10 Reasons Why Postcards Are An Effective Easter Outreach Tool

It is time to start thinking about your Easter outreach plans! One of the most effective tools you can use to reach out to your community are postcards. Thanks to the huge influx of emails and social media, there is less competition in people’s physical mailboxes – making direct mail postcard invitations an even better option for inviting people to church! Here are 10 reasons why postcards are a great choice for reaching out to your community this Easter.

1. Budget-Friendly

Direct mail can cost much less than many other forms of advertising, but it still allows you to reach large numbers of people in your community.  As a church with a non-profit postal permit you can use carrier-route, saturation mailing lists to get the absolute lowest rate available from the post office. Direct mail also provides you with total control over your budget, just scale the size of your mailing to your budget.  Click here to learn more about how direct mail works.

2. Broad Reach

Mail has a nearly 100% saturation rate, which means almost every home in America receives mail – even those who don’t use social media or are not tech savvy. And according to Gallup, 95% of Millennials say they “love” getting mail. So your church’s direct mail can find a way into every home.

3. Attention-grabbing design

As people sort through all the mail they receive, postcards can really stand out. They can have very attractive graphics, bright colors and shorter text length makes them easy and quick to read. When you send a promotional message, you obviously want people to see it. Email might be cheaper, but it’s easily ignored. Direct mail will, on the other hand, get read, or at least scanned. The Data & Marketing Association, formerly known as the Direct Mail Marketing Association, reveals that 42.2% of direct mail recipients read the material you send. Only 22.8% say they don’t read it at all.

And when you send out an eye-catching, attractive or creative postcard, the chance that your postcard is read goes up!  Outreach.com has hundreds of postcards designed for Easter and beyond and we’re happy to help you choose one that fits best with your needs.

4. Easy Customization

Gone are the days when you needed a graphic designer to create great postcards – now you can use easy, online editors to take a professional design and customize it just for your church. You have control of the invitational message, the service times, map and logo. Whatever message you want to convey, you can customize your card to make it clear and easy for recipients to respond, all online with a WYSIWYG editor. 

5. Target a well-defined audience

Direct mail takes the guesswork out of who to contact. You can use local zip codes to target people in the areas around your church or a specific demographic – like families with young children. So unlike other advertising mediums, you aren’t paying to reach people who are too far away to visit your church. Want to learn more about the people who live near your church? Click here and enter your church address. 

6. Multiple Uses

Direct mail lets people know your church is out there – and sending an invitation to a special event like Easter gives your neighbors a reason to visit. But you can use your postcard for more than just an invitation -here are a couple additional ideas: 

• Add a QR code and link postcard readers to a special web page, video message or free download.  This increases your engagement and the chance that people will give your church a try. 
• Offer a free gift as part of your invitation – a message like “bring this card for a free book” should improve your response rate and help you track who is responding to your postcard. 
• Postcards work beyond the mailbox too – have extras printed so you can use them as flyers in local businesses or give extras to your weekly attendees and ask them to hand them to neighbors. 

7. A competitive advantage

People encounter visual media (hello Google, Facebook, YouTube and Television) all day long. Statistics say the average person views over 4,000 advertising messages each day. That’s a lot of information to process – and a lot of information to ignore. 

Direct mail is a medium with extremely limited competition. On average the typical American home receives less than two promotional direct mail items a day* – and most of those won’t be church mailers, which means your church postcard will stand out.

The Direct Marketing Association does report that 56% of Americans consider receiving mail “a real joy.”

8. A lasting reminder

Most of today’s media messages are taken in at a glance and quickly forgotten. Remember that statistic about the average person receiving somewhere around 4,000 advertising messages per day? Imagine trying to actually remember all of those messages. Direct mail has the tendency to stick in people’s minds because your message has a physical reminder. 

• They’re personal and tactile, which makes them stand out in a digital world.
• People are more likely to keep them and refer back to them later.
• They provide a lasting reminder of the invitation long after the initial contact has been made.

If your card has good design and an encouraging message, it may just make it onto the family fridge or bulletin board.

9. Works well as part of a larger campaign

Church pastors who want to invite unchurched people to their Easter services can use direct mail postcards to great effect. A well-designed postcard can coordinate with your Easter theme which can then transfer to all your banners, bulletins, church décor, social media and website.  This will give your guests a great first impression and encourage them to attend your Easter services.

In fact, postcards work great in conjunction with Facebook ads too! The Outreach Everywhere program lets you mail a postcard to your community and then follows it up with online ads to the same areas- providing you with a physical and digital invite and reinforcing your message to the community! 

10. Part of a long-term Strategy

Direct mail is not necessarily a one-and-done method of marketing. Churches that do multiple mailings into their community every year get better results – they gain name recognition with their neighbors, and become a familiar “face” during the holidays and beyond. 

Direct mail postcard invitation to unchurched people should be a  part of your long-term marketing strategy. If you set up a multiple mailing strategy you can also use postcards to test variables like different messaging or different offers to find out which methods seem to work best for your church. As you continue to experiment with direct mail, you can hone your approach and maximize your budget.

Now that you know all the reasons why direct mail postcards are a great way to reach out to potential church guests, it’s time to start planning your own campaign! If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the information in this article, don’t worry! Our team of experts is here to help. We can create a custom marketing plan for your church that uses direct mail postcards as one part of an overall strategy. Contact us today at 800-991-6011 to get started.