Ever used a holiday promotion for your business?

Even a company that sells business to business can benefit from a creative campaign that is executed with sound criteria.

Sarah Kicinski, Vice President of PostcardMania, shared information with me about her company’s Valentine’s Day campaign and how she helped her client’s with their marketing efforts.

In 2012, PostcardMania put together a Valentine’s Day postcard marketing package to encourage clients to keep up with their postcard mailing strategy. In addition to thanking their loyal clients, PostcardMania wanted to use the campaign to strengthen their social media presence. The package included a Valentine’s Day card, wax lips, and a wax mustache.

The special offer was a free copy of the company’s CEO Joy Gendusa’s book, The Ultimate Postcard Marketing Success Manual, for any recipient who posted a picture of themselves, wearing the wax lips and mustache, on their Facebook wall.

They sent the package out to 500 of their top clients and this is what happened:

Social Media Results:
Received 20 new “Likes” for their Facebook page during the week of Valentine’s Day with 18 clients who posted their wax lips and mustache pictures on the page. They also got 3 thank you emails.

Revenue Generated:
Of the 500 clients, 68 placed new orders during the week of Valentine’s Day. Their 68 orders generated $120,637 of revenue for the postcard company.  Raw materials for the campaign, including the production of the cards, purchase of the wax lips and mustaches, and postage, cost only $3000.

I don’t know how much of that is incremental, since she didn’t say what a typical week’s revenues are, but still, this sounds pretty impressive. 

Lessons learned? A strong house list of your best customers really pulls.  A clever 3-D mailer, with clear direction to take a photo of yourself and post it on our Facebook page, gets the Social Media buzz going.

Memorable. Fun. Interactive. And I’m assuming from her descriptions, that the clients who bought postcards from them went on to additional marketing success. Kinda makes you want to do your own postcard plus clever holiday tie-in mailer to your customers, doesn’t it?

Sarah has three suggestions to keep in mind with holiday marketing using postcards:

1. First, the early bird gets the worm, and the early marketer gets the customer. Start your postcard mailing early, so your prospects have repeated exposure to your offers by the peak of the holiday excitement. The more they see your offers, the more likely they are to accept them.
2. Next, make sure you have a creative special offer featured on your postcard — especially if your business isn’t directly relevant to the holiday, like flowers and jewelry. You want to engage your prospects’ interest with an attractive offer presented in a way that is relevant to the holiday buzz. For instance, a dentist can offer a discount on teeth whitening before Valentine’s Day. It’s a relevant service, made attractive with a special discount.
3. Finally, social media is a great tool during holidays. You can use social media during holidays to fortify your postcard marketing message, or you can use your postcards to strengthen your online presence. You can fuel the buzz and excitement amongst online followers by posting on holiday specific topics, which will make your postcards more effective once they reach them. You can also encourage online interaction on your postcards with a social media related call to action. This will bolster your online presence and lead to even more marketing benefits down the road.

If you enjoyed hearing this case study, you might enjoy more case studies from PostcardMania.

Editor’s note: This was a guest blog post interview. While I don’t usually accept guest posts, Sarah and her staff did all the leg work to pull together this case study that I think will be of interest to the readers of Branding & Marketing. So readers, now’s your chance. Was this blog post helpful and interesting to you? Leave a comment below.