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3 Proven Headline Techniques to Boost Your Direct Selling Postcard Response Rates

Without a doubt, postcards are an effective tool for marketing your direct selling business. Whether you are recruiting, or retailing your products and services, postcards have the ability to attract the attention of your prospect more effectively than standard regular mail.

Not only does a postcard attract the attention of your prospect, but postcards are far less expensive both to print and mail than standard letters. In this article, you are going to learn three proven and simple headline techniques that will increase your response rates (of course you have to implement these techniques for it to work).

Let,s first look at the attention grabbing power of a postcard. The fact is, when you get your mail from the mailbox today, what's the first thing you will do? Before you even get back to the door of your house, you will sift through the mail and you WILL look at the postcards you received.

Why do people look at postcards first? Because postcards are easy to see. Postcards don't require your prospect to open an envelope, unfold a letter and read a long page of writing to decide if the message is interesting or relevant. Interestingly, the majority of people do the same thing with their mail. The postcard is powerfully effective in immediately getting your undivided attention, at least for several moments. Most of the time, that's more than standard direct mail letters get.

One secret I learned many years ago, that most people in the Direct Selling Industry seem to overlook, is the fact the postcards maximize the number of people that actually read your offer. Postcard prospecting is effective in cutting through all the marketing clutter of the mail a person receives. Plus, postcards will preserve your bottom line when compared to other marketing methods, making postcards a very economical method of marketing.

But getting a great return on investment is not magical and does not happen automatically. Whether you are using postcards for promoting your upcoming direct selling home party, or you are promoting a core product your company has, you will find you will need to implement a few techniques. You can boost your response rates by making sure you are implementing the following 3 proven headline techniques.

1. Your Headline Must Attract Curiosity Seeking Attention

A proven technique for boosting your postcard response rates is to attract the attention of your prospect, so they will want to read more. This is accomplished through both your graphic elements and your headline text.

These two key elements should not only attract your prospect's attention, but must also create curiosity in the mind of your prospect so they will want to seek out more information about what you are offering. We are all naturally curious and curiosity causes us to want to read more.

If the graphic or headline grabs your attention, you'll want to read everything it has to say, so flipping over the postcard to see what's on the other side is a very natural thing to do.

Remember, curiosity basically is that desire to want to learn or know more. So when you create your headline and graphics, make certain you pique the curiosity of your prospect. This can be accomplished by focusing empathetically on one core benefit of what you offer.

2. Your Message Needs to Create a Sense of Urgency

Another proven technique is to create a sense of urgency in your headline. Statistics prove that people are bombarded daily with 1000s of marketing messages each and every day. Your prospects, when going through their mail, often have a preoccupation of thought. For this reason, you must not only create the curiosity, but you NEED to create a sense of urgency that will stand out in your prospect's mind and make them want to learn more right now.

This is accomplished through using simple but high-impact words within your headline text. Again, you are attempting to grab the attention of your prospect so they focus on your marketing piece right at that moment.

The key is to use no more than 6 or 7 high-impact words. Plus, you will need to use a short transitional phrase that causes the prospect to want to read more right at that very moment. Your attention grabbing headline should create curiosity to an urgency level that makes your prospect say, "I have to read this NOW!" - Causing the prospect to turn the postcard over to get the rest of your message.

3. Your Graphic Must Reinforce Your Headline Message

One mistake most marketers make is they misunderstand the fact their graphical image must reinforce the headline message they have on their postcard. So, they end up having a graphic image just to have a graphic image. Or, the graphic is sending a different message than intended.

A proven technique for boosting response rates is to use photographs instead of illustrated drawings. These photos need to connect with your target audience's mind and reinforce your headline message. The fact that statistics prove people trust pictures more than drawings, it is important to use photographs instead of illustrated drawings.

In addition, action pictures are very effective and can further enhance the effectiveness when the picture touches the emotional hot buttons of your prospect. This can be accomplished either through showing the pleasure or eliminating the pain. Make sure to focus on the benefits and not the features.

Here is a simple exercise that can help you further understand the power of the graphics and headlines in attracting the attention of the recipient. Over the next few weeks, when you go through your mail, save all the postcards. Then once you have 10-15 postcards, take some time to study them.

Pay attention to what attracts your attention. What grabbed your attention? What did not? Look at how the marketers use the postcard headline and graphics to their marketing advantage. Which postcards did you like? Write down your thoughts.

Then ask 2-3 friends or colleagues to review the same set of postcards and answer the same type of questions as you did. Have them share their thoughts with you. This exercise will help you better understand what other people see and how they respond. All of this information can be very useful to helping you to improve your own postcards.

TIP - For a extra bonus in the above exercise, be sure to toss in one of your company's postcards (or your own) into the mix for others to review.

Remember, postcards don't require your prospect to open an envelope, unfold a letter and read a long page of writing to decide if the message is interesting or relevant. Postcards are economical and effective for virtually any business, including direct selling, network marketing, and mlm. Apply the above headline techniques in developing your postcards for your marketing and you will experience improved response rates in your next mailing of those postcards.

Article Source: http://www.dummiesguideto.com

Jeff Zalewski is a Certified Training Consultant & CEO of Direct Selling Academy, Inc., your training & performance improvement resource. Jeff intertwines his knowledge & in-the-field experience throughout his training and performance improvement resources. Subscribe FREE to his Direct Selling Pro eNewsletter at www.directsellingacademy.com

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