Find out how to use postcards as part of your marketing strategy. Get tips and postcard template ideas for your next direct mail campaign.
You’re on top of your social media marketing – but still you feel something’s missing. A direct mail postcard campaign could be the perfect way to reach customers a little more creatively.
In this guide, we’ll explore the best ways to make postcards, and the benefits of communicating to your target audience by direct mail.
Read on for some tips on how Adobe Express tools can help you bring innovative postcard marketing campaigns to life in minutes.
Postcard marketing is a type of campaign strategy that uses postcards to advertise a brand, product or service. It involves a business sending print ads (or handing them out) to customers that often contain news or special offers. It’s a good way to get information directly to customers – especially when compared to online campaigns, which won’t necessarily reach everyone.
Marketing postcards can be personalised for each customer or created in batches – whatever suits your business best. However, as with any form of campaign, it’s best to ensure you’re sending these out to your target demographics.
For example, you could tailor them to:
As the use of social media marketing continues to expand, the market is becoming increasingly competitive and oversaturated. Marketing your brand with postcards provides a great opportunity to directly capture your target audience – and do something a bit different.
For example, they can:
Like any other marketing campaign, the way you use direct mail postcards will depend on your brand’s products, services and needs. Before you get started, it’s a good idea to ensure you fully understand your target audience and competitors – you don’t want to dive into something that might not be received well.
Here are a few ways you could effectively use direct mail marketing postcards in your business strategy.
Launching a new product is an exciting time – so you want your customers to know about it. Sending a creative and colourful marketing postcard is a great way to grab attention. You could also align it your wider marketing strategy, connecting this physical form of advertising with your online efforts too.
Don’t forget to add some relevant first-time offers or discounts too.
During festive or summer seasons, loud and proud marketing campaigns pop up all over the place. With this in mind, you’ll need to stand out from the crowd – and an innovative postcard campaign may be a great way to do just that.
Send personalised offers and discounts, gift-wrapped to people’s front doors. A Christmas postcard, for example, is a great way to reassure customers that you’re thinking of them during this busy period and will help build that all-important brand loyalty.
Even when it’s not a special event or festive period, your customers will still appreciate a thoughtful thank you. Brand loyalty needs to be built and maintained year-round, so sending personalised, well-timed offers during lull periods, close to payday, or even on people’s birthdays can help reinforce the rapport.
These marketing postcards can be as simple as saying a ‘big thank you’, ‘happy birthday’, or just acknowledging their custom.
Speaking of maintaining those business-to-consumer relationships, it’s important to keep in touch with customers who may have dropped off your conversion radar. If they’ve not considered your brand in a little while – or perhaps even forgotten about you – a refresh in the form of a useful discount code or offer could go down like a treat.
Go all-in with brand tone of voice, unique selling points and an engaging design, and you could end up with an influx of returning customers.
Creating a sense of healthy urgency is a great way to encourage engagement. This doesn’t have to be for a physical event, but you might want to send a few marketing postcards to remind people about upcoming or soon-to-finish sale periods and product launches.
Some smart, imperative language and well-timed offers could help draw people in and position your brand as one that is clear and direct in the communications.
Starting up a new marketing strategy means you’ll probably be brimming full of ideas. But direct mail postcards can be a little different to other online campaigns, so it’s a good idea to make sure you’re prepared.
Before you get started, here are a few tips:
Even if you’ve no design experience, Adobe Express can help you make effective and creative direct mail postcards in minutes. Explore the range of free templates and tools, and create the perfect postcard pack for your next campaign.
Got a burning idea ready to go? Start from a blank slate and create your marketing postcards from scratch. Use a range of free images, assets and editing tools and create something that stands out from your competitors.
If you want to skip the blank slate, you can also explore Adobe Express’ library of free postcard templates. Choose one that works best for your brand, then add, tweak and edit until you’re happy.
Ready to add those finishing touches? Add brand assets like logos and colour palettes to your postcards in just a few clicks. Make sure all your marketing materials are coherent to help drive engagement.
If you’re looking to create direct mail postcards in a flash, the Adobe Express AI template generator can help you do just that. Create your prompt, describe your campaign purpose, and watch as the innovative tool creates postcard templates in seconds. Then, simply add to and edit them until they’re ready to send. Save your templates to use again and again, and just tweak for different campaigns.
Yes, postcard marketing still works. In fact, with the rise of social media marketing, it could be considered more effective than when print ads were the only form of advertising. The online market is incredibly competitive and oversaturated, which means direct mail postcards are now well positioned to break through the noise and capture attention.
Yes, you can design and print your marketing postcards on Adobe Express. Simply choose a template, edit, and then order your cards to be printed and delivered straight to your door. It’s quick, accessible and can be easily customised to meet your marketing needs.
Yes, our free plan offers many core features including thousands of templates, photo editing and effects, animation, and 5 GB of storage. See our pricing page for details and to compare plans.
