Using Direct Mail to Drive Web Traffic - 5 Strategies

by Brandon Cornett

Direct mail postcards make excellent website promoters. With their easy readability and "at-a-glance" impact, postcards can entice customers or prospects to visit your website.

So if your website is a key part of your marketing strategy (and it's primed and ready to capture leads), give one of the following strategies a try.

Five ways to drive web traffic with direct mail postcards:

1. Free reports and white papers.
Create a valuable report and make it available for download via your website. Feature the report (with graphics, excerpts, and other teasers) on a postcard. To get more out of this strategy, read this blog post about using postcards for online marketing.

2. Seminars.
Seminars are a great business-building tool for certain industries. Real estate, financial services, investing, technology ... each of these sectors can use seminars to increase their exposure and gain clients. And direct mail makes it easy for you to promote your seminars. Put the primary benefit of your seminar in the headline, and offer multiple incentives for attending. Offer a web-based form to simplify the signup process.

3. Free trial.
If you're selling software, e-books, or anything digital, you can offer a free trial or sample download through your website. Then use the direct mail piece to build interest and point readers in the right direction.

4. Newsletter subscription.
Want to increase the size of your subscriber base? Send a postcard that conveys the value of the newsletter, along with a strong bonus incentive for signing up. Create a landing page with a short URL / web address so it's easy for people to type.

5. RSS feeds.
RSS feeds are becoming a popular web-marketing tool ... and for good reason. They're easy to create and manage, and they offer another way to stay connected with your audience. Send a postcard to your customer base, showing them the value of your RSS feed, and how and where to sign up for it. (See how we promote our direct mail feed.)

Good luck and good marketing!

-Brandon from PostcardSmart.com