Meet the humble postcard—a low-cost, high-impact, versatile marketing tool in the publisher’s arsenal that improves your competitive edge.
Book marketing with postcards is one of the most cost-effective and customer-effective direct-mail marketing campaigns you can launch. Whether you have one title or 200, a postcard with your book cover(s) on one side and a promotional blurb on the other is comparatively inexpensive and lends itself particularly well to a wide variety of promotions. Why? For a baker’s-dozen reasons.
28 cents vs. 44 cents. The difference between mailing a first class envelope and a first-class postcard is $0.16 per piece. That means the postage for a mailing of 500 1 oz. envelopes will cost $220, compared to $140 for 500 postcards. Do the math, and with a monthly mailing, in a year you will save $960.
Inexpensive production. Two thousand postcards with four-color front and one-color back can cost less than 10 cents each and are an instant mini-billboard for your book(s). Delivery time is rarely longer than two weeks. There are many postcard printers, including those that advertise in this publication. Ask to see samples before you order, and check with your book printer as well—often they can do postcards at the same time they print your book cover.
Open rate. Direct-mail marketers spend millions to determine how to get recipients to open the envelope. The beauty of the postcard is that it’s already open, and your well-designed and colorful book cover that appears on the front makes it an attention-getter that stands out from the surrounding clutter.
Event announcements. Postcards are perfect for announcing book signings and other appearances. If you don’t want to spend the money to produce a customized postcard for a certain event, you can print your message on small address labels and affix them to the front of your generic promotional card. Not only do you save money by using the postcards you already have, but you can then include a message on your label to “Bring this postcard to [store or convention or meeting] and receive a gift.” When recipients bring the postcard, they get a small gift like a promotional notepad or pen, and you get to build a targeted mailing list.
Trade-show giveaways. Postcards are also perfect as promotional giveaways for trade shows—small, light, and colorful—and they can double as bookmarks. When conferences provide mailing lists of attendees in advance of the show, send either a customized postcard or a postcard with a customized label inviting everyone to your booth. And after the show, use postcards to follow up with prospects.
Bulletin board displays. Educators and librarians love postcards for decorating bulletin boards. Your postcard solves their content problem, and you have a free advertisement in front of your target markets.
Splashy promo pieces. Use your leftover paperback covers as postcards. Any card larger than 4″ × 6″ requires at least a 44-cent stamp, but imagine the impact of a 6″ × 9″ (or larger) image of your book. Simply cut off the back cover portion of your flat cover and bingo, your front cover is ready to double as a postcard. Another advantage of a book-cover-turned-card is that the flip side is blank, ready to be printed with your custom message.
Book launches. Any size postcard is a great way to break the news about a new book without breaking the bank. My company maintains a master postcard mailing list for each new title we publish, and we use it to start building the buzz long before the book is off press. Everyone who inquires about our titles is added to the list. At a mailing cost of 28 cents apiece, postcards make an inexpensive way to follow up.
Mailing list updates. A 28-cent postcard is considered first-class mail. If an address on your mailing list is incorrect or expired, and you include your return address on the card, the post office will return the postcard to you with the address corrected, as long as it has the information. Small price to pay to keep your valuable contact list current.
Miniature billboards. We all distribute business cards by the handful, so focus on a mini-postcard as another opportunity to promote your titles. As inexpensive as it is to print business cards, why not continually update yours with new titles? With a cover image on one side and your contact information on the other, your mini-postcard accomplishes both promotion and information—all in one 2″ × 3½” rectangle.
Website invitations. Use the low-tech postcard to drive traffic to your high-tech Web site. Inviting targeted buyers to your site via postcard with a special offer avoids the spam issue and also helps you add opt-in names to your email marketing list. By creating a special landing page and including its URL on your postcard, you will be able to track specific responses to your offer and use that information to improve the offer next time.
Testing. Postcards are a low-cost way to test new offers and new prospects. Include the same image on the front of the card, but print half the postcard run with one message on the back and half with another version. Then see which has the higher response rate. Mailing postcards to a new list and measuring the response is also an inexpensive way to add to your own customer base.
Customer connections. The key to success in direct mail is repetition, repetition, repetition. We create a marketing plan that includes a monthly postcard mailing to our customers that features a different title each month, depending on what is appropriate. Of course, holidays are a given, and sometimes an event in a month is connected to the subject of one of our books. The point is not only to focus on marketing books, but also to maintain predictable and constant contact with people who have already expressed interest in at least one of our titles—our current customers.
This article first appeared in the December, 2006 issue of the IBPA Independent and is reprinted here by permission.
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