Your own personal Co-op, coupon pack.

Assume your marketing plan calls for you to promote your business using a 5,000 per month mailing in Val-Pak or a similar coupon deck to create some sales, but you wonder if there's a more effective approach.

Maybe there is another way. Have you thought about making use of stand-alone, first-class postcards? Would that work for you? There are lots of benefits to postcards. First, you can mail whatever day of the week or week of the month you want. Second, you can mail to any area, not just the one the coupon company spells out, so you can target more specifically.

Third, you can use a bigger size than their normal dollar bill size. That permits more copy and more copy does more convincing. Fourth, you don't have to hit their minimum quantity; you can mail as few as 500 (less probably makes no monetary sense). And most importantly, if you mail on your own, you're sure to get noticed instead of being buried in with 19 other coupons. So your response rate will always be higher.

The drawback is that standalone postcards cost more, around $.20 to $.30. But if you've got a good offer, plus follow Leads Source copy guidelines, you'll do fine -- assuming your average sale size is over $200.

Advertising approach
Use the same copy and graphic ideas you would on a co-op coupon. That is: 1. a list of specific problems or an offer of a popular service at a competitive price, 2. a few reasons to choose your business over competitors for the specific solution to the particular problem, and 3. a low-risk offer to try a small piece of your service.

Reduce Costs
Lower your cost by buying pre-postage postcards from the USPS. That way, you just pay for the postage and postcard is free. This could cut your cost because paper such a large component of the total price.

Results
A service provider mails 5,000 postcards per month at a cost of $1,150. The offer is a low cost evaluation. An average of 27 people respond (about ½%) with a typical sale size of nearly $600 each. Total income per mailing averages over $16,000. Return On Marketing Investment is 14:1. Not too bad!