It is amazing to witness the growth of blogs among every type business and organization– from churches to rail yards, from yogurt and ice cream companies to retail stores, and from jewelers to a major cable company; all are using blogs in innovative ways to transform their businesses.

Blogging allows you to create constructive encounters with your customers – these experiences can completely change the way your customers view you and your business. The more you appreciate your customers, the more these positive experiences will occur, and the more successful your business will be. A happy customer sends other happy customers your way.

Like every major communication tool, blogs expand the ability for companies to operate and ultimately to create entirely new opportunities for growth, product development, and quality control. However, blogs take this communication a step further by bringing the best aspects of mass marketing and transforming them from one-way communication into a two-way dialogue.

Blogging is a communication tool, a marketing technique, a listening device, and a way to interact directly with customers one-to-one on a personal scale. Your business can benefit by using blogs to spread the word about what your company has to offer and to gain immediate feedback from customers.

The question for you, then, isn’t should you get into blogs, but how will you get into blogs and how will you leverage them to maximize their return to your business?

I am getting much of this material about blogs from a great book called Blog Marketing by Jeremy Wright. I suggest everyone add this book to their marketing library.

I have a list with over 100 campaign uses of postcards. Just email me and request my “Postcard Use Checklist”. This means you could mail every day for almost four years and never have a duplicate subject about a card. Seriously, I am just trying to show you that you will never run out of ideas for postcards and subjects to create clever postcards. The possibilities are endless!

The success of your postcards depends a lot on the layout, design and ad copy. Be creative, but remember the simple design basics, which will help get your message across to the customer.

1. There is only a limited amount of space available on a postcard, use it wisely. You need to fill the space with information that will only address the main concerns that recipients have. A rule to remember, white space is better than a bunch of words that clutter your message.

2. Headlines need to be powerful, well-positioned and thought-out. They’ll make or break the success of your postcard. If you grab them with a clever headline, they’ll continue reading. Your headline has one objective: drive the reader into the rest of the copy.

3. The subheads are then written and designed to intrigue and arouse the reader further. The subhead is not quite as large as the headline type, and not quite as small as the body copy type. It is the line that provides a smooth transition between the two areas. This line also has the same objective as the headline: get them to read further.

4. Use graphics only if they have a purpose and contribute to the communication of your message. continue reading this entry »

The object of a postcard is to generate a sufficient level of interest in the mind of your prospect to get them to contact you about your offer. You are generating interest, not collecting money — not yet anyway.

Postcards are persistant. Send 8 postcards to your mailing list each year. In between mailing you should stay in touch with key clients and prospects with handwritten postcards. Postcards are the perfect tool to use for repetitive follow-up of prospects. This type of follow-up has resulted in substantial increases in sales. It’s okay to send a card more than once. Successful cards can be sent forever as long as they continue to cover their costs.

Postcards have to be part of your overall marketing plan. Make it fit and work in harmony with all the marketing strategies that you use. Ask yourself, why am I using postcards? Do you want to get new clients? Or do you want to stay in touch with existing clients? Who are you going to be mailing to? No matter what type of mailing you’re doing, it’s the list that will determine its success.

Postcards are an overlooked marketing secret. They can boost your business, no matter what kind of business you own. In a single mailing, you can seek business from prospective customers, and solicit repeat business from existing customers.

A postcard isn’t just something to send through the mail. You can use postcards to drive traffic to your website, generate sales leads, use as oversized business cards, hang tags for your products, mini-information sheets or how about a newsletter on a postcard. I have personally used that with fabulous results.

Postcards are one of the best investments you can make with your marketing dollar.