Get Attention With The Super-Size Postcard

I don’t know what your thoughts are on the matter, but it’s my opinion the never-ending battle to get the attention of a target recipient, with a marketing/advertising message, is getting harder and harder.

The simplistic days of three major TV networks, must-read magazines and a strong local, daily newspaper are ancient history.

All this has been replaced with an ultra-fragmented plethora of tools and tactics to try to get a business marketing message in front of and noticed by the intended target.

For the Main Street-type business owner, the options and opportunities to spend money on marketing and advertising are seemingly never-ending, and while there are plenty of digital and online new-fangled ways of doing things, in this article I want to go old-school and show you a direct mail format that might work for you.

I’ve used traditional postcard marketing for decades and done right postcards can be an effective direct mail format.  By done right, I am referring to where in a marketing campaign you are using them, who they are going to and how it’s designed.

Typical postcard sizes start at 6” x 4” and go up to 11” x 6.” We have all seen, and probably have used, these types of postcards.

A postcard format you may not have seen or used is one I call the “super-size postcard,” and while technically it’s called a “flat” by the U.S. Postal Service, it’s essentially a super-sized postcard that is hard to ignore when it arrives in your mailbox.

The super-size postcard can be maxed out (as of the writing of this article) at 15” wide by 12” tall.  You don’t have to go this big, but this is the max flat size you can send via the U.S. Postal Service. In the picture above, you see a 6″ x 4″ postcard at the top and then two super-size postcards below it.

Going from a standard 6” x 4” postcard to 15” x 12” gives you at least a 650% increase in real-estate for your message and design (and attention-grabbing power).

And therein lies the strategy I want to share with you today.

I first saw this type of super, jumbo-sized postcard used by my friend Marty Fort for his music academy coaching business, and since then I have collected a few more examples including a few from a marketing campaign I was involved with for mattress retailers.

Regardless of your personal thoughts about sending something this big in the mail, you cannot dispute its ability to command attention and offer you a large “canvas” to create a meaningful message.

In a world where attention-spans are short and over-loaded, arriving in a new and different way could just be the ticket you need to get your message noticed.  On a side note, a few years ago, I wrote, Think Small for Big Marketing Response, which was about the use of “small formats” for your marketing, which you can read here.

One of my favorite Dan Kennedy quotes comes from his August 2007 issue of the No B.S. INFO-Marketing Letter. In it Dan says, “It happens constantly and it is the hidden secret reason why so many marketing campaigns fall way short of their potential. Not because the offer isn’t good or wouldn’t be welcomed by all the recipients; simply because many of the recipients never know about it because we fail to command their attention.”

In my experience with working with business owners, it’s my opinion they often give little thought to the strategy of trying to get the attention of their target market, and while there are many variables to this complex equation, HOW your marketing and advertising looks is critically important.  This is the reason I created CopyDoodles® – to give people an easy way to make their marketing stand out with handwriting and hand-drawn enhancements.

Back to the super-size postcards.

According to my friend Craig Simpson, author of The Direct Mail Solution: A Business Owner’s Guide to Building a Lead-Generating, Sales-Driving, Money-Making Direct-Mail Campaign, a great place to use these super-size postcards is with Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM), since the postage to send them is so inexpensive.

Craig used a super-size postcard in a campaign for Beachbody’s Ten Minute Trainer offer and feels that these massive postcards standout out in the mail, but the downside is the postage to mail them can be expensive… at least $0.60 per piece.

In my experience, I have been able to print and first-class mail a single super-size postcard for around $1.00 per recipient, and most printer/mail-house should be able to print and send them for you.

If you decide to create your own or have used these in the past, leave a message below and let me know.

You can download high-resolution versions of these super-size postcard images, for further study, by clicking here.