By now you have done your homework from the last article (Direct Mail Marketing – Can It Really Pay Off? Part 1) and know what product to market first. Through your research, you have figured out everything you could about the clientele that buy that particular product so you can now learn what to say to them.
There are a few keys things to learn when designing postcards for marketing. Aesthetics is not the #1 aspect of a card. The absolute #1 aspect is whether or not it “pulls”. Does it elicit response? Does it make the prospect want to call you? You can have all the aesthetics in the world – beautiful colors, beautiful font, pretty pictures and it could pull nothing.
To give you an example: there was this commercial that used to play over and over in Houston, Texas. This was many years ago. It was corny. It was a furniture guy that sold furniture at cut rate prices. His commercials were actually obnoxious. He jumped up and down and said how he could save you money! But they (the commercials) pulled. That “guy” ran those commercials until the cows came home and people flocked to him like he was the pied piper or something. He became larger than life. And even when he expanded and moved into bigger quarters, etc. – he kept the same commercial. Only sometimes to mix it up a bit, he would have others jump up and down and profess he’d save you money.
Case in point – what he did worked. He got an emotional response from the viewers that watched his commercials. “Save You Money!” That was the thing that made people want to check him out. When he said that phrase and jumped up and down with a wad of dollar bills, people would think “How can I afford NOT to check it out when it’s on SALE!”
So, back to your postcard – I’m going to show you how to get your market responding to your promotion. It’s really not that mysterious.
10 Key Elements to Help You Get the Results You Want
1. A clear, bold headline. On front of the postcard or mailer there should be one central message. The best way to achieve that is with a headline that’s not cluttered up with other text. It should be large enough that it’s the first thing that’s noticed.
2. A graphic that supports the message. The graphic should be very easy to understand. It should also add to the message the headline is trying to convey. For instance, if you are trying to get people to understand that they can get money out of their home, you could show a house bricked of dollar bills. That graphic reinforces the message more than a simple picture of a home.
You can use fear or humor to get attention.
