5 Common Postcard Marketing Mistakes
From failing to double-check your copy before printing your postcards (and sending out thousands of cards with misspelled headings as a result) to ineffective targeting, every direct mail marketer makes a mistake at some point in their career.
While some direct mail mistakes can seriously affect your campaign, others are easy to avoid with the right preparation. Read on to learn about five common postcard marketing mistakes and how you can avoid making them.
Not testing before you mail to your target audience
Testing is the key to maximizing your response rate from any direct mail campaign, whether you’re promoting your local business or a special offer aimed at a specific audience.
Before you launch your campaign and target your entire audience, carry out a small test to learn which of your direct mail postcards produces the best response rate for your business.
Good elements to test include headings and subheadings, your postcard’s copy and your campaign’s mailing list. Small tweaks and modifications to your messaging can often have a huge effect on your campaign, and that is only discoverable through testing.
Not tracking results throughout your campaign
Do you know what response rate your latest mailing achieved? Without accurately tracking your campaign’s results, it’s impossible to know which variation received the best response rate and ROI for your business.
For simple campaigns, you can track your response rate by comparing the number of responses (whether leads, sales or enquiries) to the number of postcards you’ve mailed. For more complex campaigns, it’s still relatively easy to track results.
From personalized URLs to scannable QR codes, using digital technology in your direct mail postcards makes tracking even easier. Make sure you pay attention to your campaign’s results, as the data will help you make important optimizations.
Forgetting to automate postcard printing and delivery
Automation makes running your direct mail campaign easier than it’s ever been before. Using software and custom postcards, you can automatically print the recipient’s name, address and other information onto each postcard you send.
In fact, almost every aspect of the direct mail campaign preparation and delivery process can be automated thanks to the latest marketing software. From design to printing, it’s possible to run your entire direct mail campaign in the background.
This saves you the time that would otherwise be spent preparing and printing your postcards, giving you more time to focus on tracking results and optimizing each of your postcards for the highest possible response rate.
Not understanding the demographic you’re mailing to
How well do you know your target audience? Without understanding your target audience’s wants, needs and priorities, it’s extremely difficult to deliver a message that your prospects are truly interested in.
Before you start marketing your offer using direct mail, study your target audience to understand what matters to them. What are their questions? What problems do they face on a day to day basis? How can you help them solve these problems?
The better you know your target audience, the easier you’ll find it is to craft a message that produces fantastic results. As vital as it is to take action, it’s even more vital to understand your target audience before you rush into a campaign unprepared.
Forgetting to focus on your unique selling point
What unique benefit differentiates your product or service from its competitors? All offers have a unique benefit, and the key to achieving great results with direct mail is to clearly communicate this unique benefit to prospects.
Is your product longer-lasting than its competitors? Does it provide better value for money? Is it backed up by an unbeatable guarantee that none of its competitors can possibly hope to match?
You can never stand out by marketing your product based on its weaknesses. Instead, try to focus on its strengths in your marketing and use them to set it apart from other products in its category.
