Marketers were forced to radically transform their strategies and approaches when online marketing began to grow popular in the early 2000s. Instead of investing almost exclusively in radio, TV, and traditional ads, they shifted to spending money on search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click ads (PPC), and social media – among other digital strategies. These have since been seen as the most cost-effective and furthest-reaching strategies available.
So why is it, in this era of inexpensive and powerful digital marketing strategies, that a traditional strategy like postcards are still so effective?
Why Postcards Are Still So Powerful
Postcard marketing is alive and well – and millions of businesses continue to use it as a primary strategy for their brand. How is it that a paper-and-mail-based strategy can still be so competitive?
There are several reasons:
Effectiveness across industries
For starters, postcards aren’t exclusively beneficial for one industry, or a handful of industries. They can be used in different ways for a variety of different industries. For example, postcard marketing is especially popular for real estate agents because of its ability to target a local audience, its visual nature, and its inexpensiveness – not to mention the average deal size in the real estate world. If your postcard marketing campaign generates even a handful of leads, it could pay for itself.
Reasonable inexpensiveness
It would be unfair to describe postcard marketing as the least expensive marketing strategy available, but it’s reasonably inexpensive, especially when compared to other strategies. Marketing in traditional channels like radio and TV can cost you thousands of dollars, while only connecting you with a small audience for a minute or less. With postcard marketing, you can pay as little as pennies per piece (depending on volume, design, and other factors), plus postage. This allows postcard marketing to generate a high return on investment (ROI).
Customizability
With a postcard, you’ll be working with a finite amount of space, but within that space, you have unlimited creativity. If you work with a good printing company, you’ll be able to choose from a multitude of different sizes, materials, and other variables to ensure your piece looks unique. You can work with a graphic designer to make your postcard more visually appealing and captivating to your audience. You can even use advanced techniques, like custom printing individual greetings for your recipients.
Simplicity
Despite the possible options, postcard design and marketing is relatively simple – both for you and your recipients. For the people designing postcards, the strategy is straightforward and easy to manage. You don’t need years of experience to be successful, nor is the process of managing a postcard campaign complicated. For recipients, postcards communicate a great deal of information in a concise frame – and can often be understood in just a few seconds.
In person appeal
Most people spend a lot of time staring at a screen, whether it’s for work, personal entertainment, or socialization. That’s part of what makes digital marketing strategies so powerful. But after several hours of staring at a screen each day, many people like the appeal of looking at physical pieces of paper. There’s something more personal about it.
Additional reach
In the United States, 7 percent of people still don’t use the internet regularly, and millions of additional people use the internet rarely. If you only invest in digital marketing, you’ll never reach these outliers. Postcard marketing can help you tap into an audience that would otherwise be totally neglected.
Digital synergy
While postcards can be used by themselves, they’re even more effective when used as part of a suite of complementary strategies. They have excellent synergy with digital lead generation strategies, digital ads, and other marketing approaches. For example, you can use postcards to help filter prospects and build an email list, then use a drip email campaign to market to them more consistently.
Is Postcard Marketing Right for You?
So with all these advantages, is postcard marketing right for every business?
The short answer is no. There’s no such thing as a marketing strategy that works for every business because businesses come in so many different varieties (with unique needs and profiles).
That said, if the following describe your business, you should consider investing in postcard marketing for it:
· You want to reach a lot of people in an immediate, inexpensive way.
· You have a target audience who spends limited time online.
· You’re interested in complementing your existing digital marketing strategies.
· You want to make a more personal, customized appeal.
Final Thoughts:
For most businesses, postcard marketing is at its best when it’s utilized as one of several strategies in your marketing and advertising arsenal. This way, you’ll enjoy all the advantages of postcard marketing without sacrificing the advantages of other complementary tactics. Experiment and figure out the right combination for your brand!
