10 years ago, postcards used to work really well. These days they still work but the returns are minimal. This is happening because an average consumer in the US and Canada receives 153 pieces of junk physical mail every month.
 
It is important to understand that it is not just your practice which is sending out postcards –  furniture retailers, credit card companies, banks and lenders all send out physical mail.
 
No wonder the response rates on direct mail are less than 1%. This means that for every 200 postcards you send out, only 1-2 people will take action. The rest of the postcards unfortunately end up in the trash.
 
Ask yourself, how many times have to paid close attention to physical mail.
 
However, if you would still like to continue sending out postcards, there is a way to increase their effectiveness.
 
Many dental offices get their marketing team or the office manager to create the postcards once and use them for 3-10 years. In other words, they use the exact same offer and copy in every single postcard they sent out. It could be a free consult, a free teeth whitening session, 10% off first visit etc. – the point is that they don’t rotate their offers.
 
I would suggest creating 3-5 different offers and sending out 1 of these offers to people within a 10 mile radius (no more) of where your office is physically located in Month 1.
 
In Month 2, you switch to the second offer and send out postcards for that offer only and so on.
 
This strategy benefits you in a couple of ways:
 

• You are rotating offers so your audience can respond to the new offer they might potentially like.

 

• Since you are using different words, images and colors with the new offer, you are standing out.

 

• People simply like variety.

 

• You will know which offer is showing the best response if you track it for 6 months.

 
Here’s another important tip.
 
For each unique postcard offer, tell people to call a different number to avail it.
 
This will tell you exactly which postcard and offer has the most “pull” with your audience.
 
You can easily get new phone numbers for cheap at CallRail.com.
Action: Ask your marketing team to create 3-5 offers to be sent out as postcards using different colors and images. Ask them to track the results over a 6 month period and you will see what ad is bringing in the most business.