Why Do Postcards Work?

• Postcards give your offer or message instant visibility in the mailbox.
• You’re not fighting with 200 other mortgage ads in the newspaper or on the television.
• With a postcard you can single out your targeted recipient and address only them.

Postcards are probably the easiest and quickest way to start using direct mail to build your business. For an investment of about 40-50 cents (for an oversize postcard) you can attract qualified prospective prospect/clients and you can keep in contact with current prospect/clients to build a stronger bond.

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Attracting New Clients

Your mailing list is essential to your success. You cannot just pick a random resident list of nearby zip codes to your office. What you need to do is consider who your ideal prospect/client would be and then find a way to target your postcard’s message directly to them.

Look in your prospect/client file for where your prospects/clients come from. Then ask yourself, is this the type of client I want to deal with, is this the size of loans I want to do and what area do I want new clients to come from?

Then determine what income level, education, age, etc. your best prospect/clients have in common.

You can get lists of prospects with certain demographic and geographic characteristics that match your ideal prospect/client profile. Then you would send them a postcard offering them a free report, free video, free tape or some other way for them to identify themselves as interested prospects.

You can’t expect your postcard to do more than it is intended for. The purpose is to get people to raise their hands and say, “Yes, I’m interested.”

Don’t necessarily expect them to call and schedule an appointment from this postcard or even to come in for a free consultation. This is too much of a threat for most prospects.

That’s why you’ve got to walk them through your process with little baby-steps, like requesting a free report about a topic or loan-product of interest.

Postcard Fundamentals

Every time someone picks up your postcard they are asking themselves that same question. And your office name or your name is not the answer.

Your headline needs to quickly and powerfully telegraph to your prospects that you have either a big benefit they’re looking for or a solution to their biggest frustration or problem.

On average, people read 5 times as many headlines as they do the body copy (words). So unless you’ve attracted prospects into your postcard using a compelling headline, you simply cannot get people to respond to your offer.

But if you do manage to get people’s attention with your headline they will read the rest of the postcard, since it’s a quick and easy read.

Using Postcards to Keep in Contact With Current Prospect/Clients

To keep more prospects/clients thinking about you and the services you provide you should be making monthly contact with them. And postcards offer you the perfect way to create a solid bonding relationship.

A postcard gives a perfect opportunity to stay in front of your prospect/client on a consistent basis and for such little cost.

You can come up with lots of reasons to use postcards to contact your prospect/clients:

• New Loan Products
• Rate Changes
• Thank you
• Testimonials
• Upcoming seminars

Don’t Forget There Are 2 Sides To Every Postcard

A mistake many professionals make when having postcards designed is they forget to use both sides. A postcard really has two fronts. The first front is where you put your return address, postage and the mailing label.

Even though you must leave space for these elements it doesn’t mean you can’t put more reasons to respond to your offer on this side. This is a great place for a testimonial or two is on the side with the mailing label.

The second front is completely open and free for any message you want to place. The old mail order adage, “the more you tell you more you sell” applies here. Numerous tests prove that the more you write the more response you generate. So you should have a headline on each side.

Post Office Tips

To get a card out at the postcard rate, you need to stay inside the post office’s guidelines of 4.25 x 6 inches. But I like to send oversize postcards, they “stick out,” so you will have to pay for first class postage.

By using this information, you’ll have no reason not to add postcards as an inexpensive and highly effective tool to building your business.

Copyright Shawn Meldrum. All rights reserved. Shawn Meldrum has spent the last two decades marketing everything from almonds to landscape lighting. He currently specializes in marketing including complete systems for mortgage brokers, loan officers and real estate agents. For Shawn’s no-cost and low-cost techniques on lead generation, visit Mortgage-Marketing-Secrets.com.