Postcard marketing leader calls for business bravado in the depths of jumping postage rates and shaky economy

Clearwater, FL, May 1, 2007 – In the news lately are several uncomfortable topics regarding the economy-observe and note the negative forecasts coming from top news sites, including CNN and Bloomberg.com. According to CNNMoney.com, economic growth is the slowest in four years and home sales saw the worst drop in eighteen years. Bloomberg.com predicts consumer spending may take a hit as U.S. home prices decline. Add to this situation that postage rates are rising two cents on May 14th, and it doesn’t inspire much confidence for business owners. Yet the founder and CEO of the country’s fastest growing postcard marketing company is encouraging business owners to get out there and promote, promote, promote.

The trick for business owners to grasp is twofold. First, some businesses are going to scare more easily than others and pull in the money allotted for marketing and not be willing to spend it-hide and hoard, so to speak. Second, consumers are going to be spending less money, which suggests that they are going to be more cautious when making purchasing decisions. Business owners willing to persevere with marketing, however, stand to gain more customers.

According to a United States Postal Service study, 98% of consumers bring their mail in the day it’s delivered and spend an average of 30 minutes reading it on any occasion. Meanwhile, postcards were found to have the highest read rates of all direct mail media, compared to other media such as letters, flyers and magazines. Considering consumers are hit with over 3,000 advertising messages on a daily basis, having the highest-read-rate percentage speaks for itself.

With this is mind, Gendusa says her prediction is that the economy will improve as businesses take control of their own fate. She is calling for entrepreneurs to disagree with the pessimistic predictions and master their own rate of income by promoting, and says it’s up to businesses themselves to market to consumers if they want to expand. It’s all just plain math. If you want business coming in, you have to put promotions out-a business is a small economy. Businesses promoting will expand-and so will the economy.

Taking her own advice, PostcardMania sends out 95,000 postcards weekly on their own behalf and doesn’t intend to slow down or stop because of the economyor the postage rates. Their customers are doing the same.

I don’t plan to stop my marketing said Jon Minor, PostcardMania client and owner of Minor Moving in Austin, Texas. Postage rates are like fuel to us, you just build it into your business as a cost. We actually increased our marketing because the return on investment on our direct mail postcards is good – in fact, it just went up. About PostcardMania:
PostcardMania is a full service postcard direct mail marketing company which includes graphic design, printing, mailing list acquisition and mailing services with free marketing advice.

PostcardMania employs over 150 people, has seen positive expansion every year since its inception and is currently on a 23 million-dollar-revenue run rate for 2007. They have won many awards for their creativity and marketing farsightedness, such as the MarCom International Awards, the Stevie Awards, the Inc 500 List, the Creativity Annual Awards and the Webmaster awards. The underlying theme of all such accomplishments is helping companies all over the nation expand.

Each week PostcardMania prints 4 million and mails 2 million postcards representing over 350 business, finance and industrial clients. Visit www.postcardmania.com

If you would like to interview Joy Gendusa, CEO of PostcardMania, please email PostcardMania’s VP PR, Karla Jo Helms at karla_jo@postcardmania.com or by calling 800-628-1804 x342.