Postcards From the Cutting Edge
While catalog mailers are adjusting to hefty new postage increases, postcard mailings are thriving. Even the largest 11-½-inch cards qualify as standard mail at the lowest letter-size rates.
PostcardMania of Clearwater FL, a provider of direct mail postcards to small businesses and many large users, has boosted sales and profits thanks to direct marketers stepping up these mailings. Founder and CEO Joy Gendusa started the business in 1998 and has seen it grow to $17 million. Revenue is expected to hit $20.5 million this year.
PostcardMania mails 95,000 cards weekly to generate leads and draw prospects to its Web site (www.postcardmania.com). The company enjoys a distinct advantage over its direct mail competitors in that every mailing piece is an actual sample of its product.
Gendusa discovered the potential of these mailings in 1998 when she ordered postcards to promote her own graphic arts business, Joy Rockwell Enterprises, which created direct mail and collateral pieces.
At the time, postcard printing was done by very targeted companies that didn't deal with general business customers. These firms were limited to specialized markets like art galleries and graphics professionals.
“There were only three other postcard companies around, and none of them promoted broadly to general business,” Gendusa says. She decided to specialize in postcards for the end-user business market.
Gendusa's company is now a full-service operation offering color printing, design, addressing, mailing and list acquisition. It designs and prints cards on heavy recycled stock in several sizes, including 4-¼ by 6 inches, 6 by 8-½ inches, and 6 by 11 inches, with full color on one side, black and white on the other.
PostcardMania's complete line is shown on its Web site. The basic offer is 5,000 postcards, brochures, fliers or business cards at promotional package prices. The 5,000-piece minimum allows the company to fit many printing jobs into one press run to keep prices low. Standard postcard designs, editable by the customer, are available to reduce or eliminate art and design charges.
In 2005, PostcardMania made Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing privately owned U.S. companies. One of its clients, The Kitchen Guild, also got on the list that year. The Kitchen Guild's response jumped after switching to postcards as its leading medium in 2004; it now mails 54,000 postcards per week.
Another postcard client, Measurable Solutions Inc., a consulting firm for physical therapists, drops 30,000 cards a week.
Gendusa says, “We keep growing as more and more businesses realize the ROI they can get from direct mail postcards.” Her company's success can be traced to its three-step multimedia marketing program: The postcard mailings bring leads to the Web site; the prospects respond online; and deluxe information kits — about 800 a week — are mailed to qualified prospects.
“We love Internet marketing,” she says, adding that the future lies in combining media in two-step and three-step programs. “Don't make the customer search your Web site. Create a postcard that sends the recipient to a landing page that speaks directly to that postcard and continues that communication.”
Will the latest postage hike affect Gendusa's business? No, she says.
“It's only a penny, and our clients can save 4 cents per piece when we do their mailing. We've seen [postage] increases before, and we keep growing.”
FREDMORATH is president of Fred Morath Direct Marketing in Natick, MA.
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