A Guide to Postcard Marketing

postcard-cmyk“Postcards are the simplest, most cost-effective format available. They’re an excellent choice for making an announcement or driving customers to a store, website, or event.”

United States Postal Service

A postcard is one of the most versatile, inexpensive, and effective tools you can have in your marketing tool kit. Compared to the effort and cost of a brochure or a traditional direct mail package mailed in an envelope, a postcard is quick, easy, and a great way to stretch your marketing budget. In addition, some kinds of postcards will help you keep your mailing list updated.

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Maximizing the Advantages of the USPS Direct Mail Program

DirectMail-CMYKIn an effort to help businesses reach new prospects, the United States Postal Service (USPS) launched their Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) program in March 2011, and it has grown steadily over the years. The service allows you to focus on your surrounding neighborhoods as a way to expand your customer base. According to the April 2010 BizReport, average consumers spend 85% of their disposable income within five miles of their homes — which means your best customers may be very nearby.

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Press Releases that Grab Attention

pressrelease-cmykSuppose that your business or organization has just purchased a new piece of equipment or has just launched a new service, and it’s time to get the word out. A multi-faceted approach usually works best. This might include taking out ads in newspapers or trade journals, sending out a direct-mail package or postcard, or utilizing social media. But one of the most effective methods is sending out a news release. Traditional printed press releases remain one of the best ways to get the news to the right audience, at the right time, very inexpensively.

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Brochure Content & Design Fundamentals

Reading Medical PamphletA brochure is a descriptive piece of literature used for promoting your business or organization. It is one of the most important and fundamental components of marketing literature for businesses and organizations. Typically the first item produced after the letterhead, envelopes, and business cards, its purpose is to put a targeted message in the hands of prospects that is portable, easy to store, and easily passed on to others.

A printed brochure is an integral part of the sales process. It serves as a leave-behind after a sales call or meeting with prospective customers. It is also used as a way to respond to inquiries or to introduce new products or services when cold calling. As part of a direct mail campaign, it can be sent with a sales letter or used as a self-mailer. And finally, a brochure can be a point-of-purchase display to interest customers in additional products or services or to provide information.

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Winning New Customers with Direct Mail

 “The moMailBoxre things change, the more they stay the same.”

When it comes to attracting new customers, this famous epigram perfectly describes the process. New tools like social media represent the changes, while the fundamentals of customer service and outreach using direct mail remain the same.

The primary objective of customer service is to keep customers coming back. A satisfied customer has no incentive to look elsewhere for the product or service you provide and will, therefore, return to purchase again. A satisfied customer might also provide a recommendation to others to use your business or provide a referral to your business.

Truly great customer service is invisible to the customer. It is the framework for all transactions, but is never in the forefront. Your customer places an order and it is fulfilled on time, as ordered, and at the agreed-upon price. This kind of dependability – meeting customer expectations consistently and quietly – is the ultimate customer service experience and trumps the occasional above-and-beyond effort needed to solve an unexpected problem or respond to an emergency. If you are great at performing in a crisis but inconsistent in day-today performance, you are not delivering a great customer experience.

Remarkable customer service begins when you enhance quietly consistent routine performance with extra touches – anticipating the customer’s needs, turning a job around on an impossible deadline, or providing a creative solution to a problem. Remarkable customer service creates future business.

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Engage Your Readers With… Effective Headlines

HeadlineSMWhen you are writing a marketing communication piece – print ad, sales letter, direct mail piece, brochure, blog entry, press release, newsletter, webinar – where do you start? You may be surprised to learn that experts advise starting at the top by writing the headline.

The headline is your promise to readers, a statement of what they can expect if they continue reading. Promises are first made, and then fulfilled. So make the promise to readers through the headline, and fulfill it in the content.

The importance of headlines is not a new concept. Writing in 1923 in his book Scientific Advertising, Claude Hopkins said, “We pick out what we wish to read by headlines.” Forty years later, in his 1963 book Confessions of an Advertising Man, advertising legend David Ogilvy wrote On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents of your dollar.” Continuing today, busy people decide what to read on web pages, e-mail or blogs based the strength of the headline.

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Business Cards… The Indispensable Marketing Tool

BCphotoHere’s an intriguing question — can you name a digital technology that has the equivalent universality of a printed business card? Lots of digital technologies — smart phones, the electronic Rolodex, social media sites like LinkedIn — provide ways to access, organize, and display the contact information found on a printed business card. But none offer the ease of exchange between any giver and any receiver as does a business card.

A January 2014 survey by DesignCrowd.com of 1000 small businesses in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia revealed that 87% of respondents exchange business cards when meeting someone for the first time. Two thirds of respondents said they subsequently enter the business card information into a smart phone or Rolodex. So even though the contact information may ultimately be transferred to a digital format, the printed business card is still the best way to get information into the hands of a customer or prospect.

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Let’s Keep in Touch… Six Ways to Stay in Contact

dv1492011Marketing experts agree: the basis for developing new business, whether new work from an existing customer or the first job from a prospect, is to communicate with them. Experts also agree that the more different kinds of communication tools a business or organization uses, the more efficient the outreach and the more likely it is to successfully reach the person targeted. Relying on only one or two methods to make contact is risky when the person you want to reach has voice mail and the “delete” command to avoid phone calls and e-mail, and may not participate in all forms of social media. To help you improve your chances of having a successful communication, we offer six ways to contact customers and prospects.

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Consistent, Relevant, and Beneficial Marketing Materials

Businesses todmarketing_smay have an immense arsenal of marketing materials, ranging from printed material (business cards, brochures, product and service flyers, newsletters, and direct mail marketing pieces) to digital formats (web sites, web-based marketing, and social media). While there is significant potential power in having so many ways to reach customers and prospects, this comes with a responsibility to align all the materials with their interests and behaviors. Marketing materials now bear the burden of being consistent, relevant, and beneficial to the intended audience. As marketing guru Seth Godin puts it, “In a world of too many options and too little time, our obvious choice is to just ignore the ordinary stuff.”

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What Did You Say? Communicating Across Generations

GenBusinesses and organizations engage in two kinds of communication: internal communications among staff members and external communications between the business and its customers and prospects. Both require selection of a communication style — the specific way the message will be delivered.

Much internal communication is between individuals or small groups in the work place, while external communication is usually to a large audience (though with enough personal data, an external communication can be crafted for a small group or even an individual). Individuals differ in how they receive and share information, shaped by how they prefer to process information — visually (seeing), aurally (hearing), kinesthetically (doing), or a hybrid of reading and writing. Interestingly, an individual’s preference for sharing information may be different than his or her preference for receiving information.

When an individual is in a group (say, a participant in a meeting or part of the intended audience for a marketing message), then the individual’s generation shapes communication preferences. Understanding these generational preferences is the basis of communicating effectively.

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