Create an Impressive Introduction

Once you know who you’re wanting to reach, a daunting part of any new Direct Mail campaign, especially if you’ve never drawn one up before, can simply be getting the ball rolling…getting off the ground…pressing play. Whatever the term you use, it can be difficult to know just where to start creating what you’ll put ON your postcard to attract new leads or sales. The first thing you want is exposure. The last thing you want is to make yourself or your company look silly.

What’s amazing about Direct Mail is that you don’t have to do everything at once. In fact, because you’re often limited by the boundaries of a postcard, itself, you have the ability to be selective about every little detail; and because I preach about testing, the options are unlimited in terms of how you can best present your company to your target audience. In fact, this list of the 7 Ways to Introduce Your Product will help you get the ball rolling:

  • Target Pain Points – This is a great time to introduce both spoken and unspoken irritations your prospect has. “Yet another season trying constantly to keep your pool pH-balanced AND clean AND enjoy it with your friends and family AND keep the costs from skyrocketing?”
  • Give the reader the opportunity to agree with you – I don’t have to tell you how maddening it is when your printer rejects that off-brand, lower-priced ink.
  • Create a pain point the reader didn’t even know they had – Theft of online purchases (stolen right off of your porch, and often NOT investigated by police!) are up a whopping 39% when a lockable drop box isn’t used!
  • Start with a huge stat or an amazing fact (about your product or industry) – 93% of my vitamin supplement business comes from wonderful and loyal clients who come back month after month – and 78% of them started as VitaMagic referrals!
  • Lead with a short quiz (not always my favorite because I want to make the reader seem SMARTER for having read my postcard, not the other way around. Just make sure the answer is extremely obvious, and that you walk them right into it!) – Which of these would you consider most important? A) Your lawn has the correct nutrients? B) You follow a strict watering and fertilizing schedule? C) You reseed in the winter and thatch in the spring? D) You leave all of that up to The Landscaping Pros and just enjoy the benefits of a healthy, luscious, jealousy-inspiring yard? [I think you know the answer to that one… 😉]
  • Ask something thought-provoking (and give them an answer) – Did you ever stop to think about how water takes the path of least resistance? An overflowing 2nd floor toilet can slip between the unprotected bathroom flooring, ruin your popcorn ceiling, and cascade down your kitchen walls.
  • Announce something brand-new – Have you always wanted the ability to lift your garage door without lugging around an opener or relying on a secret code? Well now there’s an APP for that! Introducing “Lift-Away” for iPhone and Android, compatible with every major garage door opener manufacturer!

If knowing your target market is the first step, doing whatever you can (sensibly and tastefully) to entice the reader to keep soaking up your postcard is the second first step in crafting an outstanding postcard campaign. The reader is having a conversation with themselves as they read, picturing their problem and feeling like your product or solution is going to make everything better. You want head nods, not head shakes. You want buy-in, not bypassing.

Again, this shouldn’t be scary or frightening or give you nightmares. With some research and patience, creating the best approach will get your campaign off to a great start. Give Opportunity Knocks a call. We’ve got Success Coaches ready and waiting to help you come up with the strongest, most curiosity-building, and easiest-to-implement, first impression postcard campaign you can imagine!