Printed postcards are probably the most economical form of printed advertising since the introduction of ink and paper.

Postcards can be printed in just about any size. Size can be a function of how much information you need to fit on the postcard. You may want to tailor your message to fit on a small postcard if you are economizing (smaller postcards do cost less to print and to mail). Usually the front side of a postcard is the attention-grabber. Remember that people get a lot of mail, both at home and at the office, and your postcard needs to stand out in order to work for you.

The back side is traditionally where you present a little more detail. You need to be concise, however; remember that you have to leave room for the address of your recipient as well as some space for postal handling, so your message needs to get to the point. (We’ll get into post office requirements for postcards in a later article.)

You also need to make it easy for the person who receives your postcard to take action, which usually means contacting you by phone, email, or web site. (If you can fit all three contact points on your postcard, that’s great.)

If you plan to personalize your postcards, have them printed with glossy finish on one side to highlight the product or service you want to feature, and leave the other side uncoated so it can be written on by hand or printed on by a desktop printer without smudging. Of course, you can have your postcards printed on paper that is uncoated on both sides, for a certain effect. But the important thing is to leave the back side of the postcard uncoated if it is to be mailed.

Postcards can be personalized in several ways – some more personal than others. For example: if you have, say, less than a hundred people you want to send your postcard to, you can use a desktop printer and database to print the name and address information, leaving enough room on the back of the card for you to sit down and write a quick note to each recipient.

(Variable data is another way of personalizing larger quantities – more on variable data in a future article.)

If you really want to give your postcards the complete personal touch, you can write a note and hand-address each card-but beware of wrist strain.

If you have a database of hundreds or thousands of recipients, as most of us do, hand-addressing and/or writing a note on each one isn’t feasible; but there are a lot of tricks you can use to make a postcard look personalized, even if it isn’t. We will talk more about that in a future article.

Another great thing about postcard printing is that postcards are printed on cover stock, which makes them tough enough to stand up to the rigors of post office handling, and still look stunning when they arrive in your recipients’ mailboxes.

Author Bio: Bailey Stone writes extensively on the subject of postcard printing and the use of printed postcards and other material for business promotion and sales. Visit his company’s web site at http://www.colorprintingcentral.com

Category: Business
Keywords: postcard printing, printed postcards