A Step by Step Guide to Postcard Marketing Success

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Sabrina Doyle
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1 A Step by Step Guide to Postcard Marketing Success

2 Table of Contents Why VerticalResponse?...3 Why Postcards?...4 So why use postcards in this modern era?...4 Quickstart Guide...6 Step 1: Setup Your Account...8 Step 2: Upload Your List...11 Step 3: Creating and Mailing Your First Postcard...14 Edit the Front of the Card...16 Edit Back...17 View Proofs...18 Select Lists...18 Free Postcard Promotion...18 Schedule...18 Order & Launch...19 Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 2

3 Why VerticalResponse? If you re looking to grow your business by marketing to your customers but you re short on time and resources, VerticalResponse is the perfect solution. At VerticalResponse we strive to make small businesses look like giants (and who doesn t want to look like a giant?). Small businesses today increasingly rely on the ease and affordability of tools like those VerticalResponse provides. In just a few minutes you can easily create professional looking e-newsletters, direct mail postcards, and online surveys to engage your customers, learn more about them, and increase sales. You ve got a few minutes to increase your sales don t you? Simply put, we are an online (Software-as-a-Service) provider that allows anyone, regardless of technical experience, to create & send s, surveys, and postcards from any web browser. As a company, we pride ourselves on being experts in marketing and the products we build, sell and support. This guide is one of many ways that we practice what we preach. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 3

Why Postcards? Since our application is so focused on Email Marketing, the Postcard tool sometimes gets ignored by new customers as some folks aren t sure exactly what it is or how to use it.

4 Why Postcards? Since our application is so focused on Marketing, the Postcard tool sometimes gets ignored by new customers as some folks aren t sure exactly what it is or how to use it. That s a shame, not only because ignoring the Postcard application in this way almost certainly hurts its feelings, but also because Direct Mail Postcards are still a powerful tool in a marketer s arsenal. Yes, even in this day and age with our blogs and tweets and Segway polo teams. So why use postcards in this modern era? Because you don t have the address. There is a good chance you re missing the address for at least some of your customers and prospects. If you have their postal address, a postcard can be a great way to point these folks to a sign-up form to join your list. Don t have a sign-up form on your site? Use our free opt-in form wizard to create one. Because you re looking for new customers. It s a bad idea to use purchased lists for your marketing as using such lists can have a direct impact on your ability to see your own delivered. They re such a bad idea in general, that VerticalResponse doesn t allow the use of purchased lists for . But you can use purchased lists for sending out postcards without worrying that the postal service is going to suddenly stop delivering your mail. So postcards can help you to reach out to a new audience. If you run a neighborhood business or a business that focuses on a certain city, postcards can also be a great way to reach out to people who have just moved to town. The Postal Service generally does not forward commercial mail when someone moves, so a new resident s mailbox will likely be emptier than normal. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 4

5 Because an address has bounced. If an address bounces back as undeliverable, then a postcard can be a great way to get the correct address. Assuming, of course, that you have a postal address for the contact in question. One of the nice features of the VerticalResponse Postcard tool is that there is no minimum order. You can create an order to print and mail a single card if that s all you need. So you can send a card out even if only a single address bounces back from an campaign. Because you want to create a larger, integrated marketing campaign. marketing is effective, wonderful and any number of other nice adjectives. But it is not the end all, be all of direct marketing. You can send a postcard out to recipients to reinforce your message or to even announce that a special offer is coming their way on a specific date. Because you need a way to reach out to people who don t respond to your s. No matter how good of a job you do on your marketing efforts, there are at least some people who don t bother to read what you re sending them. Changing things up and sending this group a postcard is a nice way to get your message front & center and re-engage them with your company. Because postcards are eco-friendlier than you might think. VerticalResponse Postcards are also made out of 30% recycled, eco-friendly material. Not quite as tree friendly as an , but not too bad either. Because you can try them out to make sure they work for you. Every account includes the option to send yourself a free 4x6 postcard that you create. Use this option to check out the quality of our postcards and to measure how long it takes a mailed card to make it s way from us to you and your recipients. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 5

6 Quickstart Guide There is a lot of great, detailed information to be found throughout this guidebook. But what if you need to get a Postcard out right now and don t have time to read through everything first? Just follow the 8 easy steps below: 1. Open Your Free VerticalResponse Account If you don t already have an account, you ll need one before you can do anything else. Sign-up from our homepage at and your account will be ready to go in a few minutes. 2. Upload Your List(s ) You ll find a New List link on both the Home and Lists sections of your account. Click that link and the system will walk you through the rest of the process. When you re done, you should have at least one list in your account alongside your Master List. Just note that your list will need to be in either Comma Separated Values (.csv) or Text Tab Delimited (.txt) format before you can upload it. These are the two standard spreadsheet formats, so just about any spreadsheet or contact management program (like Excel) will have the option to Save As or Export To one of these formats. 3. Start Building Your Postcard You ll find a New Postcard link on both the Home and Postcards sections of your account. Click this link and you ll be on your way. 4. Upload or Choose an Image A postcard isn t a postcard if you don t have an eye-catching image on the front. There are three options for adding an image or other content to the front of your card: Upload an Image from Your Computer Upload a picture or design in jpeg format. This image must be at least 150 dpi. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 6

7 Find a Stock Image Search through our royalty-free stock photo gallery and choose from one of the 75,000 available images. Solid Color Simply use a solid background color on the front of your card. 5. Edit the Front & Back Click anywhere on the front of the card to add text and then click that text to drag & drop it anywhere on the screen. Also select whether you want to create a 4x6 or 6x9 size card. Add your message or offer to the back of the card, along with your return address so that you receive any cards noted by the Postal Service as undeliverable. 6. View the Proofs Take a careful look at the full resolution PDF proofs for both the front and back of the card. Note the proof code displayed on each proof you ll need this code later in order to launch your card. 7. Select Lists & Schedule Select the list or lists to which you want to send the postcard. Any list you ve previously uploaded to your account will be presented here as an option. Then schedule when you d like your postcard to be sent out. You can have it go out as soon as possible or schedule it up to a few months in advance. Note that your scheduled date is not the exact date at which the card will be sent out to your recipients it is the date when your card is sent to the printer. The card may spend up to 3-5 days at the printer before it is sent out to your list. 8. Launch the Card Enter your proof codes, pay for the card and then click the launch button. Success we ll now print and mail the postcard to your recipients. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 7

8 Step 1: Setup Your Account Before you reap all the benefits that VerticalResponse has to offer you must first create an account from our website. Creating an account is easy to do: 1. Visit our website at 2. Fill out the form that can be found on the right side of this page. 3. After you ve submitted the sign-up form we ll send you a confirmation that requires you to click on an activation link within the message to complete the set up of your account. Once you ve done that you can log into your account and get started. 4. You re done! You can now go back to and log into your account. At no point in this process do we ask for your credit card or payment information that s because the account itself is free. All the steps described in this guide (aside from actually launching an ), can be performed without any payment. We ll take a look at how pricing works, along with the different payment options, at the end of this section. Now that you have an account, go ahead and take a few minutes to look over all the different tools that are available to you. These tools are sorted into a number of sections listed across the top of every part of the account. You ll need to use two sections in order to create and send a postcard: 1. Lists The Lists section is where you upload, manage and build the lists to which you ll be sending your postcards. 2. Postcards The Postcards section is where you create and send your postcards. This guidebook will examine both these sections in detail. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 8

9 How Does Pricing Work? Postcards are purchased on a Pay-as-you-Go basis through the use of postcard credits. Each purchased credit is equal to one recipient, so if you want to send a postcard out to 253 people, you need to purchase 253 postcard credits to do that. There is no minimum or set credit purchase, you can pay to print and mail 1 card, 17 cards or 2,071 cards any number is perfectly fine. Credits do get cheaper though, if you send more cards. To check out prices for both the 4x6 and 6x9 sized cards, visit the Pricing page on our website: Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 9

10 Also note that 501(c)3 non-profit organizations within the US, and similar organizations in other countries, get 15% off all postcard purchases. Take a look at the Pricing page on our website for details on how to sign-up for our non-profit program. Now that we ve setup your account, let s walk through the steps for creating & sending your first postcard. (See page 6 for a quick start.) Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 10

11 Step 2: Upload Your List Before you can send a postcard out, you ll need to upload the list (or lists) to which you want to send the card. You can have any number of lists in your account, with any number of records stored within each list. When you send your direct mail postcard you ll choose which of the lists you want to use for that mailing. Also note that while VerticalResponse maintains a strict anti-spam policy regarding the lists that can be used for marketing (no purchased, rented or harvested lists allowed), we have no such restrictions in place for postcard mailings. It is perfectly fine to send your card to a purchased or rented list when using our service. To upload a list, navigate to Lists > Mailing Lists > New List. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 11

12 From here you have the option to build your list from scratch (by entering one record at a time), to upload a file from your computer or access records stored in your address book with Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail. Most users upload the postcard list from their computer, so that s what we ll look at in this guide. The only technical requirement to upload an external file is that it is saved in CSV (Comma Separated Values) or TXT (Tab Delimited Text) format. These are the standard spreadsheet formats, so whether a file originates in Excel, Outlook Address Book, Apple Numbers, FileMaker, ACT!, Quickbooks, or any other spreadsheet / contact management program, one of the available options within that program will be to save (or export) that file in.csv or.txt format. After you choose the file you d like to upload, click Next. You should now see the Map File Fields to List Fields section. All you need to do is appropriately label each column of data using the drop down menu to the right of each group. The lines of a street address should be labeled as Address 1 and Address 2, First Names as First Names, and so on from there. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 12

13 You can use the drop down menu to choose one of our standard fields or to create custom fields of your own. You can also ignore data you don t want to upload by selecting the Do Not Import option from the same drop down. To successfully send a postcard out to a record, that record must include at least these fields: First Name Address 1 City State Zip After labeling your data, you ll set your Import Rules. These rules are really only important when dealing with lists. When uploading postal addresses, you should usually just select to Import newer data. When you click next, you ll see your Results page. Duplicate postal addresses, as well as incorrectly formatted addresses, are all removed during the upload process, and you can download a report of this data if needed. Now the list is part of your account and will be available for you to use with the postcard you create. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 13

14 Step 3: Creating and Mailing Your First Postcard When you re ready to create a postcard, go to Postcards > New Postcard. Whether you have your own beautiful design ready to go or you need to start from scratch, VerticalResponse makes it easy to get started with three different options for designing your card: Upload an Image If you have a picture or a design for the front of your card then all you have to do is upload it. The image simply needs to be in JPEG format (.jpg /.jpeg) and at least 150 DPI (dots per inch). Your JPEG image should also use the RGB color model and not the CMYK color model. If you don t really know what all these things mean, just try uploading your image. If our system accepts it and it probably will then everything is just fine. Note: Whichever option you choose, you can only use a single image for the front of your card images cannot be stacked within our editor. Find a Stock Image Don t have the right picture for your postcard? Choose one from our Free Stock Photo Gallery. There are more than 75,000 pictures available in numerous categories. You can use as many pictures as you want, on as many postcards as you want, and it won t cost a thing. Use a Solid Color - If you d prefer not to use an image at all then you can select a background color. You ll be able to add text to this background color (or to either of the above image options) after you move on to the next step. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 14

15 Edit the Front of the Card After you ve chosen the image or color for the front of your card, you ll be able to make edits. You can take some very useful actions like: Add Text Click anywhere on the card to add a line of text. This will open a dialog box from where you can enter your text, and then select a font and color. Clicking the save button within this dialog box will add the text to your card. You can move the text around the card by clicking on it and dragging it wherever you want it to go. And the text can be edited or deleted by using the edit box on the left-hand side of the screen. You can add another line of text (as many lines as you want) by simply clicking elsewhere on the card. Crop Our editing tool will try to fit your image perfectly to the front of the card, but it s possible there may be excess whitespace around your image if the dimensions do not closely match the 4x6 or 6x9 dimensions of the card itself. You can use the crop button at the top of the editor to crop the image to the correct size and make the excess whitespace disappear. You can also use the same button to undo the crop if you don t like the results. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 15

16 Select Postcard Size As noted earlier, postcards can be ordered in either 4x6 or 6x9 sizes. You can select the size you want by using the very appropriately named Select Postcard Size box on the left-hand side of the editing screen. Other Options You can also make your image black & white, invert it, turn it to the left or right and switch for a different image very easily by using the buttons along the top of the editing screen. Edit Back Once you re done with the front of the card you can make basic edits to the back. Use the Edit Message text box to add your offer or message, and use the two font options above this box to change the font and size of your text. Add a Return Address so that any undeliverable cards are returned to you. Be sure to remove bad postal addresses from your list so you don t waste money mailing to bad addresses in the future. View Proofs Two full resolution PDF proofs are automatically generated for both the front and back of your postcard. Use the view proof buttons to download each one and make sure the postcard looks the way you want it to look. Each PDF includes a Proof Code. Make note of the 3-digit codes for both front and back, because you will need to enter these codes in order to launch your postcard. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 16

Select Lists Any lists you ve previously uploaded to your account as described in Step 2 of this guide will be available here for you to select as the audience for your postcard.

17 Select Lists Any lists you ve previously uploaded to your account as described in Step 2 of this guide will be available here for you to select as the audience for your postcard. You can select one list or several lists just check the box to the left of each selected list and click Submit. Our system checks your addresses against a USPS database of addresses. Any addresses noted as no longer valid by this database will be automatically suppressed from your list so you don t pay to mail them. Free Postcard Promotion And please note that we currently only mail to U.S. addresses! Every account includes a Free Postcard Promotion list that allows you to send yourself one free 4x6 postcard. If you select this list, the system will prompt you to enter the address to which you d like to send the free postcard later in the process. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 17

Schedule You can have your postcard sent out as soon as possible or use the provided calendar to schedule it to go out up to several months in advance.

18 Schedule You can have your postcard sent out as soon as possible or use the provided calendar to schedule it to go out up to several months in advance. If you do schedule it in advance, keep in mind that your scheduled date is the date your postcard will be sent to the printer not the date it will be sent out to your list. It can take 3 to 5 days after your scheduled date for the postcard to be put in the mail. Order & Launch The Launch page will prompt you to enter your PDF Proof Codes and pay for the postcards you re launching. Even though the purchase prompt is at the bottom of this page, it s a good idea to complete the purchase first. Just click the provided link, enter your payment information and place the order. With that done you should return to the Launch page, enter your Proof Codes in the provided boxes and Launch your card. And in 3-5 business days from this moment (or from you scheduled Launch date) the postcard will be in the mail and on the way to your recipients. Don t have a VerticalResponse account? Get one now! Copyright 2009 VerticalResponse, Inc. 18

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