“It’s one thing to know the score. It’s another thing entirely to be able to positively effect the outcome of the game for your team,”
− Tony Dungee
The trees are shaking off the last flakes of snow from the long, cold winter, and it’s likely that there will still be some inclement weather in the next few weeks, but once Spring has sprung, the Summer heat will soon be upon us. That means that it’s time for you as a business owner to prepare to put your Summer marketing and advertising plans into action.
You need to devise your marketing and advertising campaigns to incorporate durable, cost-effective media to get your high-value offer into the hands of your target market, and our custom direct-mail postcards are one of the smartest ways of doing this.
Your business is devoted to helping others get what they want – whether it’s the right widget, or the right service. And in turn, your customers provide you with what you want – a healthy profit that will enable you to continue to help them. It’s a symbiotic circle that keeps your business afloat.
We make it our mission here at Front Door Advertising to help you to keep building your business and to keep your doors open by helping your customers get what they want and need.
We know that building your business isn’t always the easiest thing to do, that’s why we put our reputation on the line for you every day, offering print advertising solutions that put your high-value offer into your customer’s hands. And one of the most powerful, enduring options is our direct-mail postcards.
Think about it – for a fraction of what some of the conventional advertising options cost, you can utilize a proven, cost-effective medium to let your customer’s know about your valuable offer, and because it’s so durable, they can keep it until they make their buying decision. That’s a win-win situation for everyone involved!
In fact, direct-mail postcards are so effective and durable that they have been used for hundreds of years. Yet as durable and reliable as direct-mail postcards are, their humble beginnings and the evolution of their value in the marketing and advertising schema of today’s fast-paced world make them one of the most efficient and cost-effective, methods of getting your advertising message into your potential customer’s hands.
In the late 1770s, a clever Frenchman, who happened to own an engraving business, proposed something quite radical: Why not produce engraved cards, slightly larger than a calling card, with a person’s name and space for a message on one side, which could then be addressed and sent through the mail? People were appalled. Not only would one’s servants be able to read the message, but so would anyone in the postal service
But the seeds were planted for the postcard.
It wasn’t until nearly a century later Austrian Dr. Emanuel Herrmann published an article discussing the concept of the postcard and extolling the many ways it could be employed. The Austrian Post Office liked the idea so much, it issued the first postcard for general use in late 1869. The card was plain, with an impressed stamp and printed lines for the address on one side and a blank second side for a short message. The idea caught on quickly in the rest of Europe and North America.
At first, postal authorities followed the Austrian example and imposed strict rules for the form and style of postcards, and only they could produce and sell the cards. However, it soon became evident to progressive businessmen the postcard would be an ideal advertising tool.
It was inexpensive to produce and mail, and enough of a novelty to catch a prospective customer’s eye — the first form of direct-mail advertising. As everyone knows, a picture is worth a thousand words, so, in a short time, business owners started lobbying the post office to be allowed to have cards printed with their own company names, slogans or an illustration of their wares.
The penny postcard of the 1950s has evolved into a cost-effective mini-billboard that can serve your business, and boost your bottom line. In today’s competitive marketplace consumers are becoming more frugal and selective with their buying decisions, and advertisers are forced to create effective campaigns with fewer advertising dollars. This is where we can help you and your business capitalize on the power and simplicity of direct-mail postcards.
In Part 2 of this article we’ll look at our proven three-step formula for direct-mail postcards to show you how our marketing system produces the highest quality product, along with extremely accurate delivery systems that insure that your direct-mail postcard reaches your target market.
Front Door Advertising offers several examples of custom direct-mail postcards that can be viewed at fdadvertising.com. Call us today at 1-888-870-4242 for a FREE quote to see how Front Door Advertising can help your business create a winning campaign.