Lisa Constance: Spam floods e-mail inboxes, often making it tough for the small business marketer. In many cases, the traditional postcard can be the most effective sales person who represents you to the customer. Our guest today is here to talk about key elements of a successful postcard marketing campaign. Andrew Field founded the first and leading online commercial printer in the US in Real Montana. PrintingForLess.com has been recognized with numerous business award, including the CV award for best customer service organization along with the best of the web and winning work places to name a few, welcome to SBTV.com Andrew.

Andrew Field: Thank you.

Lisa Constance: So what are some of the most common misconceptions about postcard marketing?

Andrew Field: One of them is that it’s old fashioned or out dated and as you pointed with spam being all over the place, people are filtering it out pretty well and of course the do not call list means the telemarketing is largely dead so postcards are still one of the most effective and cost effective ways to get your message out to consumers.

Lisa Constance: So that being said, what are the most important elements of a postcard?

Andrew Field: By far the most important thing is the image on the front. Studies have shown that it’s better to have one big image than lots of little images. It’s also important that that image tell a story and finally on the front of the post card, make sure that you put some sort of a call to action or key message because people don’t have to open an envelope to read a postcard but they do have to flip it over to read the back.

Lisa Constance: So you talked about it to just as important of what you’re saying so the copy on a postcard, what’s the best way to convey your business in the copy?

Andrew Field: It’s really important that you have a call to action in there somewhere that you say visit our store or stop by our website or call today. I think an offer is always very important. What is that offer, is it a sale? Is it a limited time thing and make sure you give the important information if you’re a retail location, what’s the address. What are your hours? How best to reach your company.

Lisa Constance: So how important are the photographs and illustrations on your postcard?

Andrew Field: They are super important. It’s good to have high quality. If you can possibly afford it, hire a professional photographer. One of the biggest mistakes we see is low resolution images and if you take a low resolution image, it looks all boxy and doesn’t look as it has professional quality to it.

Lisa Constance: Great. Those are great tips. Look for other practical tips from Andrew Field, President and CEO of PrintingForLess.com here on SBTV.com. You can learn more about Andrew and his company by going to www.printingforless.com. This is SBTV.com where small business is our only business.