So here are some postcard marketing tips to get you thinking about running a basic direct mail campaign to generate traffic to your website.

The principal reward of postcard marketing is the low cost of producing and mailing the cards. In fact, you can make use of a service like http://www.click2mail.com to plan and manage your postcard marketing campaign wholly from a computer.

Did you know that it's possible to print and mail 1,000 postcards by first class mail and spend less than 40 cents a pop?

When you send out your postcards, make sure you include your website address and and give your prospects a good reason why they should go to your site, like some useful web tools or ebooks on a subject dear to your prospects' hearts. If possible, offer something that is unavailable elsewhere, like a report that you put together yourself.

Maybe you are promoting an affiliate program that features some ready-made postcards for affiliates to purchase and mail out to prospects. Nonetheless, it will be much more effective if you make original cards of your own and create your own advertising copy as this will produce greater results for you over time.

How so?

If you utilize standard promotional postcards you have no control over what is printed on them. You are stuck with what the affiliate company provides you with. But the beauty of postcard marketing when it's run the right way, is that it gives you control over every single part of your promotional campaign, including design and copy.

Having the option to make other versions of the postcard will enable you to compare one design against another with split tests.

Let's suppose you decide to test two different headlines to see which one will bring in more leads. Make 400-500 postcards (set "A") with one headline and 400-500 (set "B") with the other and send them off to 800-1000 prospects.

If set "A" brings in more responses, keep that postcard the same and rewrite the headline on the set "B" postcard. You could run some more tests, but when you are certain which headline is more effective, drop the "losing" headline and produce another headline that you can use against the "winner" in future split tests.

How can you measure the results?

All you need to do is to add a code number on set "A" cards and a different code number on the cards in set "B". Request that people responding to your offer give the code number along with their name and e-mail in order to access the link to the free gift when they visit your site. That will give you a clear indication of how many replies each headline has generated.

Once you have built up some expertise in postcard marketing campaigns and split testing, you'll find that you can systematically improve the results you get from them.

David Hurley
Best Internet Marketing Strategies