Postcard Marketing

1. Postcard Marketing Executive Marketing Keith Ellwanger Post Office Box 25076 Greenville, SC 29616 Office: (864) 254-9432 Fax: (877) 785-7482

2. Marketing without Envelopes Want to capture more customers, patients and cash-paying clients? Use postcards. Whether you are a mail-order marketer, dentist, contractor, lawn care professional, real estate broker, professional speaker, insurance agent – no matter what kind of business you are in – you can use effective postcard marketing techniques to attract a constant flow of customers. Are you finding yourself working harder for smaller market gains? Are you paying more for incremental gain in this market share? Is it getting difficult to distinguish your strategy from that of your closest competitors? Have you spent the last year trying to squeeze the last ounce of profit out of a dying business model? If the answer is “YES” to any of these questions, then chances areyour current marketing strategy is on life-support. If this is the case, you’re not alone. The most challenging problem in marketing these days is getting your prospects to pay attention to what you have to say. Lead generation in the “new digital economy” is a lot like being a CIA interrogator – you engage in one-sided communications and find that most prospects don’t trust you enough to respond to your message. The ugly truth about marketing today is simply that people are no longer paying attention to marketing messages. It’s not your fault. We are in the midst of the greatest consumer “attention crisis” in U.S. economic history. It is physically impossible to pay attention to the 3,500 or more marketing messages we’re exposed to every single day. Go ahead and look around. You live in an over-marketed, over-communicated society that is in the midst of a real recession since September 11, 2001. No wonder consumer “attention” has become the scarcest resource in the digital economy. But there is hope – there is still one affordable way left to out-sell, out-think, out-position and out-earn your competitors today – postcards! Our hope is, reading this report, you will take a giant leap forward in the way you think about marketing with postcards. We know from past history that using the Postcard Marketing seasons series campaign changes attitudes about current marketing strategies and the ability to keep more net profit out of every marketing campaign.

3. It doesn’t matter who you are, how old you are or what you do for a living. It doesn’t matter if you’re knee-deep in debt and don’t see a way out or if you’re a dot-com start-up about to get funded by a venture capital firm. If you want a constant flow of hot prospects who are ready-to-buy, then you need a consistent reliable marketing tool that breaks through the noise and clutter and captures mind share. Postcards do just that! Done right, there is no other marketing tactic that can compare with postcards. In fact, postcards are the most effective, affordable, economical direct-mail sales tool available, and they offer advantages that more expensive direct-mail pieces do not. This little “billboard” offers instant attention and is sure to be seen by the intended recipient since it has no envelope to open. It is literally “Naked Mail.” • WHY USE POSTACRDS TO BUILD YOUR BUSINESS? • They can be directed to specific potential customers. • They are not in competition with other advertising mediums. • They permit production flexibility according to your schedule. • They are the most effective advertising for tracking responses. • They are the least expensive method of direct mail. • They are effective, consistent and inexpensive. Postcards have the surprising ability to out-pull traditional mail letters because they arrive “naked.” Since they’re not clothed in envelopes, they automatically attract more eyeballs! Here’s why… A lot of direct mail sales messages go unread and are thrown away because they’re concealed in envelopes. Direct marketers spend half their time trying to figure out how to get recipients to open the envelope. They wonder if they should use “teaser” copy, a return address, first-class stamps or any other influences that get people to open mail. Postcard marketers don’t put themselves through this kind of torture because postcards don’t come in envelopes. In fact, a recipient will often read the entire sales message on a postcard before deciding whether to keep it or toss it. Marketing giants like American Express, AT&T and GNC have discovered this secret. They’re beginning to put their new offers on postcards instead of using more traditional direct mail. They now know that postcards attract more eyeballs. More eyeballs means more prospects. And, more prospects mean more customers! Postcards spread the news about a company by providing an inexpensive format for sending messages to specific individuals. The postcard is a highly-effective business tool that generates prospective leads at a very low cost. Even the smallest business can afford a highly-effective, consistent postcard campaign.

4. Postcards are more effective than ever before because of a prospect’s need to get information quickly and easily. They have the ability to communicate your message with laser-focused speed. Postcards give “just the meat” of what needs to be said. How important is this speed to marketing – it’s everything. The Gallop Poll, Rpoer Poll, Harris Poll and the Universities of Pennsylvania and Maryland conduct annual surveys to see what American cherish the most. In 1988, time rose to the number one position and has stayed there every since. Because Americans revere time above all else, anything that can be done to conserve their time will be noticed. This is especially true when you are marketing to them. Prospects are bombarded every day with hundreds of messages, offers and “sound bites” all begging to be heard, but attention spans are shorter than ever. Because of this, postcards are the “hit-and-run” technique of advertising that is directly aimed at generating calls or walk-ins. No lengthy sales pitch, no response vehicle, nothing to open. The entire message is delivered in the few seconds of viewing. Everyone has time to read a postcard. Successful marketing is measured by the number of qualified buyers reached at the lowest possible cost. Although a shot-gun approach could be used by running a series of ads in a local publication that, hopefully, will be noticed by a few qualified prospects; specific prospects can be targeted by sending a series of postcards, each featuring a different benefit, and mailed frequently throughout the year. In today’s over-communicated environment, a marketer must champion frequency over reach. The concept is simple. Instead of sending a postcard to 1,000 prospects once, target the best 250 prospects and send them at least four postcards over the next year. Think about it. Your best friend was once a stranger. How did you turn that stranger into your best friend? Frequent contact. It is no different than what you should do to transform your prospects into lifelong customers.The “Rule of Seven” states, “It takes an average of seven exposures of a marketing message to get a response from a prospect,” but in today’s economy, that number is more like 12-18. In fact, there is no magic number. Once you start prospecting, you must not stop unless a prospect dies or tells you to stop. It might only take one postcard for a prospect to respond to you, but keep in mind, it only takes one message from a competitor to lose them. The fact is 100% of all your competition is willing to make that effort. If it takes six or seven postcards to convince a prospect to try your product or service, in all likelihood, you have converted a more committed customer. Generally, only 10% to 15% of your competitors are willing to put that same kind of effort into a customer. Those prospects who finally respond after 12-18 postcards will turn out to be long-term customers that very few, if any, of your competitors are willing to invest into converting. The objective of postcards is to enhance the selling process. The selling process includes prospecting, sales promotions, customer follow-up, goodwill and public relations.

5. Customers can’t see a need for your product or service until they know it exists. Prospecting attracts the attention of a target market. The goal of prospecting with postcards is to expose prospective customers to your company in order to convince them to try your product or service. Sales are the motivated action a prospect takes, but since 98% of all sales are not made on the first contact, a sales promotion marketing campaign simplifies your sales efforts by targeting customers with a personalized appeal that can help lower sales resistance. Customer follow-up “keeps you in touch” with your customers, building long-term customer loyalty and stimulating word-of-mouth referrals. Keeping in touch with customers makes good business sense because it costs over eight times as much to get a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. Treat your customers like gold because they are money in the bank! Postcards can also be used for goodwill and public relations by thanking your customers for their support in the past and asking them for their continued support by recommending your services to others. Using Postcard Marketing seasons series campaign, your company can be placed in a superior position to encourage these purchase decisions from prospective customers. Postcard Marketing seasons series campaign also shows your customers that your business can be relied on to give them the best product or service because you have demonstrated that you care enough to consistently contact them. So, plan to incorporate postcard prospecting, sales promotion, customer follow-up, good will and public relations strategies into your marketing. Using the Postcard Marketing seasons campaign makes this simple and inexpensive. Gary Hammel, the world’s reigning marketing strategy guru warns, “Somewhere out there is a bullet with your company’s name on it. Somewhere out there is a competitor, unborn and unknown, that will make your best strategy obsolete. You can’t dodge that bullet. You’re going to have to shoot first. You need to out-innovate the innovators.” Any business willing to invest in a long-term postcard campaign will have the established, battle-tested means to do that. A successful postcard campaign is consistent and repetitious. Frequent and consistent follow-up is the single most important factor in obtaining both referral and repeat business. Using the Postcard Marketing seasons series campaign is the least expensive way of putting a printed piece in the hands of specific, targeted prospect on a definite timetable. Before you know it, your biggest competitors will start scratching their heads in amazement. They’ll wonder how you can usher in so many new customers with ease while they keep struggling to gain new market share.

6. What is the Postcard Marketing seasons series campaign? • The Postcard Marketing seasons series campaign provides an inexpensive and painless way of positioning your company in the minds of prospects and customers. The concept of positioning has been around for over 30 years. It is the process of placing your company’s image or identity foremost in the minds of customers. Extensive studies have been conducted which validate the concept of positioning. • Why is positioning important? Studies have shown that people have a hard time naming more than 10 of anything (eg: 10 breeds of dogs). The first four or five are easy, but then it gets harder to name the rest. That is because the human mind prioritizes based on frequency. If you position your company as one of the first three companies a consumer thinks about when they are looking for your services, you are almost assured of marketing success. • How do you become top most in the mind of the consumer? Through repetition. Repetition is how the mind learns and stores information for retrieval. The beauty of Postcard Marketing is that it is so affordable, even with frequent contacts. It enhances and reinforces your message until the consumer thinks of your company as the one with the solution to their problem. • Positioning a business by using Postcard Marketing “turn-key” seasons series campaign provides you some distinct competitive advantages: • Helps you professionally and consistently maintain prospect and customer contact • Helps increase customer traffic • Stimulates repeat business • Stimulates referrals • Keeps you on the mind of your prospects or customers • We know that staying foremost on the mind of the consumer takes a lot of time and effort, but your time is valuable. Therefore, the biggest advantage we offer with this system is very little management time on your part. We do the work for you. We will: • Maintain your database • Keep current with postal regulations • Make sure your mailings are accurate and mailed on time • YOUR “TURN-KEY” PRICE INCLUDES: • A four-color UV coated, 5 ½ x 8 ½ attention getting postcard • Layout of your custom message • Postage • Addressing • Sorting • Bagging • Delivery to the U.S. Post Office

7. The Postcard Marketing seasons series campaign is a great way to start marketing your business with postcards. For 2002, the systems contains four oversized postcards connected to the change in seasons. We have tied the mailing to the seasons to impress on the mind of a recipient that your business is a business for all seasons. Each postcard has a preprinted, four-color billboard side. Your custom message is imprinted on the face side of the postcard. Your message can share special offers or sales for specific holidays or special occasions during the season. • Get your message out in a cost effective, timely manner by letting us do all the work for you! Your time is left for selling…not spent on the mechanics of marketing! • Postcard Marketing can provide a “turn-key” postcard system mailed according to your schedule that contains custom designed and printed postcards. We can design you one or a series of postcards, or design it yourself and send us a digital file. If you run several different custom style postcards at the same time, they can be ganged together. By producing all the postcards at the same time, there will be a substantial savings on printing costs that are passed on to you. Ordering custom postcards is easy! Simply fill in the Custom Postcard Order Form by: • Checking the size of your postcard • Filling in the quantity needed • Indicating the number of times you plan to mail during the next year • Supplying a description of each postcard • Explaining any graphic to be used for each • Making a rough layout of each style of postcard • Inserting the corresponding price PRICES INCLUDE Layout, Printing – four-color plus UV on billboard side, black ink on face (10 point stock), Mailshop and Postage (We can provide the mailing list for an additional charge.)