10 Ways to Use Marketing Promotions in 2025 (for Sales & Product Advertising)

Using an offer as a promotion on your marketing materials is a non-negotiable in my mind.

Why?

A promotion — such as a discount, freebie, or offer that appears on your ad —  increases your response rate and revenue.

But which promotion should you go with? Choosing the right one could mean a 72% increase in conversion and a 170% increase in revenue according to research.

There’s a lot of science and tracking that goes into choosing an effective offer — and we have you covered with:

• Over 26 years of experience delivering over 250,000 campaigns and counting
• A team of professional designs that create 500-600 designs per week on average
• A dedicated division of results analysts whose full-time job is to collect, analyze and catalog successful campaigns and their promotions

Here’s what our research says about how to boost your response with a killer offer….

Imagine this…

You get two postcards in the mail and both of them are advertising lawn care services. However, one has a promotion for one week of free mowing and the other doesn’t.

Which one would you keep?

Likely, you’d hang the one with the week of free mowing on your fridge right? People love free things and they love a good deal — a great sales promotion on something you need is hard to pass up on!

This is why offers are a key part of making your direct mail marketing campaign successful. According to research, 93% of shoppers think discounts are important decision-making factors.

Including a marketing promotion on your mailer is a given for high response rates.

BUT, there is a science to it — a designer’s science.

Our team of 25 graphic designers create around 600 unique postcard designs every week. Each card is based on a results formula that we have developed after delivering campaigns for more than 121,976 businesses.

And almost every single postcard design they create has an offer or promotion on it.

Based on our research, we’ve compiled our top 10 best tips on what makes an offer on a postcard really stand out in the mailbox.

And ALL of these design tips and tricks can be applied to any promotion on any type of marketing or advertising.

We want you to get the highest return on investment for your campaign — every campaign! — so we’ve taken the time to break down these ideas in practice examples for you.

1. Add a dashed line around your promotion or coupon to get more business.

Remember those coupons in the newspaper your grandparents loved cutting out? Even today, dashed lines immediately communicate “this is something you’re going to want to save!”

Therefore, adding dashed lines around your discount code or offer will make it stand out in the direct mail design. Visually, this causes the recipient’s eyes to focus in on the offer as opposed to the other content around it.

Here’s an example of how a dental sales promotion is immediately elevated by adding dashed line:

Notice that the promotion with the dashed line signals to the reader that this particular message is valuable. On a direct mail piece, your prospect may want to cut out the offer, or simply save the postcard for when they want to use it.

Even if your promotion is digital, the communication is still there — that this is a deal not to be missed.

2. Design your promotion in creative ways to attract customers and their attention.

Besides adding a dashed line, you (or your professional designer) could arrange the copy in your ad in a unique way to stand out from the rest of the design. The text should be larger or smaller at certain points in the design.

You can also play with different fonts and styles to add drama to your promotion and advertising overall.

Take a look at sales promotion example and how the two messages are the same but radically different based on size, placements, and style:

3. Wondering how to advertise a product in your promotion? Add an image!

Adding images to your offer lets your prospects visually understand your promotion.

For example, if you are giving a free appetizer with a purchase at your restaurant, you can include a photo of an appealing appetizer next to the offer text.

Here’s an example of the difference a photo can make in the visual presentation of your promotion:

It’s a great way to literally show the value of your offer!

4. Emphasize important information in your sales promotions by giving an example of the cost or value.

If there is important information you really want to highlight in your marketing or promotion, emphasize it! You can do this with bolder text, larger text, different colors, and different backgrounds.

But what should you highlight?

You may want to point out an expiration date for promotion, how much the offer is normally valued at, or how the recipient can redeem it.

This example below highlights a marketing promotion with a $300 value.

Adding emphasis also gives a sense of urgency, encouraging your prospect to use the offer as soon as possible.

5. Minimize qualifying phrases when advertising a promotion to maximize response.

If there is any information that may deter your prospects from contacting you, minimize those details.

For instance, if your promotion has any qualifying phrases in it, like “up to” or “starting at,” make that part of the promotional message smaller and minimize it as much as possible.

It will also put more focus on the important aspects of your promotion, like the discount amount or free item giveaway. This strategy makes your offer more compelling and enhances the clarity and appeal of the promotion.

In the product promotion example below, you can see that the phrase “up to” was shrunk to put emphases on true promotion: 50% OFF.

A person seeing this promotion will be more interested because offer appears more valuable.

6. Another can’t-miss sales promotion strategy: ensure your main is message clear!

Your promotional ideas don’t have to primarily focus on the discount or free gift. Your main message could be about attracting new patients to a medical office, or hiring more staff.

Highlight the main goal you are trying to accomplish.

In this example below, the second image shows the line, “new patient special” is bolded because the dentist is trying to bring in new patients.

Anyone who needs a new dentist will want to use this offer.

7. Place QR codes near promotions on your advertising to improve conversion and sales.

If your promotion involves visiting a website for redemption, include a QR code right next to it. QR codes are convenient and easy to use.

In this example, the QR code is a part of the promotion’s design, encouraging the recipient to scan it right away.

8. Highlight your sales promotion over all the other details for the most effective strategy.

What if you want to include a website address? It will definitely help increase traffic to your webpage, but it should not take over the entire design.

When it comes to your marketing promotion, emphasize the offer more than your URL.

In this example below, you see that the main message, “Receive a free oil change” is much bigger than the URL underneath it. Even though the URL is still noticeable, it plays a secondary role in this promotion design.

9. Play with shape in your marketing promotions to attract more attention and sales.

Your promotion’s text isn’t the only area where you can get creative and unique with your offer designs.

Play with shapes too!

Think outside of the box, literally, and instead of using a square or circle to place your text in the design, choose a shape that stands out.

This promotion example was in a cupcake shape to go with the theme of promoting a cupcake business and their promotion for a free product!

10. Condense the copy on your promotion for easier readability.

Would you want to read a paragraph about a free gift or discount?

The truth is our attention spans are very short, and the less copy you include, the better.

Also, if there are any numbers in your message, use numeric symbols instead of words. You can also replace words like “and” with ampersands to save space.

These strategies allow readers to quickly understand what you are offering, and it also gives you more space to work with on your direct mail design.

Take a look at this promotion example to see how effective this strategy can be:

What should I do next after creating and designing the best and most effective promotion for my business?

Once you’ve decided on the type of promotion you want to include in your design, the message, and some of the finer details on how you want it to look, it’s time to put it into action.

While businesses may want to create their own mailer designs and print, address, and mail postcards on their own, working with a professional marketing agency saves time and money.

If you have an idea of what you want your promotion to look like now, let us know about it!

Our marketing consultants can give you some advice on what you are considering for your next direct mail marketing campaign and let you know how to implement your marketing offer strategy. To speak with a marketing consultant and get expert advice on direct mail marketing, call 1-800-628-1804.