Direct mail marketing is nothing new. Since the printing press businesses have been using circulars to promote their products and services. It brings new meaning to the phrase, ?Everyone's doing it!? At some point in your professional career you're inevitably going to hop on the bandwagon. The question is, what are you going to do to make your direct mailing campaign a success?



Three words: Direct Mail Postcards. Direct mail postcards are the latest wave in direct mail marketing, guaranteed to catch your customers? eye and take your marketing campaign on a new track. Up until this point businesses have been encouraged to launch their mailing campaigns with either a) a mini newsletter or other circular containing advertisements, coupons and other sorts of promotional materials or, lacking the funds for this, b) various variations on the traditional flyer.

Thickly packed, colorful circulars are undoubtedly an attractive method of direct mail marketing, and odds are good that a customer receiving one of these mini-periodicals will at least take the time to glance through it; however, they are costly to distribute, and if they don't draw in business the first couple months of your campaign it can bite a huge chunk out of your already beleaguered marketing budget.

The flyer, on the other hand, is simple and inexpensive to produce. It can be made anywhere, by anyone; as a matter of fact, with modern computer software marketers can produce these gems from the comfort of their living room. They provide plenty of opportunity for information, certainly far more than their smaller counterparts. Why, then, are direct mail postcards sending the flyer into obscurity?

Because flyers are dull. Flyers are boring. Flyers are uninspired. Anyone can make or send a flyer. You probably aren't thrilled when you walk out and find a flyer under the wiper blade of your windshield, tucked up against your door or sitting in your mailbox. In fact, if you're like the majority of the population you scarcely bother to give them a glance before balling them up and stuffing them into the trash can! The marketers that made these flyers could have gone to the bank, withdrawn their money and used it as fodder for their fireplace. It would have been more useful that way!

On the other hand, who doesn't like receiving a postcard? Postcards make consumers dream of exotic vacations and eccentric family members who take them, and when they pull the postcard out of their mailbox they're going to feel the same familiar tingle they got when they were little receiving one for the very first time. Postcards are fun! A brightly colored postcard is going to catch their eye much more quickly than a flyer, and even if they ultimately do end up throwing your postcard away guess what they're going to do first?

Right. Read it. Whether they keep your postcard or not (and chances are that they will, particularly if it contains coupons; postcards are much more convenient to save, store and file than their bulkier compadres) they will have heard of you, and once they've heard about you it's a small step to your front door.