Five Tips to Improve Your Postcard Marketing
Here are five tips to improve you postcard marketing response rate which were developed from Galleria Ventures several years of experience with postcard marketing.
1. Understand your mailing list. The most important factor in any direct mail campaigns’ success is the quality level of the list of customers or potential customers you are sending your items to. Is your list made up of customer’s that you have done business with or is it mainly new potential customers you do not know? If it is new potential customers, do you have any demographics to sort the list to be able to give some focus to your advertisement? For example you will have more success with a postcard ad that is targeted for women if you know the list you are sending to is also focused on women. Therefore, match your message to the right group of people (and if possible, the right group of people at just the right time).
2. Make your headline “easy to scan”. A postcard advertisement only has a brief moment to capture the reader’s attention. That brief moment, which has been referred to as the “golden glimpse” — is the moment when your postcard is grabbed out of the mailbox and either goes on the desk or in the trash. An attention grabbing headline which gives a primary benefit for your targeted recipients is the key to getting the potential reader to read on. After grabbing attention with a successful headline then some “skimmable” bullets after the headline giving more benefits should build enthusiastic interest. To make this happen sit down and list the features of your products or services. Then list the benefits each of these features bring to the customer. Prioritize which benefit has the most importance to your targeted list of recipients. Make the headline from the benefit you chose to have the greatest importance and use the other benefits to make the supporting bullets. If a photo or artwork can help increase the impact of your primary benefit, be sure to use it.
3. Give it the Simpleton Test. You should figure out that your potential clients will never know your product or package to the extent that you do. They are not around it everyday and hence cannot understand it as well as you. Consequently, the best way to continue is to be distinctly simple in the message you communicate. This is not easy, as there is a probability that you will have knowledge you take for granted and use but your targeted clients will not have the knowledge to easily discern your message. If you do not achieve first time understanding of your message, you probably will not be provided with another opportunity. Therefore, your message should be very simple to understand in a plain clear language. Additionally, use images when it will reinforce the understanding.
4. Complete the advertisement with a compelling offer and a call to action. The offer and call to action is the conclusion of the marketing postcard’s statement. It’s the climax of what the complete postcard leads to. This is where the reader finds out whatever he or she should do to discover more or the reason they should take action. Be confident your proposition is pertinent and captures the reader with a deal they will not want to turn down. As the recipient is absorbed in your offer then you present your call to action so it is not lost!
5. Continually Track and measure your direct mail success. The number one rule for success in direct mail marketing, is to TEST. Test the offer. Test the message. Test the mail piece size. Test the postage stamp. Test everything you can think of which might influence the reader. You should constantly test and measure your results until you find the “formula” of success for your direct mail marketing. We recommend a split test of each new marketing postcard. Split the quantities of each campaign mailing with one thing that is different in each. Then measure the results of each and pick the one that gives the best results for another split test in another mailing. This process will allow your marketing message to evolve to the best performance.
Tags: Advertising