The first printed picture postcard came from France in 1870, with an image only on one side, and was from a training camp for soldiers in the Franco Prussian War. Deltiology is the term used for collecting all type of postcards, from real estate postcards to business postcards, and is believed to be one of the top three collector hobbies in the world. Direct marketing, like postcard printing, is designed to create a ‘call to action’ which asks the potential customer to call a telephone number or visit a website in order to take advantage of the offer. In the United States alone marketers send over 90 billion pieces of direct mail marketing and advertising per year. The global research agency Millard Brown suggests that physical media marketing, like direct mail postcards, leaves a ‘deeper footprint’ in the brain.
Today, direct mail is still one of the more widely used outbound marketing techniques in the business world. For everything like business postcards to real estate postcards, direct mail postcards are a popular choice because of the low cost and being able to market to a mass audience. To give yourself some an idea of how well they work, consider having some real estate postcards samples made up by a reputable custom postcard printing company or a local postcard printing agency who specializes in marketing postcards. Real estate postcards are quite popular because customized postcards get the information to the potential customer without having to do much at all.