Sending event postcards seems like a lot of work, right? First, you need to have a design, then get it to the printer, wait for them back from the printer, address them and take them to the post office for mailing...
Wrong.
What if we told you it could all be done from your desk? 100% online from design to distribution.
We've teamed up with Olesia from VistaCreate to bring you this guide, showing how to design postcards for your next event and send them in the mail without leaving your computer 📬
Design to delivery, all in a few clicks. Find out how.
Whether you launch a new product, announce a sale, or plan a marketing event, you want to maximize attendance. And while social media and email are often used as default channels to spread the word, a stunning postcard is your weapon to engage visitors and get more registrations.
The good news is that you don't have to be a professional designer to craft event postcards that bring results. Here are step-by-step instructions to create effective event postcards via the VistaCreate graphic design tool, then send them via ClickSend straight to mail boxes anywhere.
Choose VistaCreate for Event Postcard Design
While some marketers hire professional designers to create event postcards, most businesses use ready-made templates to design and customize them.
VistaCreate is an online graphic design tool with tons of professional-looking postcard creation templates, with a drag-and-drop editor for ease of use.
We make event postcard creation affordable for marketers, bloggers, and anyone without solid design skills.
How to Create and Send Postcards Online
...and have them received straight to your customers' letter box. Follow these five steps.
1) Sign Up and Search for a Postcard Template
First, you'll need to create an account in VistaCreate. Signing up is free. Enter your email and choose a password.
Once signed in, you can search for event postcards and browse all the options within the template library - click Templates in the menu:
Or, use a search bar at the homepage to type in the content format you need:
Once you've reached the library of event postcard templates, you can click each one to open in Vista's online editor for more detail. There's also an opportunity to find and choose templates directly in the editor's panel.
2) Choosing the Right Template
Consider your goals. Your audience. Your medium 📬
Goals: what do you want your postcard to do?
Your design will have different elements depending on your goals. It’ll affect which details to emphasize, your call to action and tone of voice. The goal of an event postcard is to create awareness and drive more traffic to the event.
Example:
In this example, the goal is to drive attendance to a career fair, so its design emphasizes the information attendees will need to know:
- underlined date to draw attention,
- an image of a girl looking at the title and pointing at it (it's a psychological trick: we can't ignore eye gaze, subconsciously following it),
- the yellow contrasting with the black, for greater visibility.
Or, let's take this postcard template:
The goal here is to drive website traffic, so the design is minimalistic: bright colours and contrast; an eye-catching image of a dog; a short title for people to understand the niche; a call to action with a website's address.
Audience: who are you advertising to?
Remember your buyer personas with their pain points and frustrations when creating postcards. Can you help solve these pain points?
Different segments of your audience will perceive the same message differently: colours, fonts, words, and other elements of your marketing message in a postcard matter for the final result and conversion.
Medium: how are you reaching your customers?
The same design looks different in print vs on Twitter vs email. Optimizing for print differs from optimizing for social media or email campaigns, so this detail is also worth considering. The format and size of your postcard file will depend on that.
In VistaCreate, you can scroll through the library, previewing each template quickly to see which could be a potential fit for your campaign, or add it to Favorites to use later.
3) Customize Your Design in VistaCreate's Editor
All postcard templates you find in VistaCreate are fully customizable. You can add, delete, or change all the elements according to your needs.
Open your chosen template in a drag-and-drop editor and use all the available instruments on the left panel:
- It’s a good idea to choose your branded colour scheme for the design. Add a secondary font to create a visual hierarchy.
- Upload and add your logo or any other branded elements to a postcard. You can add new Brand Kits to your account or upload visual files from your computer to use in your designs:
- Add icons, images, animations, and other objects to improve your postcard design. Change backgrounds, play with text design, remove or rotate the components, resize, etc.!
- Remember to add a call to action for a person to understand your goal and take the desired action.
When customizing your postcard, keep in mind that its engagement and conversion aren't about a beautiful design only. Think about readability, informative and functional characteristics, and relevance to your business goals and mission.
A good event postcard must include your company's branding and vital details a customer may need (date, time, contacts, prices, etc). It should be easy to read and digest, with eye-grabbing elements to engage the audience.
4) Download Your Event Postcard
Once your event postcard is ready, it's time to download it and start sharing it with the audience.
Ensure you choose the correct format when saving your postcard. To send postcards with ClickSend, choose the PDF file format.
If you’d like to adapt your design for social media, email or MMS, VistaCreate allows you to download files in other formats including PNG, JPG, MP4, and GIF.
5) Upload to ClickSend and Start Distributing
Now it's time to upload your postcard to ClickSend. You’ll obviously need a ClickSend account for this if you don’t it takes a minute to get up and running: Sign Up.
Go to your account, choose post –> Postcards:
Click Send Postcards –> Browse and upload your downloaded file with an event postcard to the dashboard:
Now you can view your postcard before sending it, remove it, or select another template from the library.
Fill in the fields with sender and receiver addresses, and choose whether you want to send your postcard right now or schedule it for later.
Start Sending Event Postcards Today
Event postcards and posters are a great marketing tools for user engagement. With hundreds of ready-made, customizable templates available on VistaCreate, you don’t need to engage a professional designer to create polished, professional postcards. Then get sending with ClickSend.
About the Author
Olesia F. is a seasoned web writer and blogger behind WritingBreeze. With 7+ years of experience in content creation, she's a regular contributor to publications on digital marketing, social media, and copywriting. Feel free to connect via LinkedIn.
