Including an offer on your postcard accounts for as much as 20% of the postcard’s success. This being the case, the content to be added to the offer must be considered carefully. We’ve observed that a high percentage of slow-start mailings where the phone calls aren’t coming in as soon as expected include one of two offers.

1. A generic free consultation that provides no value (as it is generic), or
2. A large ticket offer that scares most callers off because of unknown value.

Most of the fault of these two types of offers is the lack of quality content on the offer. After evaluating and testing best practices on these offers, we’ve learned how to optimize an offer to make it perform better. The three tactics to improve an offer are:

1. Include details of the consultation like how many items are covered in the consultation. In the comparison example below we first included a “16 Point Treatment Consultation” to let the reader know that there is a solid plan covered in the consultation, thus creating some value.
2. Come up with a headline that inspires the desire to learn more. The headline we added first stands out against the rest of the offer’s content, then makes a play to get educated on “their health” thus building desire.  
3. Include the cash value of the offer. Finally, in this example, as we knew the value of the consultation, we included it to drive home the fact that this offer has real value from which the reader can benefit.

Compare the before and after offers and see if you agree that more information is better than less:

We’ve mailed millions of cards exclusively for dental practices. Monitoring the responses of these cards has taught us a lot about customer needs, such as which designs and offers perform best. You can rest assured that the design of your postcard will also be an effective tool to get new patients.  Contact DentalMarketing.net for more information on how our custom postcard designs and experience in dental direct mail marketing can improve the offers for your next campaign!

Daniel Felsted, Designer

NOTE: Often, there is an issue in getting enough information from a practice beforehand to create an optimized offer. So be proactive and have ideas for your offer prior to designing your card!  We can help!