Postcard Mailing: Top Tips

Uncategorized | April 19, 2019

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When postcard mailing is done right, a successful campaign is more than possible. It can be an affordable, fast way to market your brand, products and services. For a beneficial postcard mailing campaign, be sure to follow these steps:

CTA CREATION

The overall purpose of a campaign should be to make the recipient do something, whether it’s buying your product, visiting your website, coming into a shop etc. By adding a clear and simple call to action (CTA), you will encourage readers to take action in one way or another. This action should align with your business goals and be the next step you want the reader to take. You can further motivate recipients by adding immediacy like a limited time offer, or a limited stock deal. You should make the CTA trackable, for example running a discount code you can see the analytics of, or having a coupon attached for in store discount which you can save and count up, so you can analyse the success of the campaign against your CTA.

AUDIENCE SELECTION

Selecting the wrong audience can be a waste of time and money, so you need to make sure you send your postcards to the right demographic. Every single detail of your campaign needs to be focused on and tailored to this specific audience. You need to understand the wants and needs of this group of people and figure out how you can solve their problems to determine what will generate the best response rate against amount of mailing and cost. Pay specific attention to the design and messaging and consider whether it is the best it can be for the audience. Look at the audience currently of your products/business and think whether it is this demographic you are/should be targeting through your mailing campaign. Looking at your current analytics and audience is the best way to consider who should be targeted.

QUALITY DESIGN

Quite simply: a poor design leads to a poor response. A bad looking mailer will become lost and discarded with junk mail, and never looked at again. Your postcard needs to stand out from other post and cut through the noise. You have to remember households receive hundreds of mailing items throughout the year, most of which are marketing materials, so yours needs to be different from the rest in order to gain a response. You only have a few seconds to make an impression on the recipient, so you need to make sure you attract their attention from the off. In order to stand out, you need to use a bold and eye-catching design, which incorporates your brand colours and styles, includes fancy fonts and high-quality, grabbing images. If you aren’t the most design savvy person, it is recommended to use a design agency, as they will help maximise any campaign and the design of a postcard shouldn’t take too long either, so it isn’t as expensive as one might assume.

CLEAR MESSAGING

A postcard with unclear messaging can really limit the effectiveness of your campaign. Your messaging needs to persuade the reader to do something (CTA) and needs to be convincing enough for them to want to find out more. You need to start with an attention-grabbing headline of some sort, to hook the reader and feed their curiosity. You need to clearly communicate your key message which focuses on the reader’s needs and how you can solve their problems. You will have limited space on the card, so don’t try to fit as much text as possible in. It should feel natural and not forced. By using plain and simple language, whilst avoiding jargon and long paragraphs, opting for bullet points and short sentences instead, you can remain conversational and not overwhelming or fake. Don’t forget to proofread your copy, to ensure it has no spelling errors which can tarnish your messaging.

CONTACT DETAILS

Make sure that included in the postcard is up-to-date contact information, addresses, social media usernames, email addresses, URLs etc so that recipients can contact you and learn more about you easily. Even if your main goal isn’t to gain a following, or to get more website views, it can lead the recipient to using your services further down the line. They can use your social and contact information to get to know more about you. It can be very useful, and you should maximise any opportunity to build relations and a following through mailing.

SET GOALS AND ANALYSE

The very first step in any mailing campaign is to set yourself goals so that you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve in your campaign. This may include sales, leads, conversions, or any number of goals. This should be part of a much larger marketing campaign or larger plan to expand and increase business. Your goals should align with the previous decided CTA, and you will need to use trackable KPIs or Key Performance Indicators, to assess whether or not you’ve achieved it. These KPIs could be how many clicks you’ve received, how many calls to a unique phone number, how many enquires which quote a reference number featured on the campaign etc. You can then use KPIs to assess your performance in order to optimise your next mailing. You should test on multiple occasions and try to figure out what resonates best with your audience. You may need to fine-tune your messaging, or your CTA/design in order to maximise the effectiveness of the campaign.

There are many different advantages to utilising postcard mailing for businesses, and when done correctly, direct mailing is one of the most effective marketing tools available. Postcards cost little to produce and mail and can generate a high response. They are easy to print en masse, and you can save money by printing them in gang runs, so sometimes more is cheaper. You can receive fast market research and there is usually a high readership rate. They are very simple to schedule and are very versatile.

So why not give postcard mailing a try and see how it can make a difference to your business. We offer the best value for money postcard mailings in the UK. We provide affordable direct mailing solutions, combined with expert knowledge, quality products and fast turnaround. Give us a call on 0800 1300 960 to talk through your potential campaign and how we can help you.

Read some of our other blogs, such as the ‘Challenges of Creating Artwork for Print’ and ‘7 Steps to Direct Mail Success’.

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