An Effective Yet Affordable Direct Mail Campaign

To most established businesses spending $1,000 - $5,000 on a direct mail is no huge deal, but to a small service business, especially one in it's startup stage that same investment can be quite an undertaking. Such a catch 22 - no advertising = no customers, no customers = no revenues and no revenues = no advertising budget. We have all been there. The good news is there are ways to really stretch your dollars here. Below is a step by step guide to a real world, very affordable direct mail / post card campaign for your business.

1. Getting Your Postcards Designed and Printed
You may know of someone locally who can and will design your postcards for you and if so - that's great! If you know of someone with strong design skills offer to trade them some power washing services. If you don't know anyone in the design field don't worry - VisaPrint will design your post cards for you - in most cases totally free of charge!

Most printing services insist you do minimum print runs of 3,000 - 5,000. Postage included, that's a $1,000 + mailing campaign and that's not our mission here. VistaPrint offers post card print runs with minimums of 100 for as little as $24.95. I suggest starting with a run of 500 - 1,000.

Click here for VisaPrint's web site >

2. Your Mailing Labels
Next you need to decide who you want to mail your postcards to and get their address info. I like InfoUSA.com for this. They have excellent search criteria, allow you to do small runs and can provide your data in several different formats, including already printed mailing labels.

Click here for InfoUSA's web site >

3. Your Postage
These days I order all of my stamps from USPS.com. With smaller runs like this you really don't qualify for anything cheaper than standard $.23 postcard stamps. If money is short then I suggest taking your postcards and stamps and start labeling a few each night.

Click here to order postcard stamps from USPS >

Dedicate an hour or two an evening to sticking a mailing label and a stamp on each postcard hoping to do 200 - 400 a night. Toss them in the mailbox and hope the phone rings.