Direct Mail Postcards 101 - Ten Steps to Postcard Success

By Brandon Cornett
© 2011. All rights reserved

Companies have been using direct mail postcards for decades to promote their products and services. There's a good reason for this longevity. Postcards work. They can be used to support almost any marketing goal imaginable -- direct sales, lead generation and more.

In this lesson, you'll learn how to get a bigger response from your direct mail postcards. You can use this knowledge to conduct your initial mailing campaign. After that, you can experiment to your heart's content. But it all starts with the basics. 

Brandon's Top-Ten Tips for Direct Mail Postcards

Author's note: I worked for several years in the direct mail industry, and several more as a marketing consultant. This gave me exposure to a wide variety of postcard marketing campaigns. Along the way, I've seen what works and what doesn't. This article is my attempt to put all of that experience on "paper" for you. Here are ten ways to get a bigger response from your direct mail postcards.

1. Start with the big idea.

Put your postcard's design on the side burner for now. Forget about the headline and the call to action. Before you deal with any of that, you need to come up with an idea for your mailing.

Are you offering a 25-percent discount on a product or service? Are you introducing a new product? Have you just opened a business in a new area? These are all good reasons to use direct mail postcards to spread the word. What's your reason for doing it? You have to identify your purpose and your goals (specifically) before you can move forward with the mailing.

Here's an easy way to begin this process. Just answer the following question: What are you offering people, and why should they care about it? When you can answer this question, you've got the seeds of a postcard mailing. As we continue through this article, you'll learn how to grow that idea into a full-scale marketing campaign.

2. Build or buy the right list.

So you've developed an idea for your postcards, and you're building an offer around that idea. Next, you need a list of people who are most likely to respond to your offer. There are two ways to create a mailing list for your direct mail postcards:

1. You can buy a tailored list from a company like InfoUSA.
2. You can create a list from your in-house records.

Statistically speaking, an in-house list will outperform a third-party list. Marketers experience a 30-percent higher response, on average, when using an in-house list over a purchased list. This stands to reason. With a house list, you are contacting people who have interacted with your company in the past. They might be past customers, or people who have contacted you through your website. In either case, they are more likely to know you. Thus, they are more likely to respond to your postcard offer. With a third-party list purchased through a data provider, you are basically "cold mailing" strangers.

If you don't have an in-house mailing list, you only have one option. You'll have to purchase a list from a data company like InfoUSA or USAData. The good news is that you can get pretty darn specific when purchasing a list through these companies.

Example: Let's say I'm using direct mail postcards to promote my handyman business. I know that people who have recently moved into a new home usually have plenty of work for a handyman -- painting, replacing light fixtures, etc. I could use a data company to create a list of new homeowners in a certain area. In fact, I could tailor the list to provide names and addresses of people with children who purchased a home in the last 30 days, within a particular subdivision or a particular part of town. These people would be most likely to need my services, so they are perfect candidates to receive my direct mail postcards.

You can apply this same level of specificity to any type of business. Whether you're speaking to consumers (B2C) or other businesses (B2B), you must create a highly targeted list. What kinds of people have purchased your products or services in the past? Those are the people you want to focus on with your direct mail marketing. You can use a data company to compile a list of these ideal prospects. You'll have to make an investment in such a list, but it's worth it. Buying a customized list from a data company is the next-best thing to using your own in-house list.

Don't send your direct mail postcards to strangers. Send them to people who fit a certain profile. Create an "audience statement" to fill in the details of your target audience. Then you can build or buy a list that matches this profile. This will improve your response rates -- and, ultimately, your bottom line.

3. Write the postcard headline at least 20 times.

The three most important components of a marketing postcard are (1) the headline, (2) the main image or photograph, and (3) the offer. But people only notice two out of the three upon first glance -- the headline and the supporting image. They'll get to the offer if and when they keep reading. So in terms of capturing the reader's attention, the headline is one of the two most important pieces of the postcard.

Direct mail copywriters know this. That's why they spend so much time writing and rewriting headlines to get them just right. If you can't afford to hire a professional copywriter, you'll have to handle this on your own. Just so long as it gets done.

Writing a good headline for your direct mail postcards is not as hard as you might think. In fact, if you take the time to develop a strong offer for your mailers, the headline will write itself. Here's an example of what I mean:

Let's say I'm promoting my Internet-marketing services to small business owners. I have created a free booklet that explains some of the most cost-effective ways to promote your business via the Internet. I'm offering this booklet for free, as a lead-generation tool. I've set up a web page where people can download the booklet. Now I'm ready to use marketing postcards to present this offer to my key audience. Because I've started with the strategy and offer, the headline practically writes itself. Here's one way I could say it...

Free Booklet: The 5 Most Effective (and Cost-Effective) Ways to Promote Your Small Business Online

This postcard headline is easy to read. It's also fairly short. But don't let that fool you. It's working hard to accomplish several things at once. In just 15 words, this direct mail headline has done the following:

• Identified the audience (small business owners)
• Introduced the primary offer (a free booklet)
• Explained the benefits of the offer (effective marketing and cost savings)
• Appealed to the reader's curiosity (to learn the five techniques)

I have never tested this exact headline on a direct mail postcard. But I've used the free booklet or "white paper" strategy on multiple occasions. When done properly, it's a surefire way to generate leads. Combine this with a targeted mailing list and a follow-up program of some kind, and you've got a pretty good ROI. 

A good headline is easy to read. It doesn't leave people scratching their heads. It is clear and to the point. It promises to help the reader in some way (by making them healthier, wealthier or wiser). These are the ingredients you should use when writing your direct mail headlines.

You rarely hit the jackpot on the first try. Even a professional copywriter will rewrite the headline a dozen or more times. I rewrote the "free booklet" headline above 12 times before I was happy with it. And this is just for the initial round of direct mail postcards. After measuring the response rates for the first mailing, I would experiment with a different headline on a follow-up mailing. This is how you "beat the control" with a higher-performing component.

Note: This is the first in a two-part series on direct mail postcards. I am currently working on the follow-up to this piece (as of July 23, 2011). The second part will be posted online in a day or two.