Postcard Marketing Hands-Off Case Study

Postcard Marketing Hands-Off Case Study #2 -Speakers Bureaus
by Marcia Yudkin

Here's a postcard campaign that was profitable for me some years back.

To get more speaking engagements, I wanted to be represented by more speakersbureaus. However, bureaus were inundated with information kits and phone callsfrom wannabes.

Therefore, I decided to offer to help bureaus market themselves better. Thiswould cut through the clutter, and I'd come to their attention as a marketingexpert and a speaker on marketing, in a back-handed way.

I obtained a mailing list of directors of speakers bureaus and created apostcard containing one of my Marketing Minute newsletters. Besides thecomplete text of my 180-word Marketing Minute, the card invited them tosubscribe to get tips on growing their business from my no-cost weekly emailnewsletter.

Six times in one year, I mailed a card like this to the speakers bureaudirectors. The card was the same each time except that it contained the text ofa different Marketing Minute.

When I did this campaign, it was before the advent of online postcard marketingcompanies. I changed the master file in my computer, took a printout of thecard contents to my local Kinko's, they printed up the cards on card stock thatthey cut into quarters, I stuck on the bureau mailing labels and stamps, andfinally dropped them at the post office.

Today, the process is much simpler. You can design a postcard template online,cut and paste new content into it for each new mailing, upload the data file forthe postcard recipients just once, and have PostcardBuilder.com or anotheronline postcard print-and-mail company print and send the cards for you. There's no need to touch or mess with mailing labels, stamps or even thepostcards. Just place the order and it's done.

And my results? One bureau owner hired me for copywriting from the firstmailing and lined up a speaking engagement for me a year later. Three otherbureau owners I mailed to added me to their roster, with two additional bookingscoming out of that. Several other bureau owners joined my Marketing Minute listand purchased products or services from me years later, or referred others whodid so.

Financially, the campaign brought me at least fifteen times as much in revenuesas I spent, with results trickling in for more than seven years.

And I didn't make a single cold call to a bureau owner, which for me was anunspeakably big plus!

Your payoff from postcards could certainly be as satisfying as mine.

Veteran postcard marketer, consultant and author Marcia Yudkin is the creator ofThe Mighty Postcard Marketing Course, which teaches the strategic, logistical,design and copywriting secrets of successful postcard marketing. Download a freeone-hour audio interview in which she and the co-owner of a postcard printingand mailing firm reveal the basics of marketing with postcards:www.yudkin.com/postcards.htm

Greg Cryns
Send Out Cards - Postcards