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.

Postcards are versatile. Postcards can look like a one-to-one communication. They can be used to keep your mailing list up to date. Send postcards first class with the imprint “Address Service Requested” below the stamp.

The post office will return cards for free with undeliverable addresses back to you. Lots of catalog companies do this before mailing their catalog — it’s much cheaper to get cards back than to pay for getting unusable catalogs back after the normal post office handling.

One of the benefits of using the postcard first class rate is that the postcard will be mailed back to you if it has a bad address, which helps you keep your list up to date.

Need a quick survey response? Create a short survey postcard Ask recipients to fax them back to you, or go to your website and answer the questions. There’s a good chance you’ll get lots of responses. Testing your offers with postcards is easy. Just send your card to a small group of people and see how many of them respond. If you’re satisfied with the results, then roll out a bigger mailing!

It’s easy to track your results with postcards since you can tell recipients to bring the card into your store to redeem it for a special discount. Or direct them to use a special ordering code when purchasing from your website.

Postcards can be produced on a very tight production schedule. Postcards are simple to create and send, there is no assembling, collating, stuffing, licking envelopes, etc.

The hardest part of sending a postcard is putting on the stamp.

Your postcards can brand you and your business in ways that most marketing materials cannot. Once you start and then stick to a regular postcard mailing program, you and your business will gain a reputation, perhaps even a little notoriety.

Small and medium sized business budgets love postcards because they are one of the most effective and affordable marketing strategies. What other strategy could you place a personal message in the hands of 500 clients eight times a year for only $2.08 per client? Postcards are inexpensive to produce. In fact, standard sized postcards are 40% cheaper than using regular sized letters.

Mailing postcards allows you to take advantage of first class delivery while enjoying the postage savings (only $.26) that is lower than standard bulk mail. That amazingly low first class rate even applies when mailing just one card.

Postcards achieve almost 100 percent readership and generate a high rate of response.

Postcards are associated with happy memories and if your postcard looks like a personal message instead of a sales promotion, prospects can’t resist reading it. It’s up to you and your imagination to make your postcards eye-catching and readable.

Postcards don’t waste people’s time-they don’t even have to open an envelope to read your message. Letters, on the other hand, are enclosed in an envelope so the recipient gets a chance to decide whether to open the envelope or just throw it away — many decide on just throwing it away. What a waste of a marketing budget. However, with postcards, they will see your message.

When you use postcard marketing, your competition doesn’t know about it. Unlike advertisements in newspapers or magazines, which shows your competition how you are marketing your business.

You control where they are sent. That way, your competitor doesn’t know your marketing strategy unless one of your recipient’s happens to tell them.

Webster’s defines reputation as “the general esteem, position, character or distinction in which a person or company is held by the public.” A reputation is a distinction (good or bad) earned in the marketplace. A good reputation is gained by meeting certain customer standards. You earn your good reputation, and it will have everything to do with a positive company image.

Your company will be judged on how the client perceives you. Encourage your employees to be polite and provide friendly customer service. Make sure your product or service is competitively priced. It is important to do things as scheduled so that your customers are not inconvenienced.

This is something they don’t easily forget. Realize they are busy and keep appointments with them. This will help you earn a good reputation and leave your customers with a positive opinion of your company.