Indirect Promotion with Postcards - Word of Postcard Marketing by BCurtis
Sometimes indirect marketing techniques are more effective than the direct
marketing advertisement. One of the most effective techniques is word of mouth
marketing. This is when customers you have served well talk about their positive
experiences to other potential customers. When this happens you are almost
assured to have a new customer on the way needing what you have to offer.
So the question is what can be done to add to this type of effective marketing ?
Here I will discuss some ideas and examples of how you can enhance indirect word
of mouth marketing efforts with some indirect promotion with postcards. I
call this Word of Postcard Marketing.
One method to enhance your indirect marketing is to give a gift to your customer
that he makes use of, but also promotes your business. Here are a couple of
ideas:
A realtor sells a new house. When someone moves into their new house one thing
they can make good use of are postcards they can send out to let people know
about their new address. So the realtor decides to order some photo
postcards to give to his customer. He uses his photo of their new house for the front of the postcard
and adds a greeting on the front
with the photo, like: "Our New Home!" Then on the back it says: "My new address is:"
then list the address. Then leave some space for a note to be written by his
customer to who ever he sends the postcards to. Under the note area, put:
This house sold by: Realtor Name
Realtor phone number
So the realtor buys 100 of these for each house they sell. Gives them as a gift to their
satisfied customer to use to notify folks about their new address. The realtor
has just used a subtle method of having his customer send his name and phone out
to other possible prospects.
This method works well for the realtor selling the house, but other business can
also make use of this. For example: A customer just made a major
purchase of a new automobile. Before he drives away with his new car, the sales
manager takes a photo of the customer with his new car. A couple weeks
after he bought the car he receives a pleasant surprise in his mailbox. It is
100 postcards of him with his brand new car. He uses these to send notes out to
others about his new car purchase and how he loves it. The car dealer benefits
because the cards include information about the business and a testimonial from
a customer satisfied with his purchase. This concept could be used for any
business where customers are making a major purchase. For example: boats. RV's,
trailers, Motorcycles, landscaping, swimming pool, etc... The business benefits
by having the customer indirectly refer other potential buyers to their
services.
Here is another indirect word of postcard marketing technique. Many Motels used to carry postcard
stationary in their rooms for people to mail notes about their trip. These
postcards were usually pictures of the motel and they included other information
about the motel on the backside. Again, the customer sends the postcard off to
other potential customers and the Motel receives some indirect advertising
without paying the postage. Take any business where the customers might have to
sit and wait awhile, like Hair Salon, or Dentist, Doctor's Office, Bank, a car
repair center and others. These business could place some postcards out in their
waiting area for customers to write notes to other folks. The postcard should
include some information on the back about the business that is offering the
card. The customer's wait seems to be shorter because they are busy writing a
note to someone while waiting. Again, when the card is mailed the business
benefits from having their information sent to another potential customer.
Word of Mouth marketing is great. Word of postcard marketing expands indirect
marketing to the next level. A written testimonial by a customer to their
friends can be a profitable referral.
Copyright © 2006 Galleria Ventures - All Rights Reserved
Author: Brad Curtis works for
www.GalleriaVentures.com
where postcard layout and printing services have
been offered for over 5 years. For more information
on postcards check out:
http://www.galleriaventures.com/postcardwebbiz/
--------------------------
Photo Postcards | Photo Business Cards | Business Promotion Postcards | Make 35mm Slides |