The Art of Small Business Advertising

Saturday was mostly spent on the computer trying to bend Photoshop to my will. Luckily I have rudimentary knowledge of the photo editing program to get by. When all else fails I find YouTube tutorials to be of valuable help. My current challenge is to produce a set of three differently themed postcards for my first foray into the world of direct mail marketing. Initially I had looked into using the USPS Every Door Direct mass mailing program. This program would allow me to zero in on certain target neighborhoods based on Zip Codes and Postal Carrier Routs. Although this form of mail marketing is inexpensive and can reach a large audience, my target clientele consist of a rather small portion of the general public. Being on a shoe string marketing budget, I decided that this broad form of advertisement is better suited for future use, when the company has grown enough to undertake more encompassing advertising strategies. My industry keeps very detailed records of its users, to my relief and somewhat of a surprise, these records are easily obtainable if you know where to look. With these records, I am able to zero in on my target demographic with surgical precision. Hopefully, by marketing to individuals already engaged in my industry, I will leverage more bang for my meager buck. Armed with these records my gaze turned towards the USPS’s other business mail solutions. These solutions offer businesses to save money on bulk mailings, but require spending funds on setting up an account and applying for permits. The fee for the first year would have been $380, half every following year, not unreasonable if you will be dealing with large amounts of mail. I have to point out that I find the USPS website didn’t offer very clear guidance in regards to which of the options were better suited to me. It took several days for me to research what I think I needed only to later realize that wasn’t what I needed at all. One wonders why the United States Postal Service is going bankrupt! As fortune would have it, I had a not totally unrelated question that required me to speak directly to an employee at the USPS business bulk mail handling facility. It turned out that my needs didn’t call for a business permit after all, go figure. The solution was quite simple, by using postcards, I am going to spend far less on postage than I would on first class mail. Affixing a stamp purchased at retail to a postcard only incurs a 1 cent premium vs. having a business permit (I would have to send 38,000 postcards just to recoup the cost of permits). Keeping in mind that postcards have their set of design requirements be able to be sorted by the post office, I decided to design my own. Partially because I’d like to invest the money I could have spent hiring someone to design it for me on postage, and partially because I quite frankly enjoy the challenge. Here’s hoping that I have a good enough sense of aesthetics to pull off this advertising campaign. Wish me luck!