http://www.verticalresponse.com
For many SMBs, after Yellow Pages (and an attempt at ValPak), direct mail and email marketing takes the next chunk of our (so called) marketing expense (or as my friends call it - the risk money!).
Often, different vendors and services have to be used for print and email marketing. In most cases, the contacts we mail email/postcrd are indeed different. People often buy zone addresses for mailing postcards, while emails are the next step n the customer relationship - it goes to those we already know and trying to get them to come to our shop instead of the Other store!
In some case, a combined offering from a single vendor makes sense. Firstly, I hope to pay a bit less if both service are from single vendor. Next, the hassle of talking to two of these guys about something I am no expert takes the pride away from me - twice :-)
So, when I saw VerticalResponse.com offering Direct Mails in addition to email, I started checking them out.
The overall design is pretty lame.... having said that, it is still probably worth checking it out.
Their general approach to designing a postcard is that -'a picture is worth a thousand words' & 'you know your marketing catch phrase'
If indeed, you could select an appropriate photo (they claim to have 75,000 free stock photos). The images seems to be a subset from JupiterImages.com, whose yearly subscription starts at $1200. So, there is some value for these nice free stock photos. However, 75000 seems to be a small subset of the millions of photos at JupiterImages. So, if you are lucky to find a useful photo for your marketing promotion, you are good to go - mostly.
The next challenge is to make your text that you can type over the selected photo. It is easy enough to 'click anywhere on the photo' and enter your text. They have 75000 fonts - NOT! They provide a very limited set of 8 fonts. Making your text pretty to grab the attention between mail-box and trash-can - good luck with that!
Yeah! - screen shot from their tutorial, seem to be taken from a Apple computer - this is one luxury SMB owner!
They do support standard and extra large (6x9) postcards.
I don't see any obvious place to buy a list. They expect us to upload contacts - "contacts of who" I ask!
My favorite is the clever option to switch to black & white. Will be nice if the price difference and the effectiveness of using a B&W are made obvious up front.
Good Luck if you want to give this a try!
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