Here’s a guideline for running a successful postcard marketing campaign.

Map your target audience and reach them

Mapping the right target audience is the most crucial part of postcard marketing. The marketer should know whom to reach. Once the target audience is mapped, it’s very convenient to figure out their taste and preferences, needs and wants. Thereby communication can be altered accordingly. Recipient can be individual person or a company. Don’t send postcards randomly to a big number of uninterested people. Even if your target group is small in number, stick to it and communicate effectively.

Always try to add an offer

Normal brand advertising is often ignored. People generally respond much better to campaign which contains attractive offers like – free gifts, free samples, free consultation, lucky draw coupons. The word ‘Free’ easily grabs attention of the reader. So always try to associate your campaign with an attractive offer. As for example a postcard saying ‘Get to know your skin type. Call us today for a free expert consultation and guidance’ gets more effective response than a campaign saying ‘Skin Expert, call @ XXXXX’. An offer adds spice to the campaign and draws in huge number of phone calls and email responses.

Use effective words

An effective hard-hitting headline, call to action words and signing off lines like ‘last date of sending entries’ and the like deadlines are must for an advertisement campaign. These words not only grab attention, but also arouse interest and help in purchase decision. An effective headline is soul of a campaign, grabs attention in the first look. A call to action word like ‘Buy now’ guides one towards the end decision and act as incentive. Do not use difficult words; rather stick to simple yet effective words. You can also include a deadline, like till when the offer will be valid. It sets an urgency to react.

Take care of the design

A good marketing campaign is often marred by a poor design. A good design not only grabs attention, but also makes the reader concentrate in the postcard and preserve it for long. An exceptional design innovation can make the campaign instant popular.

Do a test run and repeat if it works

Once the campaign is ready, test it in a small market. If the trial goes fine, launch it all over your market. If it brings good response and revenue repeat it again.

Let me give you a piece of good news: if you have written even a single brilliant copy then you already know the tricks, and all you need to do is standardize the process. And in order to do that you need to know the process.

5 steps to writing a better copy

Step1: Know your goal

You must be wondering why everything has to start with setting a goal. Let me help you in this. A goal is the end point where you want to reach when you set your sail. If you do not set a goal before setting sail, you will get lost in the sea. You need to define your advertising goal before you start writing your copy.

Step 2: Know your audience and their needs

A product is always made for a specific group of target audience. Although everyone can consume the product, it is never made for all. Similarly the advertisement created for the product should also not be created for all. Define a target audience, which often will be similar to the target user group of the product, and then find the reason why the target group will use this product.

Step 3: Appeal to their interest

I have seen many people who make ads to suit their needs and communication style, which I must add, fails to make any connection with the users. It is important to know the desire and aspiration of the target audience before writing an advertisement copy. When writing an ad, you should always remember that you are writing this to sell a product.

Step 4: Emotional appeal

Logic always fails to connect with the target audience. If you talk all logic, and reason in the ad then your ad will definitely fail. You need to connect with the target audience on the emotional level.

Step 5: Keep it simple

Do not clutter your ad by saying this and saying that. This will not take you anywhere. Keep it simple, and talk just about one benefit at one time. It may be possible that the product solves many problems, but in advertisement you are not supposed to write about all of them. Mention the most notable feature that matters to the audience.