December 14, 2010

Postcard Layout: Effective Design Ideas

As a marketing tool, nothing is more effective in terms of ROI than a well designed postcard. Inexpensive to get, easy to design and economical to distribute, the postcard has been called possibly the most effective marketing tools available. Having a good design with an effective postcard layout is important so you can get the most bang for your buck with them.

There are several different ways you can use a postcard to attract attention to you and your products or services. While a postcard may seem very limited in what can be done, the possibilities are actually almost limitless. Even though you do lose space to the address and stamp areas, that leaves at least two thirds of the postcard layout on the two surfaces available for use. And there are lots of ways to use these areas.

First, use colors. Color attracts the eye, so using brightly colored words with bold letters or arrows that point to important sections of the card is impactful. Another tip is to use colored fonts, but use dark colors that will remain readily readable. Another way to accomplish the same thing is to use a dark colored background and very light, bright colored letters. Even using a bright sky-blue font against a black or dark purple background is easy to read.

Even though they will eat valuable real estate, do use graphics and pictures, especially if you’re introducing a new product. You want your customer to have clues and hints on what you’re selling and having this visual representation will help immensely. However, be careful not to overshadow your message. Only if you’re using the postcard layout as a branding strategy for your logo can you allow the logo to dominate. This will emblazon the logo in their mind, even if they only glance at the card.

Last, make sure you give them plenty of ways to contact you. Building in the physical ,website and email addresses, as well as phone numbers, fax numbers and any other channels you can come up with to have a customer connect with you needs to be on the postcard layout somewhere. Even at the risk of taking out some ad copy, its better to leave a customer wanting more information and having the ways to get it than it is to have all the answers on the card and no way for the customer to use the answers.

Postcards are very powerful tools, and making sure you’re getting every bit of space on a postcard layout used to your advantage is one way to make sure you’re using all that power. Customers do look at postcards. They’re small, easy to digest at one glance, and are inexpensive. Check out what you can do with a postcard in your marketing strategy.