Contrary to their stock answer, the Postal Service does offer one incredible bargain, on postcards. If you obtain a first-class presort permit or use a mailing service, the postage can drop to less than 16 cents a card when recipients bunch up in just a few Zip codes. In effect, you can mail twice as often or reach twice as many sales prospects with a postcard as with a letter in an envelope. Gardner subscribes to a monthly service that supplies him with mailing labels for new homeowners in his service area. Once the postcards find him a new customer, Gardner can keep the business relationship alive with more postcards.
Postcards appeal to the media, too, standing out in a sea of faxes and business envelopes.
Similarly, Markus Allen, owner of Mailshop USA in Norristown, Pennsylvania, targets newspaper and magazine editors with postcards containing five or six bite-sized marketing or mailing tips. They look forward to my mail. Allen also sends postcards in a series of six, one every other day for two weeks, whenever someone new calls his office for information. Postcards do a great job of informing prospects who may know you for one service and product of something else you do. If you assume that postcards work only for relatively low-priced products and services, think again.