Easy Design Tips for Small Business Postcards

You may already use direct mail postcards to promote your small business’s events, offer discounts or coupons, or simply keep in touch with your customers in a unique way. If you don’t, there are plenty of reasons why you should start marketing with direct mail:

• Direct mail easily pairs with digital marketing strategies to engage customers on multiple platforms
• Direct mail is personal -- 56 percent of people say that direct mail made them feel more valued
• Direct mail is engaging -- 82 percent of direct mail is read for more than one minute

If you’re interested in sending out a few direct mail postcards (or reinvigorating an old campaign), great! There are a few design basics you should know that will ensure your mail is compelling and elicits the response you desire. Even the most thoughtful direct mail elements such as great copy and a targeted list won’t reach their full potential unless they’re accompanied by great design.

Consistency is key.

Your postcard is an interaction with your audience, and the more reliable the interaction, the more trust is built. Keep your design and brand consistent throughout your postcard campaign, especially if you’ll be sending multiple postcards in the same calendar year. According to an article from the Interaction Design Foundation, consistent design promotes familiarity and bonding between businesses and consumers, so prospects don’t have to “meet” a brand for a second time.

Consider the usage of color.

Sticking to your brand colors is always a safe bet, but there are other color considerations that are important to keep in mind when designing anything for marketing purposes. One such consideration is the principle known as the Isolation Effect, which states that items that stand out are more likely to be remembered.

For instance, on websites there are usually three basic colors schemes: base colors, background colors and accent colors. Accent colors, when they provide a stark visual contrast, are generally what get web visitors to take an action (like clicking on a button). This same principle can be applied to direct mail marketing. Make this most important piece of the mailer the one that stands out visually, too.

Don’t be afraid of white space.

Don’t clutter the limited space on your direct mail postcards with a lot of text and images. An easy best practice to remember is to structure any postcard with four basic parts: a header, a bit of body copy, a call to action, and an image.

Header - Clear, to the point, and attention-grabbing.

Body Copy - The important details.

Call to action - The action you want your customer to take as a result of receiving your postcard. Hint: Remember that accent color we talked about above? Make your call to action the text that stands out with this accent color.

If you run a local retail shop for example, you could direct the recipients of your mailer to stop by the store during a specific timeframe for an exclusive discount. If you provide a service such as event planning, your call to action could be to visit your website to view inspirational photos from successful events. Simply put, the call to action is the “why” behind your direct mail postcard. It’s important to point your recipients in the direction that will be profitable for your business while still providing value.

Image - Imagery is perhaps the most important element of your direct mail postcards because it’s what we as humans remember. Again, keep things simple: don’t clutter your piece with multiple pictures and designs. One or two compelling images will do.

The design of your small business postcard doesn’t require a high level of mastery to make your mailer memorable and engaging -- in fact, by following these tips, it’s fairly simple to create a beautiful card that makes your recipient want to take action. To make designing a beautiful postcard even easier, you can use online tools with pre-built templates, like QuantumPostcards’ Design Canvas.