Prospecting is a form of marketing that is aimed at consumers that you don’t yet have as customers. Yet. Anytime you send out a marketing message via postcard, brochure or television commercial, you are usually doing so in hopes of catching consumers’ attention so that they’ll respond to you in some way (usually either by making a purchase or inquiring about a product). All of this can be considered prospecting. So, to make it short, prospecting is a marketing technique that is used to reach potential customers, or prospects, so that you can hopefully turn them into actual customers.

This is where postcard marketing comes into the picture.

Postcards are great for prospecting because you can send them to a targeted mailing list comprised of your ideal audience – your ideal audience being people are most likely to buy your products or services.

Let’s go over what makes an effective postcard to net prospects.

Elements of a Successful Prospecting Postcard
A targeted mailing list: Without a good mailing list, you might as well send your postcard to no one. If you send your postcard out to a section of the phone book and hope for the best, you’ll waste your money. By creating a mailing list that is targeted to your ideal demographics, for example, married women in their 40s, you not only have a higher chance of getting a response from these women, but you can also tailor your message just for them. A targeted list makes it easier to speak straight to your demographic.

A strong offer: Give prospects a deal they can’t refuse. This offer needs to be good enough so that it motivates people to get out of their house (or onto the Internet, depending on your business) and into your store. Your offer needs to negate any risk associated with trying a new brand or a new product. A free item or a big discount works well. A guarantee also does the job of getting new people to try your products, as long as it’s risk-free.

A great design: People won’t read cluttered postcards or postcards that don’t have an appealing design. Make sure your colors and layout appeal to your demographic. Bold, bright neon colors won’t appeal to Baby Boomers, but will get teenagers’ attention.

A motivating headline: Your headline needs to communicate some kind of benefit for the reader. Why should they use your product? How will your product make their life easier? Don’t bury the benefits in the copy and make people wait to get to the good part. They won’t read that far without a motivating headline.

A call to action: Once you tell people why they should buy from you, you need to tell them what to do next. Should they call you or stop by your store? Tell them explicitly what you want them to do. “Call now for a free quote.” “Stop in today for 50% off.” People won’t read your postcard and then magically know what the next step is. Eliminate their guessing and tell them what to do. If you don’t, you chance a prospect doing nothing.

Once you combine all of these elements, you need to get your postcards printed on quality cardstock and mailed ASAP. To up the effectiveness of your postcards, you can also include a sense of urgency by imposing a deadline on your offer. Then you’ll have new customers at your door in no time!

Other direct mail pieces, like brochure printing, flyers and letters are effective, but they generally have to be unfolded first, or taken out of an envelope. But postcards are already “opened” and the message will more likely be read, even if it’s read on the way to the trash can.

It’s important to avoid the most common mistakes marketers and small business owners make when embarking on a postcard marketing campaign. Here are the mistakes to watch out for.

1. Not targeting your best prospects
How well do you think a cookie company would do sending postcards to a mailing list they bought from Weight Watcher’s magazine? Granted, it would probably garner a few replies, but most people that read Weight Watcher’s magazine would just throw the postcard away.

Using a mailing list that is targeted to your best prospects is one of the most important factors of a successful postcard marketing campaign. If you aren’t sending your postcards to the people you want to get business from, then what’s the point? You can get targeted lists according to your demographics or whatever characteristics you want to target from a list broker.

2. Mailing out one postcard, once
It is the consistent, repetitive mailings that are effective, not one-time mailings. When someone sees your name and logo over and over again, that builds familiarity and people remember you easier. It usually takes a high number of contact, at least 3 per month, before you generate any kind of action from your contacts. Luckily, the cheapness of sending postcards offsets these repeated mailings.

3. Not personalizing your postcard
By creating a personal postcard for each niche in your target market, you’re more likely to get a higher response. Postcards that hold a personal message generate more replies than those that are written like business proposals. Scan the business owner’s or president’s signature and add that to the bottom of the postcard to make it more personable.

4. Avoid using imprinted postage
Whenever you can, use stamps to mail out postcards. The machine-generated postage stamps make pieces of mail seem more business-like and not as friendly. People associate that stamp with junk mail. A first class stamp that is related to the season or holiday seems friendlier and produces more replies.

5. Sending out postcards to arrive on Monday, Friday, Saturday or a holiday
Pay attention to when you send out your postcards. Monday, weekends and holidays are the worst time for your postcard to arrive in people’s mailboxes. Mail on these days tends to get pushed aside and read later. Tuesday through Thursday are the best days to have your postcard received because those are the days when mail volume is lightest. You can check with your post office on estimations of when your postcard will arrive by going to their Web site: www.usps.com and using the Postage Price Calculator. This will tell you the price of your mailing depending on the date you want it to arrive.

6. Using a postcard to close your sales
You should use postcard marketing as a way to generate leads, not to close sales. Postcards don’t allow for enough space to do your product or service justice. But, postcards are great for grabbing a consumer’s attention and leading them to take a call to action – like calling you or visiting your Web site to place an order.

7. Not proofreading
A spelling or punctuation error will reflect poorly on you and your brand will suffer from a negative image – all from just a misplaced period or comma. Everyone proofreads their work – especially editors and writers, so you are not immune because you’re not a pro or because you aren’t a pro. It’s a good idea to have someone else proofread your work, because oftentimes you can’t see your own mistakes because you know the text so well.

A well-executed postcard campaign can work wonders for your business – you can increase traffic to your Web site and your store, and sales will increase. You can do all that for a small price – all in all a pretty good deal that you should at least try.