Most business owners don’t use postcards as a marketing tool, and those who do, use them infrequently and haphazardly with no strategy involved.

However, postcards are so cost-effective they can be a high-frequency sales building weapon. Because they are 6 times more likely to be read than a direct mail letter, they are also a high-impact weapon.

Best of all, postcards have a high recall by recipients for three reasons:

• The use of color or a picture provides a visual that is easily remembered
• Postcards are intimate by nature and are much more personal
• They are quickly noticed in the mass of daily mail

The power of postcard marketing starts with message repeatability.

One side of the card is your “billboard”. Ideally you want to print a headline that screams value – the single most important benefit you want to communicate to your customer. Adding a photo and some color with the headline is also important.

The other side can contain a message specific to an individual mailing. And you can also add a handwritten message, signature, and address to personalize your mailing. And every time you mail a postcard, your prospect sees your value statement.

A scheduled campaign is the next step. Mail one every two weeks for two months. Or mail one a month for six months. Establish a frequency that fits your product and your offer and stick with it. You’ll be top-of-mind in your prospects eyes for very little money. Postcards work well in tandem with other marketing weapons like e-mail or text messaging. In fact, it’s shown that combining direct mail with email can improve marketing results by 27% or more.

What makes postcards most powerful is when you add personalization.

With the advent of variable print technology, you can create postcards using your customers name in creative ways that are sure to capture your customer’s attention. You can have their name written on a beach, on a billboard, in a newspaper headline, on a pizza box or on football jerseys promoting a big game day promotion. Studies show that adding personalization to your postcard mailers will increase response rates by up to 40% vs. generic mass mailings.

And personalization doesn’t have to end with your customer’s name. If you have a customer loyalty program or POS system that captures customer data such as their last purchase date, most active purchase day or most popular menu item, you can incorporate that information into your postcard mailings too.

The more personalized you can make the postcard, the more effective it will be. Not only will the response rates be higher but the people who respond will spend more money. According to research by the Direct Marketing Association, consumers who respond to personalized direct mail will have a 24% higher average ticket.

So remember, to deliver an effective postcard marketing campaign be sure to:

• Personalize
• State your value
• Repeat it
• Repeat it again
• Keep doing it