Today, postcards are the cheapest form of direct mail. Most roofing businesses already understand the importance of postcard marketing as it is a great way of gaining the attention of customers. Postcards are easy to create and have a high rate of response.
Postcards can be used to increase sales leads, introduce new products and services to customers, engage with your existing customers, promote special offers or coupons, drive traffic to your website, and test several messages and offers.
The chances of roofing postcards being read are very high. This is because unlike mail-in envelopes that need to be opened in order to be read, they are opened already and are ready to be read. Plus the message will reach the recipient quickly and easily.
All these factors show why roofing businesses consider the use of postcards as it is an efficient marketing tool. However, it is crucial to avoid some mistakes that roofing business owners make while implementing the postcard marketing campaign. If you want a run a successful postcard marketing campaign, you need to avoid these ten common mistakes.
1. Not Targeting the Best Prospects
It is important to have the best mailing list of prospects in order to have a successful postcard marketing campaign. This will allow for a better response rate by customers. Having in-house lists is the best, especially if those listed are known to respond to offers that they have an interest in.
If you do not own an in-house list you can opt to create one or rent one, but be sure to visit a list broker for this. You can rent subscriber lists of specialized publications and newsletters read by prospects in your targeted market for a fee.
2. Lack of Repetition
Consistent, persistent, and repetitive mailings have been found to be more effective than single mailing. You need to be repetitive for your postcard marketing campaign to be successful. Studies show that the average person needs to see or hear something about four times for it to register in their minds.
When existing and potential customers see your company name appearing multiple times, it will be great to build your brand reputation. This will be good for business because customers will be more familiar with your brand.
3. Sending Postcards that don’t have a pleasing appearance
Postcards need to be professionally made, they need to stand out and generate a lot of responses. This includes bold colors and photos that of great quality to attract readers’ attention.
The postcards for your business need to be pleasant and they should also need to have an approachable and friendly message. This makes sure that readers are engaged and it gives them an emotional feel while reading. You should strive to have short personalized messages on your postcards since they generate more feedback.
4. Mailing Mishaps
It is important to pay great attention to the arrival dates of your postcards in order to have a successful postcard campaign. Mondays, Fridays and Holidays are days that have been found to be less effective. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, however, are days that you can get the best results due to the less volume of mail. It is necessary to confirm with your mailing service in order to know which days are best for mailing especially when mailing out of the state.
5. Spending a lot of money on printing
It is not necessarily crucial for a roofing business to spend too much on printing postcards. You can easily print an appealing postcard on a laser or inkjet printer which is very affordable including the cost of ink. For larger postcards, professional printers charge less per increase in the number of postcards.
The U.S Postal Service requires 23 cent 1st class postcards to be 3 and a half inches in height and 5 inches in width. They should not exceed 4 and a quarter inches in height and 6 inches in width.
6. Using postcards to close sales
Postcards should not be used as a sales pitch. Postcards have a limited space hence you can not provide all the information that is needed to close a sale. They should; however, be used to grab the attention of the reader and help drive more traffic to your website. They can also lead customers to use coupons or to come to a grand opening.
7. Not Enough Attention to Headlines, Image or Message
A headline that grabs the attention of the reader is brief and is captivating will eventually lead to better feedback as many customers will respond to the postcard as compared to one with a bad headline. A great headline should be combined with an appealing image in order to guide the reader to the message side of the postcard.
The image and the color of the postcard need to work in unison in order to achieve the goal of attracting readers’ attention.
The image needs to be eye-catching and brightly colored while the message should clearly explain what you are trying to promote in a few words in order for your efforts to be successful.
8. Not keeping the message simple
When it comes to the postcard message, you need to keep it as short as possible. In that short glance or in the few seconds that people give to your postcard, they need to obtain everything you are trying to explain. Therefore, you need to use brief complete sentences, the language needs to be understandable and display your message in bullet point form to grasp the attention of the reader.
If you are promoting a product or a service, it need not be more than one. You need to display only what is important and direct the reader on what to do next after reading your postcard. More information can be found on your website’s landing page, through a follow-up call or in an email.
You need to avoid the use of slang or hard vocabulary words. You should also avoid displaying the whole list of what you offer. Just keep it cool and simple for a successful postcard campaign.
9. Failure to Provide Your Contact Information
It seems natural to provide your contact information on your postcard so that your potential customers can be able to reach you but often this is overlooked. The contact information can include your telephone number, physical address, email address, or website address. Contact information serves as the call to action on your postcard. If the people who have read your postcard, like what you are offering, they would want to take a step further and contact you. It is important to have all the necessary communication channels for people to reach you and engage in your business. Ensure to add your roofing company name in the contact information section.
10. Failing to Proofread
Errors can really reflect badly on your business, they can tarnish your brand reputation. Errors such as punctuations, spelling mistakes, and typographical errors can ruin the message you are trying to display to your targeted market. It is important to proofread your work over and over again before sending it to be printed. A good technique of discovering errors is by reading the message aloud or having someone else review your work. This may help because they will catch errors that you may have overlooked.
Many businesses use postcards because they are a great marketing tool. They can be very effective for roofing businesses because of their cost-effectiveness whereby you can reach your targeted prospects by spending little to few dollars.
Postcards also can be made to be extremely personal whereby business owners can get really personalize the messages to get close to prospects and communicate with them in a friendly manner. They have a higher percentage of being read than direct mail letters. They do not need to be opened in order for them to be read. They also don’t suffer under spam filters as emails do. Postcards have a 94% chance of being read while direct mails have about a 14% chance of being read.
Postcards are really versatile because of the many options regarding size and layout. You can design a card to suit any purpose or business including announcements, special offers, events, and mini newsletters. They are also very easy to track. They make use of a special code on the card or a message requesting recipients to return the card. This makes tracking the efforts of your postcard campaign easier. Leads and sales can easily be identified to determine the return on investment of every mailing done.
Postcards also offer instant results. Due to the captivating headline, eye-catching image, and shortness of the message on postcards, they are easily read and your business can be contacted by potential customers in a very short time.
Summary
A well planned and executed postcard campaign can be very successful. By avoiding the postcard marketing mistakes mentioned above you will be able to have an increase in roofing leads and sales. You will surely enjoy the benefits of the powerful postcard marketing tool in your roofing business.