All buyers of the FPP Postcard Design package will receive:

• Postcard Designed by our FPP Graphic Artist
• FPP CD for viewing over 8000 backgrounds available
• Full-Color Postcards of All Sample Designs
• CD Containing Your Personalized Postcard Design
  
  

Upon placing your FPP Postcard Design order, a package will be mailed out to your address. It will contain an FPP Postcard Instruction PDF (sent on CD) and a handful of sample full-color printed postcards.

Many real estate agents utilize direct mail farming as a way to increase income and visibility in their marketplace. Success of farming comes from numerous factors: timing, image and message. If they are sent out at the wrong time - such as during a the slow times in December - they will result in financial losses from postage and printing. If the overall image and appearance of the postcard is poor, the recipient of the postcard won't take the agent seriously and won't give it a second thought. If the message on the postcard is one that isn't valuable to the recipient, they will not be interested enough to put anything from the postcard into memory.

Although there are many pitfalls to farming, if direct mail is done right it will work. Many agents try it once, find that it didn't result in any sales, and will say that farming doesn't work. Most likely this agent did not send at the right time, with a professional image, or with an appropriate or interesting message. With our FPP postcards, we will help you create the professional image. The timing and message will be up to you - but with a completed FPP postcard, your farming area will know that you are a true professional that cares about your marketing.

The FPP Postcards are designed to work like this: the front side is designed in color by First Place Publishing. After your design is completed, you may decide to print six months worth of postcards. Let's say you were planning on mailing 500 postcards each month for the next six months. For this six month period you will go through 3000 postcards. Therefore, you would order a 3000 full-color postcards. Your mailing label and stamp would be placed on the color printed side of the postcard.

Before you mail out the postcards, you will need to print an image on the back side. Sample back side messages could be: a football or baseball team schedule, a Just Listed card, a Just Sold notice, Sold Another One, a cooking recipe, or any other message you want to give to your farming area.

How do you print the message on the back? Most likely you will bring your 500 postcards down the street to a local printer to have them imprint your message on the back side in black ink. By doing it in black ink only, most printers can do this fairly economically. While some agents may decide to put the color postcards through their computer printer or copier, we highly recommend having a printing company like Sir Speedy or Minuteman press do this work. Thick postcards will jam in most computer inkjet printers and copiers, resulting in frustration and poor quality.

In summary, the FPP Postcard design results in a full-color front side of the postcard that is to be used along with the mailing label and stamp. The other side of this postcard will initially be blank (white) - ready for future message imprinting by a local printer.

Step 1 - Select A Design Style

The FPP Postcard Instruction Manual will display numerous different design styles. It is from these supplied design styles that you must select the one that your postcard will designed like. For example, postcard style P2 has a curved, foggy look on the right side of the card. Design style P6 has an entirely different curved element to it.

It is important to understand that postcard designs are not different because of the background images, but because of the different design styles. To illustrate this point, view the three different designs below. These designs - P1, P2, and P3 - all use the same background, yet are different styles. Once you view and visualize all of the design styles available from the Postcard Instruction Manual, simply select the one that you like best.

Step 2 - Select A Background Image

The FPP Postcard Instruction Manual has a section which describes how to use the FPP CD. On the FPP CD are many different PDF files containing thousands of background images in many different categories. You can peruse through all of the PDF's in order to find an image that you feel will make a nice background for your postcard.

If you are creating a brochure and/or business card, we recommend using the same background image for all these products. By keeping the same background image consistent across the board on all your marketing pieces, your products will take on a cohesive theme that will add value to your marketing campaign. If all of your products had different backgrounds, they would each have their own individual look separate from the others. Your marketing campaign should be put together with a similar look so that when prospects begin to see more than one piece from your campaign, the similarities between these products - especially the background image - will act as a memory trigger and will help them remember your products more than if they had been totally separate, individual pieces.

Step 3 - Supply the Text to Be Used

The FPP Postcard Order Form from the Instruction Manual gives you the ability to write down whatever text you would like to appear on this side of the postcard. Text that can be used may be testimonials from happy clients, personal real estate mission statements, or just phone numbers and the address. We recommend keeping the text to a minimum if paragraph text will be used because there typically isn't much room available on these postcards.

Step 4 - Provide Mailing Indicia Information (Optional)

Some agents utilize mass mailing through the post office by purchasing and using their mailing indicia. An indicia is placed in the upper right corner of the postcard on the label side. If you mail out in mass quantities at once with an indicia, you are eligible to receive discounts on postage from the post office. In some cases, the savings are very substantial.

On the FPP Postcard Order Form you can fill out your post office account information - such as your permit number, city/state for which your account is from, and what type of account it is. There are two types of bulk mailing indicias: a first class indicia and a regular bulk standard indicia. Contact your local post office to have them tell you which permit would most fit your direct mail needs.

That's it ... four easy steps to complete your FPP Postcard Design. The next stop is the last stop in this tour ... the FPP Business Card Design!