Using a Book Promotion Postcard to Sell Your Book (or Special Report)

The simple, eye-catching book promotion postcard can be an effective media strategy to promote a book or special report you’ve written easily and cost-effectively. Many business owners have either written a book or special report and fail to use direct mail to promote it and depending on your target audience, a postcard could be a smart way to generate response.

Over the past few months, several have arrived in my mailbox and I collected them to share in this article because in every case, they caught my eye (and one even got me to respond J).

Personally, because I am an avid reader and book lover, the biggest attention grabber in each of these postcards is the 3D book image. For some reason, these never fail to catch my eye. On a side note, hands-down the BEST 3D image creation tool I’ve found is http://CoverActionsPremium.com. Yes, you have to be able to use Photoshop, but if that’s not an issue, this website is AWESOME.

With each of these book promotion postcard examples, click to see a larger version.

The first example is from Ron LeGrand and is promoting a free book and CD combination. This was the largest postcard of the one’s I’ve received measuring in at nine inches wide. In this postcard example, I like Ron’s use of:

• Eye-catching testimonials
• 3D images on both sides
• A powerful headline on the copy side
• Engagement with the survey
• Bulleted benefits list
• Use of handwriting fonts

The only thing I found interesting is that Ron only offered one way to respond, by leaving a voicemail on his phone system. Not exactly sure why he’s doing this, but I do know Ron is a very smart and successful marketer, so I am sure he is doing this intentionally.

The next example is from my friend Jerry Jones. Jerry’s postcard gives you several smart ideas to use in your book postcard marketing, including:

• 3D book image on both sides
• Bulleted benefits list
• “New” book angle
• Postcard long copy that is well written
• Two ways to get the book (typically the more response channels, the better the results)

Jerry just read this article and sent me another book promotion postcard which he said even out-pulled the first-one above.  This one features a one-cent offer to get a new book.  This one has a number of attention-grabbing design elements working for it.

This example is not selling anything explicitly and it comes from Robert Skrob. Robert is using this postcard to keep his free newsletter list healthy and getting people to continue their free subscription by responding to the postcard’s call-to-action.

Here’s what I like about this postcard:

• The use of a personalized URL (PURL). Side note, if you use WordPress and you want a really simple and really powerful PURL program, check out SimplePurls.com.
• Personalization with Robert’s photo
• The use of a special report as incentive to respond
• 3D report image with arrow pointing to infographic
• Bulleted benefits list

The final book promotion postcard I want to show you comes from Historic Renovations, which is a face-to-face, bricks and mortar business using a short book in their marketing efforts. One of the owners, Danielle, did a great job with this book and because they were now authors, it allowed them to promote a series of local events featuring “An Evening with the Authors.” This is a powerful statement and opportunity for differentiation, especially for local businesses and one that can be used by anybody who has authored a book or report.

So there are four great examples of smart marketers using a book promotion postcard. If anybody reading this has crafted their own book promotion postcard, send me a digital version and I may update this article with your example in it!