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Printing Industry Exchange (printindustry.com) is pleased to have Steven Waxman writing and managing the Printing Industry Blog. As a printing consultant, Steven teaches corporations how to save money buying printing, brokers printing services, and teaches prepress techniques. Steven has been in the printing industry for thirty-three years working as a writer, editor, print buyer, photographer, graphic designer, art director, and production manager.

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Postcard Printers Mix Postcards with PURL’s for Maximum Effect

People say that print is dead, but I know better. Every time I look in the mailbox, I have a stack of mail.

From what I have read in trade journals, direct mail magazines, on-line news, and Post Office publications, although the stream of First Class mail has slowed down (due to online banking and email), direct mail marketing has actually increased its scope. And what better, cheaper, and more effective mode of direct mail can you choose than marketing postcards? Particularly when combined with Internet landing pages.

Benefits of Business Postcards

Business postcards are cheap to print: Printing one page of anything is probably within your budget. You don’t need to choose the best paper. If you can’t afford process color, select a tinted paper stock and add one or two inks. A creative presentation in a few colors will grab the reader’s attention. (Think of Chipotle’s marketing materials: black only on a light brown card stock. These marketing materials work because the concepts are clever, direct, and relevant.)

Business postcards Postcards cost less to mail than letters or flats. If you have multiple copies (500 copies or more of the same postcard), you get a further discount. are cheap to mail:

Business postcards get an immediate response: Unlike a letter, which has to be opened, a postcard is already open. Your potential client sees your message immediately.

Marketing studies have shown that people read their mail. In fact, with the barrage of on-line advertising, people seem to relish the quiet experience of reading their US Postal Service mail. It gets them away from the computer monitor and gives them a tactile experience. This is particularly true for catalogs, but it’s also true for business postcards.

Mix Your Marketing Postcards with an Internet Landing Page

The current buzzword is “multi-channel marketing.” It means combining multiple avenues for targeting your prospects. That may include signage, email marketing, direct mail, and even vehicle wraps on buses and cars. When you can touch your prospect, or client, in a number of ways, you can strengthen your brand message. Your logo and the values it represents become more immediately recognizable to your clients. The repetition of similar images and presentations across multiple channels reinforces your message.

Other important marketing concepts include “personalization” and “relevancy.” When I was young, we knew our neighborhood vendors: the grocer, the dry cleaner, the pharmacist. And they knew us. Shopping was a personal experience. Over the past forty years, shopping has become somewhat impersonal. Combining marketing postcards with Internet landing pages can make a sales call a more personal experience tailored to the individual buyer.

If you do your homework and identify a list of people who might want your product or service, and you target these people offering relevant information that will lead them to your product or service, you will increase the likelihood of making the sale. If your business postcards grab the attention of your prospect, and if a “call to action” comment leads her or him to a version of your website tailored exclusively to them, one that offers something of value (information about your particular industry, a white paper providing a solution to a specific problem, or more information about your product or service), the chances of their buying what you are selling increase significantly.

The targeted Internet landing page of which I speak is the “PURL” (personalized uniform resource locator). Using the information from your database, it creates a personalized Internet experience for your prospect. As your prospect interacts with your web page, the database further tailors the experience in order to deliver the exact information the prospect needs. As it gathers more information from the prospect, the database can even initiate future interactions through both direct mail (for example, it might trigger the mailing of a catalog) and the Internet.

Why Would Your Prospect Participate?

If your prospective client is interested in what you have to offer, as stated in your marketing postcards, a PURL is a less time consuming way to ask for more information. It is quicker and it offers the client more control than calling your office or filling out and mailing a business reply form.

Why Would You Participate?

Working with IT staff and printers to create a PURL campaign integrated with printed marketing postcards allows you to collect data (everything from names and addresses to buying patterns) that will help you serve your clients while making all future contacts more personal and relevant. And this will increase your sales. Pure and simple.

How do you begin? Ask printing companies you know and trust about the following terms: multi-touch marketing, multi-channel marketing, integrated marketing, cross-channel marketing, and PURL’s. These are all buzzwords in the new marketing lexicon. You may also want to do an online search using these terms.

The field is new, and not all printing companies will know what you’re talking about, so persist. I would venture to say that all printing companies can help you initiate a campaign based on marketing postcards, but it will be more challenging to find a proven IT professional to manage the PURL landing pages. So start your research with business printing vendors you trust.

2 Responses to “Postcard Printers Mix Postcards with PURL’s for Maximum Effect”

  1. Adam says:

    Good article! I agree that it vital to establish a non-online presence for some businesses as different mediums require a different amount of attention. A lot of people simply choose not to click links and read emails. There are in contrast fewer people who would not read their mail. This is a good way to engage customers through both mediums.

    • admin says:

      Thank you for your comment.

      I still receive a lot of mail each day. I glance at everything before throwing it out. With online advertising, I’m more likely to discard a promotional email without even skimming it. My assumption is that others agree. The studies I have read also support this view.

      I think that both online and print are necessary. The question is how to effectively balance, or link, them to promote one’s business.

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