Simple Guidelines to Effective Direct Mail Postcard Campaign
By: Michelle Abreu
Submitted: 2011-08-04 18:42:21 | Word Count: 581
Delivering your message to the right audience takes careful planning and execution. Let's say you have the best product and identified the right audience. Now your biggest problem is coming up with the right marketing program that will help tell people about you and your business. Oftentimes, the most effective marketing strategies are frightfully expensive. Add to that the fact that your ads would not appear for several weeks or months.
With this dilemma, your best option is to use direct mail marketing. This marketing strategy gives you a way to carry out a test to determine your marketing campaign. This you can do in the quickest and most reasonable cost. You will know before you launch a full blown campaign if your ad works or not.
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Perhaps the most common type of direct mail marketing is postcard printing. These cards are designed to target a specific market with specialized offers. Compared to other marketing materials, these cards are much cheaper to design, print, and mail. But if your post card campaign is not well planned, the response rate you will receive is likely to suffer. Here are some guidelines to help you ensure your direct mail postcard campaign generates favorable results.
1) First, you need to determine if your direct mail post cards are worth your investment. Experts say that the standard response rate in a direct mail campaign is 1-2%. So, if you produce 5, 000 post cards, your expected response rate is about 100. The amount you yield from these 100 positive responses will be the deciding factor on whether or not post cards are a worthy investment for you.
2) After you have crunched the numbers, the next thing you need to do is plan your campaign. The key here is to make a good plan that will help you achieve the 2% response rate. The plan includes selecting your mailing list, creating a compelling message, putting a special and irresistible offer, and creating a strong call to action.
a. Selecting the right mailing list. It's vital that you create your own mailing list. The list should contain names of people who are likely to patronize your products or services. If you can't create your own list, there are a lot of list providers that sell good list tailored to your needs. Most of the list providers allow you to narrow down your mailing list according to your criteria.
b. After creating your mailing list, you need to ensure that the design of your cards is effective and eye-catching. It is critical that you ensure your cards have the right colors, font, and paper stock so you are able to convey the right image and message. An online postcard printing company will help you create the best design for your cards.
c. You need to also create a compelling message to draw attention to your cards. Be sure to highlight the benefits you provide in your message to draw full attention to your cards.
d. An irresistible offer should also be included. This will ensure that your prospects and customers are drawn to your cards. A simple discount may be enough to cut through your competitor's offers. Be sure to put a deadline in your offering to generate immediate response.
e. A strong call to offer is also necessary to encourage customers to act at once.
If you follow these guidelines, you can be sure to generate greater response which will eventually create more sales for your business.
Author Resource:-
Michelle Abreu has been writing articles online for about 2 years now in a trusted printing company. You can also visit this website for more information about the most cost-effective and speedy online postcard printing and check out their easy postcard printing and direct mailing services, a one stop shop for your effective marketing campaign.
