Free Postcard Templates
Free postcard templates can be a wonderful thing. First and foremost, they're free - an attractive benefit no matter how you look at it.
After the cost of printing, paper and postage, any little bit you can save helps!
You can advertise with a minimum strain on your budget and still potentially generate some impressive results...
And hey - when was the last time a billboard could boast that?
All of the artwork and text will have to be handled by you, which gives you a wide breadth of creative control.
The stripped down nature of free postcard templates make them incredibly quick and time-saving to use too.
If you have all your information and images ready, you could actually design a postcard in a matter of minutes.
Except for one thing...
With Free Postcard Templates You
Really Do Get What You Pay For!
Yep - a lot of of the freebie card templates out there are just lonely blank white cards with headers to indicate what should go where!
There's no way to incorporate enticing borders, text boxes, or background colours without manually using a software program to do so.
Unless you're so artistically inclined, your free postcard could end up looking very unprofessional, sloppy, or just plain boring.
There's ways around that of course. (We'll get to that in a minute!)
A free template from www.postcard-template.com
I downloaded the free template above from www.postcard-template.com as a Zip file. When opened I discovered it was a Microsoft Word file. I suppose that's a good thing because you can edit it to your heart's content. They fit four postcards to one page. But I think we can still do better!
Also, many of these free options only have templates for the back side (where the postage stamp and address are located), which is by far the easier side to work with and hardly requires a template anyway.
If you're looking to create a very snazzy postcard worthy of grabbing attention, you may end up spending hours at a time designing everything and trying to get it to fit together.
How To Put the Groove Back Into the Template
You may want to think twice about using free postcard templates if you are attempting to build reputability or promote a high quality product or service. The last thing you want is for your postcard to look like you spent nothing on it when you want to be taken seriously!
Unless you know what you're doing, leave it to the hands of someone more skilled.
Avoid postcard templates that do not define borders around the edge of the postcard on the back side - many don't know that certain areas must be kept clear for the post office, and failure to do so will bring about the classic Elvis song - a return to sender.
Or even worse, the offending part might be cut off without your approval!
You can pick up postcard templates at sites like Postcard-Template.com and PostcardTemplates4free.com.
These are very basic white postcards, so for a more elaborate look try Printplace for full color postcards, which has seven different sizes of templates that are free to download. Please note: these particular postcard templates are a little tricky to understand and are overwhelming at first because of the strict instructions!
Try the more fail-safe postcard templates with a fill-in-the-blank approach at BrightHub.com, Zazzle.ca and Postcards.com. All of these options either have downloadable postcards or ones that can be customized right on the site with familiar word processor-like toolbars.
I'll be adding my own postcard templates here in the coming weeks so stay tuned!
