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On Marketing: Printing Postcards to promote my App Thoughts

When building products (especially Indie projects), marketing is often an afterthought — and I am so guilty of it. Constantly thinking, before I can do marketing, I need to add this and that to the product so that it's good enough. But the important thing, as always, is to take action and get started before you’re ready. So ahead of Apple Developers Conference WWDC25 earlier this month, I decided I wanted to promote my app and be able to hand out something when talking about what I'm building.

How to make something relevant? Something that is not thrown away like any other flyer?

My app Thoughts helps manage Inspirations and I came up with the idea of a postcard with an inspirational quote on the front, that could later be saved in the app. A card people could either keep for themselves or send to family and friends. Not just an ad, but an object with a clear purpose and use case. It may also gain additional emotional value if it helps people remember the WWDC25 event. The goal was to create something they'd want to keep or use that subtly promotes the app.

To achieve this, I wanted to make something that reflects the craft and the personal character I'm putting into the development of the app. That’s why I decided for an organic hand-drawn cover art made with Procreate on the iPad. On the back, there's a QR code that allows downloading the app and adding the quote on the front to the user's personal library of inspirations. I also wanted to make the cards uniquely relevant to the WWDC25 event and still be able to flexibly use the remaining cards. Therefore, I made a custom WWDC25 stamp that features two distinct iconic Apple symbols and provides a clear link to the event and the community — increasing the relevance and emotional value.

I went with a high-quality Riso print on thick paper, made by a small, independent print shop in Munich, Germany. This is a special printing method that allows for unique looks, including fluorescent colors and beautiful effects when colors interact with each other. I had been wanting to try this printing method anyway, so the cards were a great opportunity. I spent quite some time figuring out how to properly prepare the print file and separate colors into spot channels — but it was really worth it. I’m happy with how the cards look and especially like the bright fluo-orange. Adding the stamps by hand before distributing them also turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable task.

The business calculation

I’ve intentionally chosen a high-quality print for the postcard, hoping that the quality of the card will mentally transfer to overall perception of the app itself. In production, a card costs ~1€, which is quite a lot for such a print advertisement product.

If actually used as a postcard, one card could lead to two app downloads: one from the person I handed it to, and one from the recipient of the card. In reality, I assume it’s more likely that a card results in ~0.75 downloads. That would bring the cost per download to ~€1.33 — still noticeably cheaper than the €4–5 per install I experienced when experimenting with Apple Search Ads. I did not add any tracking, so I can't really share any metrics or insights into how the campaign performed. And of course, the reach from personally handing out postcards is relatively low. I’m well aware that this approach is not suitable for growth marketing but it’s been a great way to promote my app at the conference and build personal connections. It’s been a fun start into high-quality marketing, where I've put quality over quantity. And I had a lot o fun doing so!

27. June 2025