Every year the USPS processes around 2 billion presorted postcards. They have different creative postcard designs, return addresses, messages, and personal or business goals. Many people address a postcard to send their well-wishes to their loved ones. Besides, companies use their business postcard inspiration to engage B2B and B2C leads with direct mail campaigns.

Individual mailing is easy since you are free to choose any postcards with messages for your friend or family. When it comes to business, the stakes skyrocket. Business owners and marketers cannot realize their boldest postcard ideas without careful planning and estimations. They need to allocate the right marketing budget, calculate return on investment, and think how to track postcards with messages.

Inkit has assisted with hundreds of mail campaigns, so we know how to write and design a postcard to make it work. We’ve seen numerous cases when business postcard inspiration turned into effective campaigns for lead generation, customer retention, retargeting, and more. We’ve also seen the cases when business postcard inspiration wasn’t enough to succeed.

That’s why Inkit has singled out 7 rules on how to write a postcard that is truly memorable.

#1 Rule on How to Write a Postcard. Understand What You Want to Achieve

Before you start creating mockup postcards with messages, there is one question you need to answer: Why am I sending this? Postcard design, content, recipients, and every other detail will depend on this. For example, NatureBox uses postcards to boost its customer re-engagement campaign and increase sales. When the previously launched email campaigns didn’t yield the expected results, the company decided to go offline. Thanks to the creative postcard designs, they have managed to increase revenue per customer by up to 60% and lift orders per customer by 35%.

What is the issue that you’re trying to solve? Determine it and clarify how sending a postcard can help you meet the set KPIs. Direct mail may be used to reduce dunning accounts, cart abandonment, or bounce rate, power customer engagement, nurture leads, and more. It’s relevant at every stage of the lead generation and sales funnel if you do it right.

#2 Rule on How to Write a Postcard. Build a Portrait of Your Target Audience (B2B or B2C)

To steer your business postcard inspiration in the necessary direction, don’t forget to research your target audience. Some leads are more likely to turn into buying customers, whereas others may never convert. These two groups require different marketing approaches and deserve a different level of attention.

Also, B2B and B2C mail are considerably different. If you target business accounts, make sure to send a postcard that is more formal and highly customized. In B2B, the decision-making process takes longer and involves a group of people. This means that you need to clearly state the goal of mailing as well as the benefits of the possible cooperation. In B2C, direct mail is usually less personalized and formal. You could send postcards to provide some travel tips if you are a travel agency. Or include interesting facts about Easter while greeting customers with upcoming holidays.

#3 Rule on How to Write a Postcard. Discuss Your Business Postcard Inspiration with Graphic Designers

If you can allocate a part of your mail marketing budget on hiring professional graphic designers, do that. They will help to visualize your postcard ideas and create high-quality mail that grasps attention and encourages customers to convert. Graphic designers know how to turn business postcard inspiration into an effective mailing campaign. If you are on a tight budget, don’t give up on your mail marketing aspirations. Some direct mail marketing tools, including Inkit, support custom postcard builders. With handy direct mail design tips, you can create appealing mail pieces promoting your business.

Working on a postcard design, make sure to:

• Use your brand colors, symbols, logo, and other attributes.
• Leave the backside of the postcard blank if you want to write the recipient’s address, personalized message, etc.
• Add a place for the message in the top left corner and include an address and a stamp on the right-hand side.
• Note that writing the address on the postcard is not mandatory if you mail by zip code or enclose other mail with the postcard.

#4 Rule on How to Write a Postcard. Create Content for Postcards with Messages

Try to make postcards with messages as succinct as possible and remember that modern consumers are pampered with tons of offers and don’t necessarily plan to read them all. In case you expect recipients to take a specific action, send postcards with messages that clearly tell consumers what to do. According to recent research, an average call-to-action consists of 2.68 words. This means that you have about 3 words for your mail message, so use them wisely. The volume of other content on both the right and left side of your mail piece should also be limited.

#5 Rule on How to Write a Postcard. Plan the Ways to Test Your Creative Postcards Effectiveness

To check if your postcards with messages are as great as you think, you need to test and track them. Only reliable data on direct mail effectiveness can show you that the message, design, and target audience were all chosen right. It’s life-critical for B2B and B2C mail that is often produced in large volumes to reach hundreds of recipients. Here are several common approaches used for mail marketing tracking:

• Add a QR code that forwards recipients to your website, social media profile, Google Maps location, or another trackable resource.
• Use a PURL to customize landing pages for every mail recipient and track visits.
• Integrate mail marketing software with CRM to run trigger-based mail campaigns and automatically record their results.
• Compare the behavior of the test group that receives postcards against a control group.

#6 Rule on How to Write a Postcard. Choose the Most Suitable Mail Delivery Model

When it comes to sending postcards with messages, you have basically two options to choose from. You can either directly transfer the postcards to post offices or use a third-party mailing provider. If you pick the first option, you will need to produce postcards with messages, apply postage, and drop the mail in one of the USPS locations on your own.

The alternative option is mail marketing services like Inkit that fully automate mail production and shipment. Mail outsourcing is usually recommended for those who run regular direct mail campaigns and need professional backup.

#7 Rule on How to Write a Postcard. Consider Tapping into Advanced Mail Automation

As it was mentioned, to provide recipients with unique mailing experience, you need to learn their tastes and cater to them. Top-notch marketing automation software is the only way to deliver high-quality personalized mail synchronized with real-time customer activity. By integrating Inkit’s mail automation platform with a CRM, you can, for example, automatically detect a moment when the customer abandons a cart and remind them about the order several days later through the mail. Such mail automation software also allows you to record all mailings, track the delivery progress, and A/B test postcards. Most importantly, thanks to the integration with hundreds of third-party marketing tools, Inkit serves as a full-fledged API integration platform.

We hope our tips on how to write a postcard have been useful for you. Get Inkit’s demo now to enhance your mail marketing efforts with automation software.