Post Card Set-Up – What you NEED to know that the USPS won’t tell you!

When I’m asked what I recommend actors use as their best and most effective marketing follow up tool, the postcard is the simple answer. And yet still the majority of actors don’t use them! Why? Did you HEAR they’re not effective, read, or looked at with any real “notice” given? Sure, anything anyone says that takes the WORK out of what you have to do will be easier than doing it, so HEAR this now:

YOU MUST POSTCARD, often, all of your contacts, to create on-going relationships. How often? That’s another story for another time. This entry is just about the 1st step…the set up. Put your picture, the SAME picture that you use as your primary headshot, on the postcard.  My strategy is to use one and only one headshot, the same headshot in ALL of your marketing materials as traditional advertisers will tell you it takes 8 to 15 exposures to something before it registers, i.e. – cuts through the clutter.

Next goes your contact info. On the FRONT, within your picture or on a border, simply put your name, email and contact phone number…but DON’T put it across the bottom as many actors do. Why? Notice in the example that the lovely USPS stamps a bar code (often affixing a label first on “glossy” finishes) which then covers up your info! They sometimes do this on BOTH sides. Why? I really don’t know the answer to that one but I’m assuming it has something to do with routing and addresses and such. Regardless, having your info somewhere within the pic, off to the side perhaps, but still readable and visible, makes you reachable!

The back is blank for the addressing and the info you want to communicate…oh yes, and the all important stamp…costing LESS MONEY than sending regular 1st class mail. So, NO, I don’t recommend putting your postcard in an envelope…though others may say different. Hey, don’t you want to save money on postage and use it to send MORE postcards to MORE contacts??? Just sayin’.  And, if’ you’d like to have all of this post carding automated, call my friend Bones Rodriguez (a MASTER marketer and working actor himself) for info on Send Out Cards.  917-450-7925

What do you have to say? Have a comment or strategy of your own to share? I’d love to hear it! Enjoy and learn, Lisa Gold