To maximize the impact of your postcard printing for marketing, your plan for distribution must be done very carefully and deliberately. You will not want to just spread them en masse.

For each postcard to matter, you will want a concrete plan where you can give them to the right people that respond easily to your kind of message. In this guide, I am going to teach you how to do precisely that by using a simple five step plan for distribution success. Just follow each item below to be on the right track.

1. Develop a detailed target market profile – The first step is to develop a detailed market profile where your marketing materials will be deployed to. You will need this knowledge since this will help you know exactly the locations where they should be ideally deployed. This means that you will need to actually do some market research and determine exactly who your market is, where they are and what they want. List down all the major demographics that you are targeting for and the locations where they most likely gather.

2. Determine key distribution locations– Once you have the market profile, your next step is to determine the key distribution locations for your marketing postcards. Not all the places that your market is in will be available to you of course. Try to choose the ones where you can actually deploy racks or even actual people that can give them away just like flyers. Make sure of course that those locations are reliable with a constant stream of your market passing by or hanging around.

3. Get key mailing lists – Also, try to get key mailing lists where they can be sent. Now, there are several services out there wherein you can buy mailing lists categorized by demographics. However, you can also just use a local directory if you want and then just figure out where the best addresses are based on the market profile that you created. The better you are at judging the address based on the profile, the better your deployment should be.

4. Discover the ideal times for distribution – Finally, before you actually go for that distribution, you should take stock and see when the best times are for your deployment. Sometimes it is best to actually deploy those custom postcards at certain ideal times wherein your markets are more responsive to your marketing message. Typically, holidays and weekends are your best bet. These are the times when people try to live a little, checking out the things they can buy.

5. Deploy in stages – Once you know the crucial data about your market and your market environment, you can then deploy effectively for marketing. It is best to deploy them in stages so that you are more organized. I would usually go for the easy targets first, deploying racks at the best high traffic places and then sending out through my mailing list.

Next, I would then slowly go to specific areas where my target market hangs out. Do each of these steps, one by one, so that you can easily organize and focus on your deployment efforts. You will be able to maximize your efforts and get the best results this way.