Printing Postcards

[Joe Salimao]

Hi guys,
I recently bought a Canon laser printer to use for my direct mail campaigns and I bought some postcards to try out. Unfortunately, when I tried printing them the printer didn't do to well. It seemed that the printer was having a hard time grabbing them because the margins where so inconsistent. Some of the postcards had the beginning of the text all the way in the middle. I am thinking because I am using a glossy card stock that it is slipping in the roller.
For those of you who print your own postcards what do you use? I would use a mailer service but it is so much cheaper to do it yourself.
I currently use a Canon Imageclass printer and a 14 pt card stock with a glossy back.
Any ideas?
Joe Salimao

[Nick J.]

Joe, use: http://www.phoenixmedia.com/ to print your postcards.

They're only $200 something dollars for 5000 postcards shipped to your door. Then you can place your own stamp on them and mail them out.

[Joe Salimao]

Thanks Nick,
I actually use postcards.com (around the same price) to print the image on the front. Then I am trying to print my letter on them myself so I can use variable data. This is where I have a problem.
Joe Salimao

[Brian Wall]

I have had good luck with click 2 mail from the USPS.

Brian

[Bill Walston]

I'm with Brian on this one. I just upload my mailing list and have them sent by good ol' USPS. No problems thus far.

Bill

[LeJon Ratchford]

Have you considered hand writing them. Now if you plan to send out in large quantities I would suggest using a service, or printing them on your computer. I have mailed out Many post cards being in the RE Note business. From my experience people look at printed post cards as junk mail vs a hand written post card which gives a more personalized feel. I went to the post office and purchased prestamped postcards. I wrote a catchy statement such as " I would like to give you cash for your contract". That caught the eye of many and I got a 30% responds rate. Just a idea.
LeJonR

[Chase T.]

First off, you shouldn't use glossy stock. instead, you should use standard card stock. The toner is going to rub off in the mail. I'd create a front-to-back PDF with 4up, and send them off to staples or some place to be printed double sided. Of course, you can still print it yourself, but i'm all for outsourcing. You can also use stamps.com to print on stamps to save time putting on stamps. You really aren't saving that much money by printing them yourself. I'd prefer to spend my time generating more business.

[Brian Haskins]

Your printer cant handle paper that thick. Its definitely not worth doing it yourself especially if you consider your time try www.click2mail.com they will be cheaper than any mail house and you get bulk mail rates no matter how many postcards you send out.

Brian Haskins

[Demos Loizides]

I use Click2mail.com also. It costs me less than 32 cents per card. I get about a 4 cent per card break on the postage with this service. If you take the cost of card stock, ink or toner, stamps and factor in your printing time, I don't think you can beat Click2mail.com's price.

[George Bloom]

cheapest solution = Vistaprint.com

Good luck.

[Jonathan Rexford]

Hands down Click2mail for post cards. For smaller mailings I use glossy mail. For the guy that said 30% response rate is killer. I rarely get 1% response rate on post cards. Which is good.

[Ron Hollingsworth]

Nice spam James....good way to get backlinks...at least for a few hours.

[Francisco Milan]

Is click2mail the cheapest ?