By Alan Sharpe

Conventional wisdom says that the front of a direct mail postcard is for the picture and the back is for the address, stamp and a short message.

But some savvy direct marketers design their postcards the other way around - and boost response rates as a result.

The goal of the front of the postcard is to grab attention long enough to arouse curiosity and motivate your prospect to turn the card over and continue reading. But postcards are usually delivered with the back of the postcard showing, not the front. Check today’s mail. You’ll notice that the letter carrier delivered your mail with the address facing up (unless it fell through your mail slot in a random pile).

The letter carrier reads the name and address for each piece of mail and, without turning them over, places them in your mail box. That means that the first thing your prospect sees of your postcard is the back, not the front. And you can take advantage of this fact.

A graphic designer and marketing consultant from Denver, Colorado, wrote to me recently, explaining that her firm studied the way mail arrives. “Through my observations and research,” she says, “I have found that many, many more times than not, side B [the back of the postcard] is what the prospect sees first and then decides whether or not to turn the postcard over.”

This savvy marketer now designs postcards for her clients with the back being the main focus and attention grabber, leaving the front of the card for secondary messages. She is achieving “very good results,” she says, by flouting conventional wisdom.

I see only one thing wrong with her brilliant method, and that is that I did not think of it first.