Postcards are powerful summer marketing tools that make it easy to reach your target audience and promote your products, services and events. The following lists ten hot ways you can use postcards for sizzling summer sales.
1. Seasonal summer deals
Consider how your business can satisfy seasonal wants and needs, then offer a special discount. For example, summer is the perfect time for HVAC companies to promote air conditioning repair. Lawnmowers, landscapers and roofers are other businesses that benefit from summer marketing; but you don’t need to be a warm weather business to cash in: Any business can launch a summer sale and print postcards to promote it to a targeted audience.
Postcard for Maker Faire Bay Area designed by Kim Dow
2. Summer tips and tricks
Send direct-mail postcards packed with summertime tips and tricks that are both useful to your audience and relevant to your business. For example, an HVAC company could send tips for reducing summer energy bills. A pet shop could mail tips for keeping furry friends safe from the heat. A department store could mail postcards that offer advice for keeping kids safe from sunburns. A grocery store could print Every Door Direct Mail postcards with a list of delicious summer barbeque recipes.
3. Promote personal image and improvement
Summer is the season for swimsuits and shorts, so it makes sense to promote products and services that enhance personal image and improvement. Boutique clothing shops can send postcards that feature the hottest summer fashions. Fitness centers can promote weight loss programs. Salons can market summer makeovers and more.
4. Solve summertime blues
Problem-solving is critical to business success in every season. Identify ways you can solve your customers’ summer-related problems. For example, an HVAC company could print postcards that promote its allergen-free air conditioner filters. A convenience store can use postcards to market sunburn gel.
Postcard for Movie Night for the City of Rockville, designed by Sylvia England
5. Summer events calendars
Print postcards that list all the summer events going on in your area. Add in a promotion for your products and services and include a coupon code to track response. If your postcards are useful, customers will tack them to their refrigerators so they can be referenced all summer long.
6. Partner with others for summer promo packages
Partner with non-competing businesses that share your audience to launch a special summer sales package. For example, a restaurant could partner with a movie theater to offer a “hot date” night. A waterpark could partner with a zoo to offer a family fun weekend. Split the cost of postcard marketing or pool your resources to double your reach so that you can maximize ROI.
7. Cash in on summer holidays
Identify tie-ins with summer holidays and print postcards that fuel sales. Independence Day, Christmas in July and Labor Day are all examples of summer holidays you can center promotions around. Print postcards and send them to targeted audiences just before your holiday sales begin.
Postcard for Dancesport Academy designed by Teresa Travis
8. Hold a summer contest
Create a summer sweepstakes or other contest and print postcards to get the word out. For example, you might hold a summer photo contest (think best vacation photo, best backyard fun photo, best summer patio setup, etc.). Encourage customers to submit their pictures on social media and have fans vote for the prizewinner. In this manner, postcards can be used to foster social engagement.
9. Get noticed with die-cuts
The first challenge to successful postcard marketing is getting noticed, especially when so many other mailers are competing for your customers’ eyes. Die-cut postcards stand out from the crowd. Consider die-cutting your postcards into summer-themed shapes: beach balls, lemonade pitchers or even the sun, for example. Other ways to stand out include printing ultra postcards, which feature an attractive band of edge color, colored paper postcards and oversized postcard printing.
10. Look ahead
As summer winds down, get a head start on the competition with postcards that promote your fall sales. College dorm supplies, back-to-school supplies, fall fashion, home maintenance and other forward-thinking initiatives can help you land sales from the mailbox before your competitors can get there.
Ready to heat up your summer sales with postcard marketing? Do it for less with discount postcard printing today!
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