Monday Morning Quick Tip – Postcards Aren’t The Only Item That Can Carry Your Horsebiz Message

Last Friday’s 52 Fridays post about creative ways to use postcards in marketing your horsebiz turned out to be a 5-star favorite – thanks to all the readers who shared their own tips and thoughts on the topic of postcard marketing! However, those aren’t the only collateral items that can carry your marketing messages to the masses.

One option that dropped into my email inbox recently is from Vistaprint, an online company that puts printing on everything from business cards to bumper stickers. I used to get my business cards through Vistaprint when they first started, and I’ve been thinking about giving them a try again.

The option they sent to me is t-shirt printing; they were doing a promo on ‘one white t-shirt free’ which I just might take them up on to see what the quality is like. Here are Vistaprint’s Top 5 suggestions for using t-shirts in a business.

 

There are other sites for getting t-shirts printed, such as Zazzle and Cafepress. Are there any online printing websites you’ve used? Share your experience (good OR bad) via the Comments link below.

Vistaprint’s email also included lots of specials and freebies; I’m able to ‘mail this offer to a friend’ so if you’d like a copy of that email passed along to you for some good savings on printed marketing collateral, send me a message via the Comments link and I’ll forward the email to you. Your request and email address won’t be made public.

One postcard comment over the weekend mentioned the ins & outs of actually mailing the postcards, and the design considerations along the way if you’re going to mail them; in looking over Vistaprint’s site, it turns out they have an option for mailing the postcards for you, including getting a bulk postage rate, and mailing lists you can buy; here’s a 6-page guide to postcard marketing from their website, which has very good tips and ideas even if you don’t order your postcards through them.

As with any marketing tactic, it’s essential to tie strategy to your goals. What do you want to accomplish? That’s the question to ask first, before you order any printed merchandise.

Did you enjoy this article or find it useful? Please take 5 seconds and scroll up to the top to give this article a score, from Very Poor (hope it’s not at that end of the scale!) to Excellent, via the new Rate This tool right under the title (hint, look for the stars!). You can also share your thoughts and experiences on the topic via the Leave a Comment link in the grey box below.

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This article and the site contents are copyright Lisa Kemp and Kemp Equine, all rights reserved. Brands and trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Content may be linked to from your site or social media, but not copied, in whole or in part, without prior permission. It’s also good karma, and good ethics, to give source credit. Thanks.

52 Fridays – #32 Postcards: Something To Write Home About When It Comes To Horsebiz Marketing

52 Fridays is a year-long series for equestrian professionals and equine business owners and managers, with marketing and public relations information, ideas, tips, & resources shared here each Friday. New EMAIL blog subscribers receive a ’52 Fridays’ PDF when they sign up; existing subscribers and new RSS FEED & WORDPRESS subscribers can send a request for their own PDF here.

I really like postcards as a piece of marketing ‘collateral’ and a multi-use tool; here’s why….

Marketing collateral is the term for the various types of promotional information used to inform potential customers about a product or service. Traditionally this has referred to printed matter such as brochures and mailers, but really the term collateral can include anything from your business cards and letterhead to signage for your tradeshow booth or horseshow stall row.

Postcards are great because they’re easy to design, inexpensive to purchase, and have lots of uses that you might not think of:

• Bookmarks
• Thank-you notes, whether mailed or included in a shipping box
• Large-scale business cards
• Background on tradeshow booths or stall walls (think ‘red carpet backdrops’)
• Collector series (like baseball cards – feature different horses, products, or other images from your horsebiz)
• Multi-use promotion (print card one-sided, then use stickers or stampers for custom information on the 2nd side)
• Folder covers (glue-stick ‘em on) for your media kits or special event information
• Taped to the outside of shipping boxes
• Quick & easy identification on a rented golf cart
• Coupons or gift certificates

For most of these uses, I’m referring to one-sided printing, with the unprinted side a flat (not glossy) paper stock. Glossy is great for the printed side, and make it a WOW image or design that includes your business name and website URL. But keep it simple and not overly promotional to get the most flexibility from it.

Does this list get your creative spark going? What other uses can YOU think of? Share some of them in the Comments below! And be sure to Rate This article up above (hint, look for the rating ‘stars’ – if you don’t see ‘em, click on the blog post title to go directly to the page for this post, where the stars will then show up).

Postcards are a great way to stretch a marketing budget and show off your creativity; for even more details and tips on using postcards as marketing tools, here’s a No Biz Like Horsebiz post from December 2010.

Share your 52 Fridays-inspired success stories or marketing tactics via the Leave a Comment link below. See you here next Friday for 52 Fridays #33!

Read other posts by clicking on the Sort Posts By Topic dropdown menu to the right and selecting a category, or you can select 52 Fridays to read posts #1 through #31.

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This article and the site contents are copyright Lisa Kemp and Kemp Equine, all rights reserved. Content may be linked to from your site or social media, but not copied, in whole or in part, without prior permission. It’s also good karma, and good ethics, to give source credit. Thanks.