1.  Double check your mailing list.  Are you mailing to a viable group of prospects?  Are the mailing addresses correct?  Are you getting cards returned from the post office for bad addresses?   In direct mail marketing, nothing is more important than your list.  If your list is no good, for any number of reasons, then no mailing piece can work.

2.  Direct marketing pros send multiple offers to different sub-groups of prospects.  For instance, if you are mailing a single HO postcard to all prospects, send out several different HO postcards to the various prospects on your list.  Then compare the results for each sub-group.  Continue testing with different postcards until you find the card that works best for you.  Then once you find a winner, keep testing every few months, to see if you can better it.

3.  Consider sending the jumbo postcards instead of the smaller versions.  They cost a bit more to mail, but are worth it to see if it will help to improve your results. 

4.  Are you sending out enough postcards?  Mailing a small number of bi-weekly cards may not be enough to generate the results you seek.

5.  Are you following up with phone calls?  If you have a one-to-four week gap between mailings, you should have plenty of time to make a telemarketing call to your card recipients (when allowed by the FTC’s Do-Not-Call regulations.  Visit www.ftc.gov for details).

6.  If you are printing the cards yourself -- are you using a good COLOR printer and quality paper?

7.  Are you sending a postcard only once to a prospect?  In direct mail, it’s been said that it takes from 3 to 9 mailings before a prospect gets interested.  That’s what’s nice about postcards.  They are relatively easy and low-cost to send out multiple times to the same individual or small business.

8.  Are you sending cards often enough?  A good rule of thumb is to send a postcard to the same prospect no more than once a month, but no less than once a quarter.  In a short time, you'll discover your own ideal mailing schedule.  Keep in mind that this schedule varies by the type of product that's being marketed and your target audience.

9.  Are you deleting bad addresses from your mailing list?  Do so promptly when the post office sends back a card as undeliverable.

10.  Be patient.  There are no easy shortcuts in marketing.  If you stop believing in what you’re doing after only a few weeks, you won’t have the endurance that’s needed to succeed.  Marketing is and always has been a long-term (and highly profitable) endeavor!