will give away a free report, product sample or service trial in exchange for contact information like an email or address.

A house list is simply your current list of prospects, first-time buyers and repeat buyers. You should split your house list into these three areas and come up with the most compelling offer for each group. Your house prospects have shown an interest in your products and services but haven’t made that all important first purchase. Make them a deal they can’t refuse. For your buyers, concentrate on upselling and cross-selling complementary products.

Strategy #2: Track Your Results

If you can’t track it, don’t do it. Make sure your direct mail piece contains a way to track whether the customer took action. If you don’t do this, you will never know if your mailing had an impact.

Here are three suggestions for tracking your direct mail promotions.

1. Mail a postcard that contains a promo code that must be brought into your retail store.

2. If your business is web based, use a unique promotion code that must be entered at your website when redeeming the offer.

3. If you are referring people back to your website, send them to a special page your regular web visitors can’t access.

Remember, the more you can track and measure, the more you can adjust in order to create a more effective mailing the next time.

Strategy #3: Have a Compelling Offer

What exactly is your call to action? Make it clear to your customer what it is you want them to do and make sure your offer is clear and compelling. Below are some ideas to get you going.

- Free product trial
- Discount on product or service for limited time
- Free consultation
- Free report for download at your website

Make sure you capture everyone’s contact information so you can add it to your database. On your website, this can be as simple as having them fill out a contact form before redeeming the direct mail offer.

Direct mail is a great way to supplement a strong ecommerce marketing program. In addition, using your website to capture new suspect contact info is a great way to combine direct mail and web communication channels.