Postcard-to-Landing Page Campaign Designs

Recent years have proven that postcard-to-landing page campaigns are both sales effective and cost efficient. As such, direct-mail postcards have become a favorite among marketers seeking to achieve a high return on minimal investment. Pulling off the perfect postcard-to-landing page campaign takes careful planning and hard work, but the campaign design process can be quick and painless when you heed the tips outlined below.

Goals and targeting

Your first step is to list the goals for your campaign. Don't just say you want to make more sales or increase revenue. Instead, break your goals down into tiers. For example, your first goal could be to get potential customers to look at your postcard and visit your landing page. Your second goal could be to get more e-mail newsletter sign-ups, sell a product or other online task. A third goal might be to brand your company or product. And, of course, your ultimate goal is to increase your revenues. You also have to define your target audience: Who are your main customers and why? Create a well-defined mailing list based on these demographics.

Offer

Many excellent articles cover postcard design and landing page graphic design tips, so we won't get into them here (though it is worth mentioning that your designs should be consistent). Instead, we'll focus on the elements you have to design for. Once your postcard grabs attention, it has to persuade customers to take the next step in the purchasing process. The most effective way to do this is with an amazing offer. Remember that your customers have a problem, and you can solve it. Consider your offer carefully: You don't always have to go for the sale immediately. Many postcard-to-landing page direct-mail campaigns offer something free in return for an e-mail newsletter sign-up. A special report, helpful guide, or anything else that has real value for your customers, can encourage plenty of sign-ups, which you can then use to market your products and services through an autoresponder on the cheap.

Personalization

Use your customers' names wherever possible. Your postcards can be printed with your customers' names and a recent trend that's been tremendously successful is to develop PURLs - personalized URLs. This is where you direct each customer to a custom URL (such as www.yoursite.com/cindy-mayhew), and then use the customer's name within your sales pitch. Not only does this help customers feel more valued on your landing page, they'll be incredibly curious to see what's on your landing page when they see their own names in the URL on the postcard. Several companies offer automated PURL systems you can deploy on your website.

Tracking and follow-up

Use analytics software to track your campaign responses. Google Analytics is free and allows you to track conversions, number of visitors, time spent on your landing page and geographic location. If you use a PURL system, you can actually tell which specific individuals responded to your postcard by visiting your landing page. This invaluable data will help you fine-tune future campaigns. Make sure you follow up with your customers, especially if the immediate goal of your campaign is to collect contact information rather than land a sale. Use an autoresponder, e-mail blasts, telephone marketing and continue your direct-mail marketing efforts to win more and more customers throughout time.