4 Best Practices for Marketing Your Business With Postcards

Direct mail remains one of the best ways businesses in Toronto can reach their audiences. This is because direct mail is one of the oldest, tried and true marketing strategies out there. After all, everyone likes getting mail that’s personalized, gives value and is aesthetically pleasing!

Using postcards in your direct mail marketing practices can be a very economical and effective way for you to deliver the best ROI (return on investment) in your marketing efforts. Almost every type of business can benefit from utilizing postcards to target their audience effectively and get them to act.

Postcards are a great way to increase your leads and gain new customers, but it’s essential to tailor your approach to suit your needs as much as possible. So not only will you be able to communicate your marketing message to your customers effectively, but you’ll also be able to stand out from the rest of the competition.

While designing a simple postcard might seem easy at first, there are a few things you need to keep in mind to ensure the success of your efforts. Direct mail postcard marketing is all about focusing on making the most out of its format and then using those features to your advantage.

The following best practices for marketing your business with postcards will help you sharpen your direct mail campaign.

1. Use a Unified Theme and Design

The design elements of your postcard should work together to achieve your marketing goals for your campaign. At a basic level, they should be able to attract your target audience’s attention so that they read your postcard instead of pushing it to the side with the rest of the clutter. Design elements include the imagery, colours, text and layout. The main objective for postcards is to stimulate the viewer visually and emotionally and to be able to spark engagement and interest.

It’s essential to keep in mind what theme would be appropriate for your business’s industry. For example, if you own a restaurant, you can incorporate cookware imagery or your food into the design.

It’s also best to keep things simple. Simplicity is important because you don’t want your postcard to be too overwhelming and contribute to all of the advertising noise that we all experience in our daily lives. Keeping things simple doesn’t need to mean boring; you can use high-quality graphics and images to get your point across and catch your customer’s eye in a way that makes them want to learn more.

2. Keep Your Messaging Focused

Sticking with the theme of simplicity, it’s also important to keep your messaging short and to the point. Start by thinking about your strategy and what you want to accomplish with this campaign. Postcards are best utilized for one single message. Instead of cramming many offers onto one or using one to reach multiple audiences, you want your target audience to focus on one thing when they read your postcard.

For example, you can focus your postcard on:

• Promoting a sale
• Building your brand or business
• Rewarding customer loyalty or showing customer appreciation
• Reminding a recipient about a needed service or renewal
• Reaching out to a customer who might have abandoned their online shopping cart

3. Target Your Audience

When it comes to marketing campaigns, the more precisely you target your audience, the better results you get. Personalization is an essential part of any marketing campaign, and direct mail marketing is no exception! By being ultra-specific about who receives your postcard, you can better tailor your messaging to resonate with them.

That will help you save money in a few ways. Since you will only be sending your postcard out to those who are the most interested and the most likely to buy your product or service, you will waste less money on those who aren’t a good fit for your message. This approach will also help you generate more sales and, in turn, increases your ROI and profits.

If you’re located in Canada, there are two programs offered by Canada Post to help businesses with their direct mail marketing efforts:

1. The Canada Post Neighborhood Mail program is an unaddressed option for postcards. It targets letter-carrier walks (LCW) in specific target areas. Neighbourhood Mail has the lowest postage cost of all postal services.
2. The Canada Post Personalized Mail program is the addressed option for a mailing list of names and addresses. These mailing lists can be house lists from companies’ customer databases or sourced lists.

4. Always Include a Clear Call-To-Action

In any marketing strategy, having a clear call-to-action (CTA) is a necessary element for success. Your CTA lets your potential customers know what actions they should take after they’ve read your direct mail postcard. This is critical because, without it, your audience might not know what steps to take to purchase a product or sign up for a newsletter. They’ll be more likely to leave your postcard – and all of your efforts – behind.

Some examples of CTA include:

• Call 1-800-XXX-XXXX today!
• Go to www. [company website] .com to get your discount before it expires on March 9th!
• Scan this QR code to claim your offer!

Make sure your CTA stands out from the rest of your postcard’s copy, so it can’t be missed.

The mighty printed postcard is a great marketing solution that your business can utilize to carry your message to a wide audience. They are also a convenient marketing solution as they can be designed and made quickly. As a direct mail option, postcards have smaller printing and mailing costs, so they’re great for those on tight budgets. And in terms of design, they are the perfect size to get your message across effectively with a CTA that your audience can understand and follow.

By sticking with these postcard marketing fundamentals, you’ll be able to create a postcard that stands out in your audiences’ mailboxes and influences your customers to take action.

Contact Troi Mailing Services

For more information about postcard printing in Toronto, call Troi Mailing Services in Canada at 1-866-486-9350 or contact us here.