Although direct-mail postcard printing is a very useful tool for increasing your market base, it requires having a mailing list to begin with. You can purchase your list from your printing company themselves, or you can create your own database from referrals and prospects.

But even though postcards are intended for mailing, you can innovate and use the postcard for a variety of other reasons and potential uses. Your postcard is more than just a marketing material or a standard advertisements your customers can use it for their own correspondence, as a bookmark, attach it to their cork boards, etc.

You have to create designs that have human interest or appeals to people’s sense of aesthetics. Don’t get too carried away though, your need to impress should also be balanced with your need to advertise to people. You have to depict your products or services in the most creative way and use it in your postcard design.

Online postcard design is a great place to look for inspiration. There are design templates that are universally appealing to a wide range of audience. They may seem generic, but it can take your postcards a long way.

You can choose industry specific as well but they may have limited appeal. You can use these designs depending on the overall appeal you want your business to hold and to the audience you have.

When you have the design down pat, you can expand your distribution network in these simple ways:

1. Talk to the local newspaper boy. For extra money, and barely any additional effort, you can have him place one of your postcards in the mailboxes in his route. This is a great way to save you dollars from mailing your prints, and give someone else the extra income. Find the newspaper boy in the streets you want to target.

2. Talk to your buddies who have businesses themselves. You can ask to have your postcards displayed or given away at their stores. They have a give away item for their customers and you have free advertisement. Better yet, you can even offer to have their logo or their business name printed on the postcard as well.

3. Asking favors from your buddies maybe a little easier, but finding business related to your business instead of you may be a little more difficult. For instance, if you retail jewelry, advertising in a flower shop and chocolate stores may help you advertise better to your target group. Make sure though that you have a reciprocal offer to these businesses.

You can offer to have their postcards given away in your store as well, or as advised above, you can devote a space to them they can use for their logo or business name. This way, you get much more mileage for your postcard print, and make good friends.

4. Like brochures or flyers, you can leave "take one" stacks in holders. You can leave these stacks in public display areas such as bulletin boards, condominium lobbies, or for anyone who may have interest in your postcards printing.