Post Cards

3 Tips To Supercharge Your Postcard Mailing Results

Direct Mail is, was and forever will be a very attractive way to get customers. Some swear it is the best. However, getting the results that would make you agree with the believers is harder than you think. In direct mail, vast empires rise on the back of tiny response rates. Fractions of 1% can make or break mailings, copywriters and companies.

The companies operating that way tend to be very shrewd. They know their numbers and they know how to milk their lists for all they are worth. They know how to retain clients. They are very switched on. They aren’t perfect, and they know that there are always opportunities for improvements.

For the rest of us, there are plenty of opportunities to get much better results from our postcard mailings.

Direct Mail Tip #1: Pay Attention To Others!

You should be on multiple direct mail lists and you should be buying from them periodically. There are plenty of good ideas you can swipe and deploy. Always, and I mean always pay close attention to what your competitors are doing. Don’t limit yourself to just traditional post card mailings… You can boil longer copy promotions down to be effective on post cards too.

All direct mail coming from competent marketers is your friend. They are spending hard money on the paper and postage in order to get a response. That should tell you something about the quality of the copywriters they employ.

Direct Mail Tip #2: Use Multiple Offers

Most marketing is limited to ‘buy now offers.’ According to the sadly departed Chet Holmes “only 1 – 3% of a given market is in a buy now mind set”. By using buy now type offers you automatically alienate 97% of your market.

This is why a lead generating offer inviting the prospect to request information should be included with every buy now offer. It means rather than blanket mailing every time you need a few sales, you are consistently building up a lead bank that can be systematically followed up. Over time, some of these will move into the 1-3% ‘buy now’ category, so you will be able to turn into customers later on.

Your return will be better, when you invest in these higher value leads than you’ll ever get blanket mailing your entire prospect universe with traditional post cards.

Direct Mail Tip #3: Use The Best Copy You Can

When space is tight you need every square centimetre to sell more for you. Short copy is the hardest copy to write and have it be effective, yet many agencies give this work to thier junior copywriters. They shouldn’t and you shouldn’t either!

If you are going to spend serious dollars on mailing your postcards, make a serious investment in improving the performance by getting it written by a professional direct response copy writer.