I'm working on sending out my first marketing campaign to local businesses and was wondering what usually gets the most responses....letters or postcards?

I appreciate any advice!

Tammy

I believe that a personalized letter with your actual signature and hand addressed (not labels) gets the best response, if it's worded right. Make sure to include some type of action item in your letter, give people a reason to respond and then you can track the effectiveness of it. If you do offer something, make sure there is a set amount of time for it. People perceive offers with expiration dates on them as more valuable than something open-ended.

That being said, sometimes postcards can be very effective too, if you use a really stunning image on one side. I did a mailing to brides one time with a full color glossy picture of a bride holding a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. I was told by a number of the brides who responded that they loved the picture and actually kept the postcard because it was so pretty. If you can find the right image that would make people want to keep your card, your name will be in front of them indefinitely. The bonus with postcards is that they are less expensive to mail (as long as you use the small postcards, not the bigger ones). Postcard stamps are cheaper than first class mail stamps, but I'm not sure if they will get returned to you if there's a bad address? You can check on the post office website, or maybe someone else here knows. When you do a big mailing it's really important to get bad addresses back so you can remove them from your database and won't waste money sending to them again.

Best of luck to you!

Yvone

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Yvone M. Kon
M.Y. Marketing & Design
Your Virtual Marketing Assistant - At Your Service!
www.mymarketingdesign.com

I agree with Yvone. Personalized letters, addressed to the actual recipient, addressing specific ways you can add value to their business, is a good way to go. It takes longer, and is more expensive but the ROI is greater if you do your homework first. Enclosing a brochure and business card is helpful.

Postcards are less expensive but they don't allow for much personalization. These days it is more important than ever to get someone's attention amongst the crowd. I suppose it depends on what your goal is.

Just my 2 cents.

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Shari Sultana
Online Business Manager (marketing for retail ecommerce)

Originally Posted by shari VA

I agree with Yvone. Personalized letters, addressed to the actual recipient, addressing specific ways you can add value to their business, is a good way to go. It takes longer, and is more expensive but the ROI is greater if you do your homework first. Enclosing a brochure and business card is helpful. Postcards are less expensive but they don't allow for much personalization. These days it is more important than ever to get someone's attention amongst the crowd. I suppose it depends on what your goal is. Just my 2 cents.

I was told once that hand addressed envelopes will actually get more response than postcards because, as people go through their mail, postcards are usually the first to be discarded while most people will open up something in an envelope.

I'm not hand addressing my envelopes, I'm using Mail Merge in MS Word and they get printed just like the letters I send. I AM however, personally signing each letter with a gel ink pen.

Viki

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