12 Reasons to Market With Postcards

If your marketing activity doesn't include postcards, you're overlooking a highly effective and very low-cost sales tool. Here are 12 of the many reasons postcards should be part of your marketing program...

1. Postcards Work for Any Business

Postcards can produce all kinds of sales activity for all types of businesses. For example, they can produce web site traffic for online marketers, floor traffic for retail stores, sales leads for direct marketers ...and just about any other type of sales activity a business wants.

2. Designing Postcards is Simple and Uncomplicated

Designing an effective postcard is not complicated. It can be as simple as printing your best small ad on a 4 x 6 card and sending it to a list of potential prospects. Postcards usually work best when the message is brief and the postcard looks at first glance like a message from friend.

3. Printing Postcards is Easy and Inexpensive

You can print postcards with your own computer for about 1 or 2 cents each ...or have them printed professionally for about 4 to 8 cents each.

4. There's a Special Low Postage Rate for Postcards

You can send any quantity of postcards by First Class Mail in the US for only 23 cents each. The only requirement is that your postcards must be at least 3 1/2 x 5 inches but no larger than 4 1/4 x 6 inches.

5. Postcards Nearly Always Get Read

Because postcards are delivered "ready to read", almost everybody will read it - even people who usually throw out other types of direct mail without opening it.

6. Postcards Produce Fast Results

Because postcards are simple and easy to use - they produce results fast. You can mail postcards within a few days of deciding to use them ...and you'll start getting sales activity 2 or 3 days later

7. Postcards are effective for Generating Web site Traffic

One of the most effective postcard formats simply lists a few benefits of a product or service on the card and tells the reader to where they can get more information. This makes them ideal for generating traffic to a web site.

8. Postcard Multiply Themselves

Postcards are like small billboards - and they are easy to handle. They often get saved by recipients or passed on to others ...providing additional exposure of your advertising message.

9. Markets Can Be Precisely Targeted With Postcards

You can accurately target your best markets by sending postcards only to mailing lists of prospects likely to be interested in what you're offering ...and who also have a history of acting on offers that interest them.

10. Postcard Marketing Results Are Easy To Measure

Postcards normally generate over 90 percent of their total response within 7 to 10 days. This enables you to quickly and accurately evaluate the results of a postcard campaign.

11. Postcards Put You in Control of Your Sales Activity

You can quickly boost (or reduce) your sales activity anytime you want by simply regulating the number of postcards you mail and how often you mail them.

12. Postcards Conceal Your Marketing from Competitors

Most advertising uses mass media where your competitors hear or see what you are doing - and copy it. Postcard marketing is personal. Only you and your prospects are aware of what you are doing.

Postcards may be one of the best kept secrets of modern marketing. They're highly effective, very low-cost, simple to use ...and they work for any business. You're overlooking a profitable marketing tool if don't use them.

Startup Companies

Startup companies are a dream of individuals and institutional investors. Along with lower sustenance costs and a high potential of return on investment, startup companies also provide more scalability than an established business. In spite of the high failure rate associated with startup companies, their potential to grow with minimal resources and scalability to direct the growth in any direction has made them a popular investment choice. However, the intellectual property of startup companies plays an important role in deciding the value of the company. While 75% of the value of a public company is based on its intellectual property, 100% of the value of a startup depends on its intellectual property. This dependency of investor enthusiasm on the intellectual property has forced startup companies to look for newer ways to raise capital such as direct registration, reverse mergers, self registration etc.

Reverse merger is a cheaper and faster counterpart of IPO. When an existing public company becomes inactive and has any assets meeting with the exchange requirements, it may continue to be traded on a stock exchange. However, a company with no assets is normally traded in the OTCBB (Over the Counter Bulletin Board) or in the Pink sheets. A startup company may buy such "shell"s and continue to use the trading public stock. Though this is the fastest way to go public, it also had its share of disadvantages such as the new company stock trading without complete disclosure. In order to prevent abuse of the reverse merger option, the SEC review process mandates the submission of a Form-8K within four days of the merger. Since this was no different that issuing a public offering, the startup companies were now forced to find better alternatives.

Direct registration is a process where startup companies issuing the shares hold the shares, and the buyer is identified as the owner of the shares. Direct registration refers to registering the buyer's name in the books of the company and can be done by directly purchasing shares from the company. While similar to owning paper certificates, it also reduces the burden of paperwork. However, a minor disadvantage is that the shares cannot be sold at any time. Since the shares have been bought from the company, the share selling may happen once at the end of the day, week or month.

Despite their advantages, the aforementioned approaches are expensive. Self registration with the SEC is a cost-efficient alternative. This can be done by meeting the reporting requisites of the SEC review process. This way, the investor confidence in the shares increases. Moreover, registration with SEC is a better choice since unregistered companies are allowed to trade only on Pink sheets and other OTC forums.

From small businesses to enormous corporations, all successful businesses began with business plans.

Benefits of Building a Corporate Image

Corporate image is seen as one important factor that can influence the effectiveness of marketing. Therefore it is very feasible if the image is seen as one of the most important asset owned by a company or organization.

According to Zinkhan There are several reasons underlying the importance of companies establishing and managing the company's image, namely:

1. Can stimulate sales.
2. Company can build a good name.
3. Build an identity for its employees.
4. Affect investors and financial institutions.
5. Promote good relations with a community, with the government, with community leaders and with the opinion leaders.
6. Get a position in the competition.