Postcards; at one time they were very popular – possibly because they were cheaper to send through the mail than a letter sealed away within an envelope. Of course there was the drawback that everyone handling the mail got a chance to read your message before it was delivered to its recipient; but there were many instances where neither the sender nor the receiver really cared about that.
Then, entrepreneurs located around popular destinations hit upon the idea of making money out of selling post cards. All that was needed was a picture of the place on the front and a backside divided into two. On one half of the back, the card’s buyer could write something like –“Dear Mom, Having a wonderful time, wish you were here, love John”. Mom’s address could then be written on the other half; a cheap stamp affixed and the mail would whisk the card away to Mom. The people selling these cards hoped that you would buy more than you needed for mailing and thus increase their profits by the cards that you took home as souvenirs.
Habits Change Over Time
Hotels caught on to postcard popularity and started to have custom postcards printed with a picture of the hotel on the front. These were given away free to guests who could then send messages home on them and, effectively, advertise the hotel to anyone seeing the card. Soon other enterprising business (particularly bars, restaurants and the like) were also using custom printing to have their own advertising postcards. The advent of wide scale, easy access, low cost phone calls somewhat diminished the use of postcards to actually mail messages on. By the time your phone could actually take a photograph and send it on to anyone of your choosing; picture postcards could have become extinct.
But that did not happen and it is their advertising value that we can thank for this. Somehow, people still like to be given something that they can actually hold in their hands – especially if it is a free gift. Imagine you are in a strange town, and the reception desk at your motel has a rack of postcards labelled – “please take one”. You pick one up and it shows a great looking restaurant and the message – “eat at Joe’s”. That evening, you may well be in Joe’s asking for a menu. Joe would have invested in some custom postcard printing services from California and will be receiving his return on investment when you pay your check.
