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Informative Articles

10 Elements Every Direct Mail Piece Should Have
Don’t want your direct mail to end up in the trash with the rest of the unread mail? Studies show an effective direct mail campaign should draw a .5 to 1 percent response. These 10 tips will help you get the results you want: 1. A clear, bold...

Avoid Direct Mail Suicide with Postcard Magnet Mailers
Keep your direct mail from going directly to the trash can by sending a postcard magnet mailer. Stand out from the competition, get long term quality exposure and increase sales with one powerful, affordable product. On their 10 year...

Direct Mail Insights - Getting the Envelope Opened
If the truth were told, literally millions of dollars a years is being thrown down the drain on direct mail campaigns that fall flat on their face, all because the envelope containing the offer never gets opened. Think of it - you can work with...

Direct Mail --- The Followup Letter
Everyone know the importance of the sales letter. But many people fail to use one of the most critical elements of direct mail --- the followup letter. Everyone knows to send out the sales letter. Most everyone knows to put in a reply card for...

Google Adwords vs. Direct Mail
We recently ran a test to see whether Google Adwords could outpower traditional direct mail advertising. Here is how we did it. We created a new Adwords campaign choosing a few of our favorite targeted keywords, mainly keywords such as “small...

How To Write Direct Mail That Really, Really Works!
So, you have something you want to sell. It may be a product, a service, or a cause. It could be a membership, a subscription, or a motor car. It might be paper, health products or the idea that the humane society or the Alzheimer’s association...

Manufacturers Shift Marketing Budget Away from Direct Mail in since 2009
Marketing Budget Shifts Away from Direct Mail in since 2009 for Manufacturers In early Q3, TR Cutler, Inc. conducted the largest North American manufacturer survey about anticipated marketing budgets in since 2009. Statistically significant...

Postcard Direct Mail Marketing: 15 Ways To Grab Attention
If you use direct mail postcards to generate leads or sell a product or service, you need to create postcards that grab your prospect’s attention. The place to do that is Side A, the side that doesn’t have the stamp and address on it. Here are some...

Smart Alternatives to Direct Mail
From LAND OF ODDS We at Land of Odds get many questions about what glue to use with rhinestones and other beading and jewelry-making projects. We're craftspersons and silversmiths, and we have a shop where we sell rhinestones, beads,...

Test Your B2B Direct Mail Offers To Boost Response Rates.
The secret to success in business-to-business direct mail lead generation is testing. I have hunches. You have hunches. But testing settles the debate. When you test your package against my package and we measure the results, we know for certain...

 
 
 
Design Direct Mail Postcards Back-to-Front to Boost Response Rates

Conventional wisdom says that the front of a direct mail postcard is for the picture and the back is for the address, stamp and a short message.

But some savvy direct marketers design their postcards the other way around—and boost response rates as a result.

The goal of the front of the postcard is to grab attention long enough to arouse curiosity and motivate your prospect to turn the card over and continue reading. But postcards are usually delivered with the back of the postcard showing, not the front. Check today’s mail. You’ll notice that the letter carrier delivered your mail with the address facing up (unless it fell through your mail slot in a random pile).

The letter carrier reads the name and address for each piece of mail and, without turning them over, places them in your mail box. That means that the first thing your prospect sees of your postcard is the back, not the front. And you can take advantage of this fact.

A graphic designer and marketing consultant from Denver, Colorado, wrote to me recently, explaining that her

 


firm studied the way mail arrives. “Through my observations and research,” she says, “I have found that many, many more times than not, side B [the back of the postcard] is what the prospect sees first and then decides whether or not to turn the postcard over.”

This savvy marketer now designs postcards for her clients with the back being the main focus and attention grabber, leaving the front of the card for secondary messages. She is achieving “very good results,” she says, by flouting conventional wisdom.

I see only one thing wrong with her brilliant method, and that is that I did not think of it first.


About the Author

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alan Sharpe is a business-to-business direct mail copywriter. Sign up for free weekly tips like this at www.sharpecopy.com.


© 2005 Sharpe Copy Inc. You may reprint this article online and in print provided the links remain live and the content remains unaltered (including the "About the author" message).