No matter what you think of them, within the next 18 months, blogs will change your business.

Blogs are altering the world of business as we know it, redefining marketing, public relations, and customer communications, to name a few. If you aren’t embarrassing this change into your own marketing mix, if you haven’t started to use this marketing phenomenon, your competitors are, and I guarantee they’ll leave you in the dust wondering where your sales have gone and why your customers are deserting you in droves.

Blogs are not only here to stay, but they will have an effect on your business. The question is, will you use blogs to benefit your business, or will you ignore them and experience negative consequences that takes you completely by surprise?

If you are interested in the future of your company, you need to understand and start blogging.

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.