Designing Postcards that Make an Impact
March 27, 2008
The reality of postcard advertising is that you have about a second to get the potential customer’s attention. In that second, you need to hook the customer in a way that will get him or her to read your entire postcard and the information that you are trying to get across.
To do that, you need to make sure that the design of your postcard is interesting enough to convince the customer to pay attention to it in lieu of just discarding it as junk mail. The following are some suggestions which can help you design the type of postcard that will be read by your customers:
o “Show it Don’t Say It” The old screenwriting adage also applies to postcards as well. Though you do want to use text to get important information across, any time you can use an image in lieu of a block of text is to your advantage. People will most likely toss a card which is nothing but text, but an image will catch their attention and get your card read.
o Strong Imagery. The goal of the image is to get the viewer’s attention and to show in a simple fashion what the content of the entire card is. In choosing your images, choose images that stand out and will appeal to your customers. For example, if you’re announcing a automobile sale, use an image of a flashy and attractive car to get the potential car shopper to look at it. An image is an easy way to communicate a multitude of ideas in a way that only takes a moment to review.
o Use Color Intelligently, not Randomly. The use of color is also a good way to draw your potential customer to your card. A colorful card is much more likely to be reviewed by the customer than a bland black and white card. However, though bright colors can help draw the viewer, overly bright and garish colors can drive the viewer to reject the card. The key is to find a color scheme which makes your card noticeable without making it too over the top.
o Choose Your Words Wisely. Making effective use of the copy areas of your postcard is an invaluable tool in getting results from the card. With the limited amount of space on a card and the limited effectiveness of large blocks of copy, the ability to compress your information into as few words as possible is imperative. Use of simple, evocative words and phrases like “Free” or “25% Off” in large colorful text will get the reader’s attention and draw them to read the rest of the card.
o The Postcard’s A Teaser, Not The Whole Story. You need to remember that the postcard mailing is just to get attention, it isn’t what is going to close the sale. Once you get the potential customer to come to your store, call or log onto your site (depending on your card’s goal), then you can convey the bulk of the information about your product or service. Keep the information on the card limited to the essential information needed to get the viewer to respond.
o Call to Action. You’ve gotten their attention. They’ve read your copy and gotten the basic information. But all of that’s useless if you haven’t told them what you want them to do. You absolutely want to give them a direction as to what they can do to get more information or to use your service. That way you can actually reap the results of your mailer.
By keeping the goals of your postcard in mind and using the above hints, you can create a strong postcard that will get read by the customer and get you the results you want from your postcard mailings.
David Tillinger - Who's written 111 posts on the UPrinting.com Blog.
David Tillinger is a practicing attorney who, while working as corporate counsel for The U-Printing Network, began editing website content during slower moments. This lead to him completely revamping the web site and its content, as well as assuming responsibility for the company's blog. He now splits his time between legal work, copywriting and blog management.
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