Postcard mailing is one of the most cost effective marketing tools especially for small businesses. You can control how many you send out and where you want your postcards send to.

However, many small business owners report of postcard mailing or direct mail failures due to the limited number of response generated. Many usually feel that this marketing strategy is a waste of time and money - which could have been used elsewhere. This kind of thought may have crossed your mind once or twice - but have you ever stopped to think what went wrong?

Practical Mailing Ideas for a Better Response

There may be a lot of factors to consider when launching a successful campaign. Still, you can do it easily. Here are practical tips and ideas to help you measure up and equip you better against the competition.

1. Consider the look. If your postcards scream "junk mail", what do you think will happen to it? And when your postcard ends up in the trash, there is no way that your message will come across. Now that's a waste of your money.

2. Know your target market. Know who readily needs the information you are sending out, who are most interested in purchasing such products, and who require the services you provide.

3. Make a persuasive copy
You should always think of how you can help your clients first. How does your product make them better or feel better. A good example would a simple advertisement for make-up. So what if you offer a hundred colors for your make-up line - that's just contingency.

What matters is how you communicate your make-up as part of their personal enhancement. So you go on to invest in ideas such as attracting the members of the opposite sex, appealing to confidence, glamour and maybe even youth.

4. It's all about ME
During this phase, you should also consider that your audience is not interested in who you are, but in themselves.

What they care about is their own person - "Me." And so, it is best to pattern your message or copy towards that direction. Motivate them and persuade them. Make your headline all about your clients - their needs, wants, and desires.

5. Simplicity
Also, don't make any mistake by using technical terms if your target market is not a specialized market. You should always consider keeping it short and simple.

Grab your audience's attention with the headline and retain it with the succeeding paragraphs. You have only seconds to grab your reader's attention with your opening headline or it will be tossed in the trash can.

6. Aim for any kind of emotional response.
The stronger the emotional response the better. It will most likely keep your audience reading the rest of your postcard. You should also attract more interest with your first few paragraphs. Try not to bore them with too many technical terms and keep the copy simple enough to follow.

7. Z - Pattern
Also keep in mind that most often, readers don't read but just scan over the things in their mails. Design your postcards in a way that the text would flow at a Z motion. From top left to the bottom right. This enhances the readability of your postcard.

Following these few tips will do wonders for the response rate on your postcard mailing, All you need is the proper research about your target audience, a little tweaking of the design and a lot of patience. Just keep trying and re-evaluating your postcards and eventually you will get the results that you want.