Darley have been doing it lately and an astute seller at this year's January yearling sales also did it via a 2003 Christmas card.

It's postcard marketing.

The benefits are many:

• It's relatively inexpensive to design and print postcards;
• It's a much cheaper form of advertising than traditional 1/4 page ads in magazines or using a direct mail-shot that relies on standard letter paper/envelopes;
• Postage can often be cheaper; and
• It's effective. People are more likely to notice a beautiful picture lying amongst a pile of promotional material on their desk (which usually gets swept into the bin) and the inevitable window-faced envelopes. If the picture is REALLY good then there's also the chance that they will either pass it to a friend (therefore doing the marketing for you) or keep it to refer to later.

DIY Tips

You'll need a great photograph. You can use one that you may have taken yourself or commission a photographer to do it for you (be aware of copyright/licensing isues when doing the latter) . If you're looking for online sources of material you can't go past http://creative.gettyimages.com/source/home/home.aspx

Next you need to think about what promotional message you will write on the back of the card. Don't forget to include your company name and logo plus all relevant contact details.

Next you'll need to find yourself a good printer. They can help you with design layouts, paper thickness/quality and scanning/printing.

Once your postcards are ready you may choose to use a direct mailing company to do the mailout for you or insert your postcards into a magazine/newspaper (if you have a very large customer database). Alternatively you may have sufficient staff and time to complete it on your own - whatever is easiest/most cost effective for you. Don't forget to take a stack of extra cards with you to the sales, races etc. They're good to hand out!

Idea: why not send the occasional "nice to meet you" company postcard to a prospective client or a "hi, we haven't seen you for awhile, what's happening?' postcard to a client who has been a bit quiet of late? If the photo is sufficiently striking it may end up on their fridge which is a rather nice place for your company to be in terms of reminding someone of your existence at the subliminal level at multiple times during the course of a day!