Marketing Information
 |
/ Articles / Postcard Marketing / Plain Vanilla Postcards That M...
"I thought that you'd like to hear a success story from using the ordinary postcards that you can purchase from the Post Office. "I was a medical professional recruiter in the early 1980's stationed in Iowa City, Iowa. "I had a huge area to cover. The entire state of Iowa, a little of Wisconsin, and a slight chunk of Illinois. My job was to find, interview, and submit applications for Registered Nurses interested in enhancing their medical careers working for the federal government. "I covered thousands of square miles, and when I did find a med professional interested in working for us, it took sometimes over 4 months for their application to be reviewed and acted upon by Washington. "I was always looking for ways to stay in touch and keep them updated (interested) on their applications' progress. I wrote letters (took to much time to fill the pages with news), sent them clippings from articles that I thought they would enjoy (lots of time reading industry related literature...) I had 11 specialties that I recruited for in the medical profession and also sent simple, non-fancy, franked postcards purchased from the Post Office just to say 'hi'. "These cards were a huge hit. It was an easy matter to call my home office, check up on my applicant's status, and if the Nurse was not home for a phone call with the news, then I would drop them a postcard about their application and its winding location through the system. "I always had 15 to 20 postcards flowing through the mails to numerous cities throughout my area at any one time. The cost to me was nothing, except a few minutes of my time writing that I was still there for them, and that I was thinking of them." Martha here. Pardon me while I jump into Jim's story for a moment, but you may be wondering what a "franked postcard" is. Well, it's a postcard that has a stamp pre-printed on it, and the U.S. Postal Service still sells them. Now, let's return to Jim Ehle's story about his days as a medical professional recruiter: "[M]y success, because of the cards and personal contact they helped me to maintain, gave me the highest overall placement rate for my profession for the entire time that I stayed in this demanding job. "I cannot tell you the number of times that the Nurses would tell me that they would be looking for the mail every week or so, and would be excited about the 'simple' post card that they 'hoped' would be waiting for them when they picked up their mail. "Some even took them to work and showed their coworkers how thoughtful 'Their' recruiter was. "My cards keep them alive with hope, and anticipation that their new adventure would soon begin. I even got a few big hugs and more then one kiss from these hard working professionals for remembering them with my cards." On a Personal Note... Jim Ehle's story brings back some wonderful memories. Back in the summer of 1980, after I had been laid off from my first post-college job, I decided to get on my bicycle and go exploring. Between June 1980 and June 1982, I pedaled nearly 11,000 miles through the United States and Canada. My travels through the upper Mississippi River valley went through an area that looked very much like the Rhine River valley in Germany. This is especially true around Jim Ehle's hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin, which I visited in 1980. While riding along the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi, I discovered the obscure sport of racing freight trains. I'd see a train chugging along, and would flash a big grin at the engineer. Then I'd start pedaling furiously. The engineer would play along with my game and let me get ahead. Then, when the train reached a straightaway, it would pick up speed and leave me in the dust. Well, Martha and her loaded touring bike were certainly no match for a speeding locomotive, but, hey, I had a good time. And those engineers would always wave as they passed me by. Okay, so you're probably wondering what this has to do with postcards, and my answer is, "Quite a lot." First of all, financial necessity forced me to travel on a pretty slim budget. Which meant that I couldn't afford to buy picture postcards and fork out even more money for stamps. So I used those franked postcards that Jim Ehle used during his recruiting days. Being the frugal type, I squeezed as much news as I could onto each card. This prompted a lot of family jokes about needing a microscope to read my missives from the road. If you've ever been around bicycle tourists, you know that we are quite weight-conscious when it comes to the loads we carry. After all, we have to pedal that stuff up and down hills all day long! But there are some things that we just have to bring along, no matter how much they weigh. My favorite heavy object was my 35mm camera, which I used to record my travels. Well, a lot of those trip photos have ended up on my postcards, including the card I sent last month. It featured a stand of ocotillo cactus from Agua Caliente Park, in San Diego County, California. That card will be soon featured in a Postcard Marketing In Action case study. About that CD... At the beginning of his story, Jim Ehle mentioned the Postcard Marketing Value Pack on CD. It's available for purchase in The Passionate Postcarder Store. If you're like me and have a habit of dropping things, you'll be relieved to know that the Postcard Marketing Value Pack CD comes in an unbreakable case. It's perfect for postcarders on the go! If you'd rather not wait for a CD to be delivered, then you can purchase and download the Value Pack right now! Both the CD and the downloadable Value Packs include the following e-books: Postcard Marketing Secrets, 2nd Edition Resources for Postcard Marketers Postcard Marketing Master Class How To Make a Powerful Postcard You can also purchase these e-books individually. Martha Retallick, "The Passionate Postcarder," hails from Tucson, Arizona, USA. She is the author of Postcard Marketing Secrets, a downloadable PDF manual will show you how to put postcards to work for your business—profitably. Learn more about it at: http://www.PostcardMarketingSecrets.com | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Concept Marketing Group, Inc.