5 Phases of Postcard Marketing Campaign

   A postcard marketing campaign typically has five phases. Are you surprised? Well, there is more to postcard printing and marketing than just mailing those color postcards of course.

   To make sure that every printing counts and is effective at marketing, you will need to be careful and do everything systematically. Here are the five phases of a proper and effective campaign.

   1.     Market assessment and research – Any marketing campaign starts with a little bit of studying and research. No marketing campaign will succeed without this of course, so for marketing campaign, make sure that you do a market assessment or survey and do some specific market research on your target customers. Try to determine the precise locations of your customers, their typical preferences and their basic demographic profile. All this will help in your decisions for design creation and marketing deployment later on.   2.     Design creation – After studying, the next phase is the creation of the postcard itself. Using the knowledge you gleamed from your research, you will have to create a marketing postcard design that is well suited for the target market. This allows you to make a more personal and powerful impact on readers, easily convincing them to respond to your marketing message. Take the design seriously and do not just make something pretty. Make sure it is a well-chosen design that speaks at the heart of your consumers.

   3.     Printing and testing – Once you have done with creating your designs, the next phase is to test and print. It is important to do some initial testing so that you can identify key problems in the marketing design before you go full scale. Present initial outputs to colleagues and even some sample audiences so that you can get some crucial feedback and reactions about the marketing message. Once done, just integrate any changes needed to your final draft and have them printed by a postcard printing company.

   4.     Mailing phase – Afterward, the next stage is the mailing phase. Here is where your initial market research comes into its own. If you did your research right, you should have the right demographic data and location data with the best and most responsive people. Make sure that you confirm addresses if possible and send through a reliable mailing service or courier. Repeat your distribution after a month, so that you can remind unresponsive contacts about your marketing message. After that, you should not send to them anymore if they do not respond so as not to anger them.

   5.     Alternative distribution phase – After the main mailing phase, you should then go to the alternative distribution phase. This means distributing your color brochures using other means. You can try to leave them in racks, give them away by hand, or include them in certain distributable materials such as press kits, product packages or giveaway prizes. This allows you to reach people in a more non-traditional manner, giving you much more flexibility in marketing.   Now you know what a typical campaign involves. You can use these five basic phases, but of course, depending on your situation, you can modify. As long as the essence of the Research-Creation-Deployment phases is there, you should be on the right track for effective marketing.

   Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower of the developments in postcards and postcard printing that help businesses in their marketing and advertising campaigns.