Wouldn’t it be great to travel to the future?

Our bodies can’t, but our minds definitely can…

And when it comes to direct mail marketing, they definitely should!

Planning ahead will not only help you create the best campaign possible, but help you do so without pulling your hair out about getting your materials out on time!

Read on for my simple formula for planning a STRESS-FREE, uber-effective direct mail campaign…

Get out your calendar! (You can use a flip calendar or your phone or tablet — any calendar will do!)

You see…

Postcard marketing is like chess:

You should always be thinking three moves ahead!

When you schedule your campaigns in advance:

1. You don’t feel rushed and stressed out about deadlines (and neither does your designer!)
2. You have time to make sure you get EXACTLY the postcard you want
3. You can actually focus on running your business

In this “game,” each “move” should be one month.

That means:

If you’re thinking about marketing for your Valentine’s Day special, you should start planning it by Thanksgiving.

Seriously!

Take Christmas, for example.

If you start mailing to prospects in the beginning of November, you’ll have time to reach them multiple times and cement your business in their minds before they make all their holiday purchases.

But if you wait until late November or early December to start mailing, you won’t have time to do multiple mailings.

And to get those first postcards out at the beginning of November, that campaign should be well under way by October.

Mind you:

One mailing is better than none, but to generate the best return on your investment (and who doesn’t want to do that?), you need to hit your prospects multiple times.

So keep your calendar handy and flip ahead. The day you finish one mailing, schedule the next one!

Here’s the thing:

Most business owners do their own marketing.

Luckily, marketing is one of the few things you can do far in advance!

By scheduling your holiday promotions well ahead of time, you give yourself time to do all of the other tasks required of you to keep your business chugging along during the busy season!

To me, the easiest way to plan in advance is to work backward.

Do you have your calendar ready? Good!

Now, here’s that marketing formula I mentioned:

The first step is to select your “hit date,” or the day your prospects receive your postcard.

On that day on your calendar, mark “Mail hits.”

Next:

Go back four days on the calendar — not including Sundays or holidays (when the Post Office is closed) — and mark “Mail drop.” This the day your mail house needs to drop off your postcards at the Post Office.

You see where I’m going with this?

Here are the seven dates you want to mark on your calendar:

1. Choose target market and get mailing list count
2. Place order for quantity of postcards needed (1 and 2 can usually be done on the same day)
3. Design complete and approved
4. Printing complete
5. Lists processed and postage paid
6. Mail addressed and dropped at Post Office
7. Mail hits

And this is important:

Make sure your direct mail provider knows and agrees to your deadlines!

At PostcardMania, we guarantee three to five business days for a full design to be delivered for approval. This is pretty quick by industry standards, but it works for my brilliant team of designers!

Does all of that make sense? Shoot me an email at Joy.Gendusa@PostcardMania.com if you have questions about how to schedule your mailings, or you can always call my marketing consultants at 800-628-1804 (it’s FREE).

Best,
Joy

*This article was adapted from my book, Postcard Marketing in an Online World.