The Pentera Blog
Prime Your Postcard for Success with These Simple Principles
The postcard is a key cog in any successful planned giving marketing campaign. Its swift production time, cost-effectiveness, and immediacy makes it an ideal candidate for getting important or time-sensitive information out to your mailing list quickly and in a way that promotes prompt response or action. However, simply "doing a postcard" may not be quite enough when it comes to results. Thankfully, it's easy to tune your planned giving postcard up to optimum performance. Start with these four simple
principles:
1. Brief is better
Your postcard has only precious seconds to capture the attention of its intended target–thusly, it's imperative that your headline copy be concise and attention-grabbing. Instead of using a paragraph-long testimonial blurb on the front of your card, consider using only the most salient snippets of a donor's quote. Benefits-driven language is also potent, especially when using the words "you" and "your" to engage the reader on a personal level.
2. Keep their eyes on the prize
It can be easy to start envisioning your postcard as a mini-newsletter and trying to fill it with as much content as possible … but a postcard is most effective when it's promoting a single hot topic. A postcard that veers in too many directions has a high likelihood of distracting or confusing the reader and can defeat the purpose of sending the thing out in the first place. The most successful postcards are those that distill their message to one item and keep the reader aboard a single, action-driven train of thought.
3. Break up the big blocks
Once your reader has decided to take the plunge and dig into the content of your postcard, the worst thing you can do is to scare them away with a page-long paragraph of body copy. Keeping your reader engaged throughout the piece will ensure that they don't just pitch your postcard, and the way to do that is to make your content scannable and easy to process: Bullet points, numbered lists, or a couple of small paragraphs with a clear subhead will keep your recipient's eye moving fluidly through your postcard and their desire to toss it into the bin at a minimum.
4. Make it easy to respond
Okay–so your message has really resonated with its reader, and they're ready to respond. Great! Is your contact information readily available, or does the reader have to scan the postcard several more times in order to unearth it? You could have the best offer in the world, but it's all for naught if your constituents can't easily get back to you. The solution is a clear, bold call to action that lets the reader know what their next step is, whether it's calling, e-mailing, or returning a reply card. Also, if you're producing a multiple-panel postcard with a perf-off reply device, consider including your organization's contact information on both the reply device and the panel that stays with the readers–that way they still have a way to get in touch with you later.
For more ideas and best practices on planned giving marketing, contact us at info@pentera.com, 317.875.0910 x251, or visit www.pentera.com.
