Professional Postcard Design Services – Well Worth the Investment

By: Mike Ryan
President- Cactus Mailing Company

There are a lot of articles on the internet that say the mailing list is the single most important factor in successful postcard marketing. This simply is not a true statement. Yes - it is true that mailing to the right people (people who need/want your product and can afford it) is important, but without a well designed postcard you can mail to the right list all day long and they won’t respond.

So what do I mean by a "well designed postcard’? - I mean a postcard design that meets two requirements. These requirements are a postcard design that looks good and that is effective in getting results.

First, let’s talk about designing a postcard that looks good. It is important to design a postcard that is colorful and grabs the recipient’s attention. It’s no secret that direct mail and particularly postcard marketing are very cost effective ways to market- that means that when your postcard ends up in someone’s mail box- it’s probably not going to be there by itself. By using colorful images and graphics when designing your postcard, you will grab the recipient’s attention and ensure your postcard get’s read.

The next step after getting the recipient to read your postcard is to get them to respond. And that’s where having an effective postcard design comes in. An effective postcard design includes elements such as a special offer that creates a sense of urgency, builds the company’s credibility, and has a call to action. Effective postcard designs also use good typography (choosing the right fonts to make it easy to read), use headlines and bullet points effectively, and create good flow and continuity from front to back.

It is easy to design a postcard that looks good but to design a postcard that looks good AND is effective in getting the recipient takes experience. Hence the title of the article - "Professional Postcard Design Services - Well Worth the Investment".

I have seen a lot of small business owners and for that matter larger companies, that have someone who "does graphic design on the side", try to save money on their postcard marketing by creating their own postcard design. And while some of these "do-it-yourself designs" turn out great- there are far more that fail miserably. In addition to not producing a good response - in some cases they harm the company’s credibility by portraying an unprofessional image of the company.

If my statements above have offended any of these "do-it-yourself designers" - I apologize that is not my intention at all. Trust me, it is not in my best interest to be offending our existing or potential clients! But before you stop reading this article and go to one of my competitor’s websites- I want you to ask yourself two questions:

• If your postcard marketing campaign received even just a handful more responses that turned into sales - wouldn’t these extra sales cover the cost of a custom designed postcard? (about $200)
• Are there other aspects of your business that you could be working on instead of spending time doing graphic design work?

If you answered yes to the questions above - you should give serious consideration to have your postcard professionally designed. In most cases, a well designed postcard will result in response rates that pay for the cost of the design many times over. Not only does the increased response rate pay for the design, but you will also have more time to focus on other aspects of your business.

In closing- I just want to say that whenever I write an article for our website, I make an effort not to promote our company and the services we offer. I always try to write articles that will provide useful information no matter what company you are giving your printing and mailing business to. However, I am going to make an exception with this one. Our postcard designers are the best in the industry at creating postcard designs that look great and get results. And considering we charge between $190 and $250 for a complete custom postcard design - our pricing is extremely competitive. If you want to see some samples of our work - visit our postcard design gallery.