"When it comes to marketing, you have many options to bring business to your business. Postcard marketing is only one of those options, but it can be the most efficient and effective.

You’ve probably received two or three postcards in your mail this week alone and chances are you’ve even kept one, if the offer appealed to you or if the postcard acted as a coupon. Postcard printing is an efficient choice for many businesses because it’s cheap and can net a positive ROI (return on investment).

Here are some other reasons you should use postcard printing in your marketing campaign:

High readership One of the best features of postcards is that they have a higher readership rate than many other forms of direct mail marketing. Brochures have to be unfolded; sales letters and flyers have to be pulled out of the dreaded message blocker: the envelope. There’s nothing blocking your postcard’s message from being read. Even if people don’t want to keep your postcard, they’ll at least read who it’s from to decide whether to keep it. Just that bit of exposure of your name and probably your logo is enough to build some memorability.

It’s easy to target your audience When you run a television commercial or put an ad in a newspaper, you can’t guarantee that people in your target market will see your ad. But with a postcard, you can tailor your mailing list to people who are in your target market and are most likely to be interested in your company or product. Combining the high readership with people are likely to be interested means your postcards will be effective in getting a response.

You won’t waste money with postcards by mailing them to people who aren’t interested or who don’t fit your demographic. You can buy mailing lists from a list broker who will give you approximately 1,000 names and address for $100. You might pay more the more detailed your lists gets, but that extra money will be well worth it.

It’s cheap I already mentioned the high ROI, but I’d like to get a little more specific. The typical cost for printing, designing and mailing your list, including the mailing list and postage for each postcard, averages $1. You can actually get all of this for as low as .50 cents per postcard if you don’t have fancy graphics or if you order a large quantity of postcards and get a bulk discount.

It’s easy Any business can send out postcards and you don’t even have to design it or write it yourself! You can outsource the writing and design and just approve everything after it’s been designed. Then the printer can print the postcards; address them for you while they’re printing them, and even mail them out for you. Of course, if you go this route you’ll have to give up some creative control, but many designers and printers will work with you and come up with a good working relationship compromise.