Learn what separates a winning direct mail piece from a dud
Joy Gendusa
To the untrained eye, a truly well-designed dental postcard-from a marketing standpoint-is not as easy to identify as you would think. Unless you know exactly what to look for, all you're really doing is evaluating it from a personal esthetic standpoint. In other words, "Is it attractive to me?" This is not a good way to decide on the design for your practice's marketing campaign. Sometimes really beautiful designs fall flat, and sometimes really ugly designs work like gangbusters.
But it's not random. There is a reason . . .
So in the interest of helping you improve your marketing, I'd like to provide you with 10 graphic elements that must be included on your card if you want the best chance of success.
These 10 elements are based on our experience delivering campaigns for more than 66,000 clients, of whom 4,367 (and counting!) are in the dental industry. They are:
1. Clear headline
2. Supporting graphic
3. Color that pops
4. Intriguing subheadings that lead into benefits
5. Benefits! (Not just features/services)
6. Enticing offer
7. Business name and logo
8. Call to action and/or expiration date for the offer
9. Contact information-website, map, phone number
10. Return address
Here are a few dental-industry specific elements that are common among our successful dental campaign database:
• Give variety. Featuring two to three offers per postcard works best.
• Be consistent. 88.6% of our successful dental campaigns mail a minimum of three times-that's a minimum of three times. (I like to repeat myself when it's super relevant!)
• Think ahead. Our most successful dental clients order 60,000 to 72,000 postcards at a time and mail out 10,000 to 18,000 every month.
Now let's turn our attention to some real postcard designs and play a little game: good postcard or bad postcard.
Round 1:
