There are millions of small businesses operating in the United States today. If you want yours to stand out from the competition, you’ll need to make a lasting impression on the general public. You’ll have to convey a sense of excitement about the products or services that you offer and keep potential customers thinking about your brand long after they’ve stopped reading your ad copy. Postcard marketing can make an immediate impact on these potential customers while providing ongoing exposure for your brand.

Plenty of well-meaning business consultants argue that small businesses no longer need to invest in multiple streams of advertising. Nothing could be farther from the truth. When used in conjunction with other forms of advertising and promotion, postcard marketing can help reinforce your brand’s identity and expose your business to a widening circle of potential customers.

To be sure, your business needs an online presence to connect with local consumers searching for the services that you provide. Your website, blog or Facebook page can also act as a critical source of additional information for curious potential customers who hear about your business and want to learn more about it.

Unfortunately, maintaining your small business’s digital presence is likely to be exhausting and time-consuming. You’ll need to manage multiple social media feeds, update your website or blog, and ensure that your sites appear near the top of relevant Internet searches. By contrast, postcard marketing is fast, easy and devastatingly effective. There’s no better way to get an otherwise quiet entire neighborhood buzzing about your business in just a few short days.

Postcard marketing offers several key advantages over other forms of advertising. For starters, postcards are less ephemeral than the digital banners and tweets that tech-savvy businesses use to promote their products. Virtually everyone knows what a postcard looks like. What’s more, virtually everyone instinctively appreciates receiving one.

Think back to the last time that you received a postcard from a close friend. Whether it came from a faraway tropical island or a tourist attraction in your own city, chances are good that you were excited to receive it. You may have read it a couple of times and then placed it somewhere safe for future reference. It may even have earned a high-priority spot on your refrigerator or fireplace mantle. It’s unlikely that you would treat an e-mail or digital banner with the same care and respect.

The medium’s positive connotations ensure that most of your business’s postcards will stick around for a while. When one of your potential customers receives your postcard in the mail, he or she is liable to treat it like a greeting from an old friend. Compared to a piece of regular mail, your business’s postcard is far more likely to end up pinned to a bulletin board or stuck to a refrigerator where it can be seen multiple times daily.

In fact, your business’s postcards may function like miniature billboards. Each time your potential customers see them pinned up on their refrigerators or bulletin boards, they become more likely to take action and call the number or visit the website that you’ve displayed on the card. Each potential customer who takes action based on one of your postcards represents a chance for you to close a new sale and earn the trust of a new client.

Even if a potential customer chooses not to contact your business, you’ll nevertheless have succeeded in making an impression on them. After all, your prospect can’t deliberately ignore the postcard sitting in the mailbox. Even if he or she looks at the postcard and then chooses to toss it in the trash, your prospect will have interacted with your brand and been forced to take action one way or another. In the future, he or she may remember this interaction and choose to give your business another look.

There are two key services capable of dramatically boosting the efficiency of your small business’s postcard marketing operation. The USPS offers “Every Door Direct Mail” for businesses looking to send up to 5,000 individual pieces of mail to addresses in a specific ZIP code. Also known as EDDM, this service keeps mailing costs low by waiving the standard postage permit requirement. Of course, EDDM’s reach isn’t limited to the ZIP code in which you’re based. If your postcard marketing operation needs to target more than one ZIP code, the USPS can make it happen.

Your EDDM-expedited postcard marketing operation can be even more efficient with a series of targeted lists that identify your business’s most likely customers. These lists can be narrowed according to factors like demographics, lifestyle choices, hobbies and life events. If you’re looking to attract golf and tennis enthusiasts between the ages of 40 and 60 to your new store, a targeted list that combines information about your potential customers’ hobbies with key demographic insights can reduce the amount of postcards necessary to reach your desired number of quality leads. These days, the sheer amount of available information about your business’s potential customers makes building targeted lists for your postcard marketing operation a snap.

Despite its broad reach, postcard marketing is a highly flexible form of advertising. Unlike some other forms of media, postcards easily lend themselves to customization. You can choose from an array of eye-catching templates or customize your own card. Whether you’re looking to appeal to your potential customers’ whimsical side with light, colorful designs or take a more businesslike approach with a text-heavy card, your next custom postcard design is just a brainstorming session away.

Don’t wait another day to introduce your small business to a wide range of potential customers in your own backyard. Get ready to make your business the talk of the town! Call or click today to learn more about your organization’s postcard marketing options.