Morgan DiGiorgio, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at DirectMail2.0, joins Deborah Corn to discuss their recent MarketEdge event, and how their platform drives revenue and harnesses the marketing opportunities. Morgan also offers some practical examples of DirectMail2.0’s easy-to-use dashboard setup, superior digital integration, enhanced tracking and analytics, and more. (Transcript below)
[0:00:04] DC: It takes the right skills and the right innovation to design and manage meaningful print marketing solutions. Welcome to Podcasts From the Printerverse, where we explore all facets of print and marketing that create stellar communications and sales opportunities for business success. I’m your host Deborah Corn, the Intergalactic Ambassador to the Printerverse. Thanks for tuning in. Listen long and prosper.
[0:00:34] DC: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Podcasts From the Printerverse. This is Deborah Corn, your Intergalactic Ambassador. I’m just back from the DirectMail2.0 MarketEdge event. It was held in Clearwater, Florida, which was very convenient for me. I’m so happy to welcome today Morgan DiGiorgio. She is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for DirectMail2.0. Hello, Morgan.
[0:01:01] MD: Hey, Deb. Excited to be here. I really appreciate you having me on the podcast today. And for attending our event for the fifth year in a row and bringing us some really solid stellar content. Always love to have you there.
[0:01:13] DC: I really appreciate it and I really do appreciate attending your DirectMail2.0 MarketEdge event for the last five years. Although, I want to see the registration list for that first year, because there’s only – was her name Julie, right? Julie has been there six times, so I was in second place, so I was a little upset about that. But I’m coming for you, Julie. As always, it was a great event. It was a gathering of a real range of different, you would call them customers in the audience, or prospects, future customers from print shops, from schools were there, in plants. I even thought I saw some marketing people in attendance.
One of the reasons I really enjoy your conference is because you really do mix it up with the content. You do have some really super-focused sessions on how to be really successful with your product, which I actually want to get into in our next segment. But you also pepper it with really interesting content. I attended the conference on the second day, and I heard from the United States Post Office. I really enjoyed the AI guy who I want you to talk about because he was the first person I actually saw present that helped the attendees understand how to create successful prompts for things to ask AI. Let me tell you something, I took a zillion pictures and a zillion notes during that session. I learned so much from that gentleman. He was very, very valuable.
I spoke about workforce development and retention in the printing industry with some harsh truths, which actually went over very well. Then, you introduced a new partner, which was really cool. Then, one of my favorite things is at the end of the conference, Brad Kugler, who’s the CEO of DirectMail2.0, gets up there and he talks about the roadmap of the future with disclaimers that not all of this stuff might manifest into the world. But these are the conversations and these are the topics that we feel are important to mention, and discuss, and aim towards very forward-thinking always. I mean, last year, he was trying to make a Bitcoin for –
[0:03:30] MD: Oh, yes.
[0:03:33] DC: But it was the first time I ever heard anyone even throw something like that out. So DirectMail2.0, not just the product, but the company itself is one that I have always respected since the days I first met all of you for these reasons. First, I just want to thank you for not making it all about you, and really making it about the attendees and the value that they get for those couple of days in beautiful Clearwater, Florida, on the beach, by the way. They’re suffering through it, Morgan
[0:04:08] MD: Oh, yes. No, beautiful. Well, thank you, Deb. I really appreciate that. If there’s one thing I know about Deborah Corn, she does not give any credit where it is not due. I definitely appreciate that from you. It was a phenomenal event, and we really do our best to try to jam-pack with content that will be relevant to anybody that’s attending and not just make it all about DirectMail2.0. Of course, we have users that are there. They want to learn how they can grow their print business with their product, and further their education with our technology stack. But there’s also other things that we want them to learn, like how to grow their print business through other relevant industry speakers. So we really tried to add a lot of value in the conference above and beyond just DirectMail2.0.
[0:04:47] DC: Yes, it’s amazing. The backdrop is like being in a postcard.
[0:04:52] MD: I know, I took a step out of the room after speaking on stage, and I was just looking out at that beach, going, “Gosh, I bet every attendee in here is like, I would really love to be sitting out there right now.” Most of them make a vacation out of it too. Some even fly their families in, they’ll stay on the weekend. And so yes, the location doesn’t suck. That’s for sure.
[0:05:10] DC: Yes, as they should. I mean, I don’t want to make anyone jealous, but I ended up sitting outside with some attendees. I mean, there was a pod of dolphins just frolicking in front of us. I mean, it’s really –
[0:05:23] MD: It’s beautiful.
[0:05:23] DC: They even had a Bloody Mary, so I was happy. Okay. So I really want to focus this podcast on your product, which is something I don’t normally do. I like to speak in value propositions, but I think that it’s early enough in the year that I want to give some people some compelling reasons why they need to at least investigate. I am not saying that this product is right for you or your business, but how I usually frame it is this way. If you have the right customers, or have access to communicating with the right customers, and if you can sell this product, or utilize the team at DirectMail2.0 to help you sell this product. It’s almost idiot proof because of the response rates, and the data that you can show customers that if nothing else, the mail portion of this project worked.
Now, if they land on your site, and then they don’t take action, maybe those people need to look at their websites, and their messaging, and how they’re doing that. But if that postcard got them to a site or to somewhere that they were instructed to go for the digital integrations and tools that you can track and understand who those people are and their behaviors. That is extremely valuable to accompany. Let’s start with, if you could give everybody a really quick overview of what is DirectMail2.0. And then, I want to move from there right into the first thing I want to talk about, which is quick and easy setup.
[0:07:13] MD: Sure. So DirectMail2.0, our sole purpose here in this organization is to make direct mail the most effective form of marketing by integrating it with cutting-edge technology. So when you’re talking about our CEO, and being forward thinking, I mean, we are a very progressive organization, as we’re a technology company. But the sole purpose is to make direct mail the most effective form of marketing.
We integrate technology into direct mail to improve it on a couple of different facets. One, being enhanced tracking, whether that’s the deliverability of. But we also want to be able to show attribution to direct mail to keep it as a contender in the rank. There’s a lot of budget that’s being lost to digital marketing. A lot of that relies on the fact that we just have a challenging time, tracking an offline channel, or proving that it’s actually working, or giving it the credit that it deserves. Our technology helps to achieve that. Then, secondarily, we layer on an omnichannel marketing approach, so that we really – I mean, what we do is we harness the power driven by direct mail, the high brand recall, the fact that it activates a long-term memory center in the brain, and that message is going to impinge because direct mail is very powerful and effective.
Then, we come in and we repeat that messaging that’s been driven with the direct mail through multiple channels, and we employ the power of repetition. Just like you wouldn’t do a one-and-done, or you wouldn’t suggest that to your customer. We want to do multiple mail drops. Inexpensively, we can come in, repeat the mail message, and on average, drive about a 23% to 46% lift in response to a mail campaign. Then, we also have a real-time reporting dashboard so that the customers can log in, and they have access to all of this data, all of the data, the response rates, everything that’s going on within their direct mail marketing campaign. And they can utilize that data to continuously improve their direct mail marketing campaign going forward.
[0:08:58] DC: Morgan, I just want to clarify. When you say customers, are you referring to printers, or the printer’s customers, or both?
[0:09:05] MD: Yes. I’m speaking about the end user, the marketer, the person that is using direct mail for marketing purposes. But from a printer or an MSP’s perspective, there’s a lot of value there, because they’re coming in, and they’re adding something of value above and beyond just ink on paper. Customers currently have been paying more for the same product, just for the direct mail. Because of postage increases, and supply chain issues. They’re paying more historically and getting the same product and the same response rate. When a print provider can come in, and provide something of additional value, they’re actually offering them more. They’re helping them live the response rates and it’s giving them access to data where they continuously improve those campaigns. It’s been a real revenue driver, not just for the marketer in itself, but also for a print provider or an MSP.
[0:09:51] DC: Okay. I have actually had access to the DirectMail2.0 dashboard, and I have navigated through it. So quick and easy setup, let’s start there. It’s just an integration, is a print shop down? What do they need? Do printers need to give their customers’ access to dashboards? Can they manage it themselves? I’ve got a million questions.
[0:10:15] MD: Well, all good questions. I mean, quick and easy setup, just from the printer’s perspective is, we just need a few pieces of information to white label and set up their dashboard. So company name, company contacts, logo, and we can have their dashboard set up within a matter of minutes. This dashboard, they have the ability to manage all of their clients’ campaigns, and see every direct mail campaign that’s going through that dashboard.
Now, we also have a client-facing dashboard where the client can log in and see the results of every single direct mail campaign that goes through that dashboard as well. Now, they do not have to give them access to the dashboard. They can, and then sometimes, we might work with a very large mail provider, they might have their own reporting dashboard. We do have access to an API where they can pull the data from our dashboard into their own as well.
[0:11:02] DC: Print Media Centr provides printspiration and resources to our vast network of global print and marketing professionals. Whether you are an industry supplier, print service provider, print customer, or consultant, we have you covered, by providing resources and strategies that enable business marketing and creative success, reporting from global events, these podcasts, Project Peacock TV, and an array of community-lifting initiatives. We also work with OEMs, suppliers, industry organizations, and even producers, helping you connect and engage with our vast audience, and achieve success with your sales, marketing, and conference endeavors. Visit printmedcentr.com and connect with the Printerverse. Links in the show notes. Print long and prosper.
[0:11:56] DC: Okay. So Morgan, in this quick and easy setup, if we’re looking at a print service provider, who is required on that end to do any of this? Do they need a specialized IT person? Do you help them with any questions if they’re a smaller print shop? There’s limited labor and skills going on, so I want everyone to understand what they need to bring to the table in order to make this a successful integration or a startup?
[0:12:26] MD: Sure. To layer on the DirectMail2.0 campaign onto a mail campaign, we need a few different things. One, we need some information from the customer. So we need to know their website, where do they want people to be driven with ads. We have to get a few lines of code on their site. We need access to a Facebook page, we need a mailing list, and a few digital ads. We do have a launch guide that typically a sales rep will walk through with their customer so we can acquire the information. But within an organization on the printer side, who’s setting up this campaign, typically, it’s somebody in production. It might be a CSR. It might be somebody in the mailing room. But we also do offer a job setup for a fee if that’s something that they don’t have the ability or have the resources for as well.
[0:13:08] DC: Okay. Excellent. You don’t need a team from MIT to do this.
[0:13:15] MD: No. No.
[0:13:15] DC: And the print shop’s not going to get shut down. There’s no DirectMail2.0 integrations. There’s no making sure – well, you’re laughing, but this is one of the biggest fears that printers have when it comes to software.
[0:13:24] MD: That makes sense. Sure. Now, that makes sense.
[0:13:27] DC: Okay. Now, let’s focus on digital integration. What do you mean by that, and who you speaking to?
[0:13:34] MD: Digital integration, I’m speaking to the end user, the marketer. This is a value prop that a printer or MSP is going to position to their client, so that they can get them a lift in response to their mail campaigns and track them. So we’re going to integrate different technologies. Right now, we have a total of 14, all of them do different things. We have four different bundle tech stacks, are all meant to do different things. Whether we’re tracking and enhancing, and then we’re layering on omni channel from a branding perspective, or maybe we want a true one-to-one marketing approach. But the sole purpose of the integration of technology is to improve the mail campaign. That’s just through the tracking or lifting the response.
[0:14:13] DC: Let’s move on to DirectMail2.0 tracking now. If you can, can you illustrate an example starting from, “Okay, I am a veterinarian, and I want to send a mail out to my community in some manner. And I want to be able to know if it was worth my money.” Because that’s what all they care about. So starting from that point, moving through enhanced tracking, talk everybody through the process.
[0:14:47] MD: Sure. There’s a couple of different things that we would be tracking. If I was a veterinarian, and I’m making an investment, utilizing my marketing dollars, I want to know a couple different things. First thing I want to know is, did my mail reach the end user, did it reach my prospect or consumer. I need peace of mind. I’m making an investment here in direct mail.
The first thing we do is we pull data via API from USP’s Informed Visibility. We can show them where the mail is in the mail stream and when it gets delivered. Because if they get a low response, the first thing we need to know is, did it even reach the audience? Maybe 50% didn’t, it get lost or whatnot. That’s the first thing, and that’s very rudimentary. There’s a lot of people out there doing mail tracking. So that’s one aspect of it. But then the second part is, there’s different technologies we can incorporate into the direct mail piece in itself that we can track a response. One of those is a QR code. Do we want to use a static QR code, a personalized QR code? Do we want to drive every individual to a personalized landing page where there’s a picture of their pet?
I mean, these are the types of things that we can do, and DirectMail2.0 can track not just the number of scans, but who’s actually scanning it, so we know who’s showing an interest. We can utilize call and text tracking features, so that we can monitor the number of calls that are coming in. We can actually listen to those calls that are coming in. I did have a situation a couple of years ago, where they had an enormous amount of calls, and said that they had a very, very low response rate. But upon drilling and listening to the recordings, the receptionist was actually telling everyone on the call that they didn’t do that, and that they needed to talk to ABC competitor down the street. It was actually mind-blowing.
But for the printer, it was very helpful to them. Their customer realized, “Wow, this is an internal problem, not a problem with the mail.” But just showing that tracking and attribution. Then, from there, we take it a few steps further. We’re actually able to track responses to any of the ads or campaigns that are running within the DirectMail2.0 campaign, including the mail piece.
Let’s just envision the scenario. I’m a veterinarian, I send out a direct mail piece, somebody standing in their living room, they respond to the direct mail, they go to my website. They don’t fill out a form, they don’t pick up the phone and call me, they don’t buy anything. How do I know that they responded to the mail? Well, historically, you wouldn’t. But we have technology that can de-anonymize a website visitor, identify them, provide their contact information, instantly suppress it against the mail file. And not only show you how many people on the mailing list went to the site, but who they are.
This is so integral, it’s showing that the mail is working, because it is. It’s drawing that initial response to the website. But without data like that, we typically don’t know when there’s so much of that attribution being left on the table.
[0:17:26] DC: Is that tracking based on having a dedicated landing page, so you know that people only went there from the mailing?
[0:17:36] MD: No, so it doesn’t have to be. We can utilize a dedicated landing page, but it doesn’t have to be. We have the ability to identify web traffic, and we can even tell in addition to who they are. And if they got there from the mail piece, or a social media ad, or informed delivery. We can also tell what pages on the site they went to. So we can tell them, did they go to the homepage, did they go to the form-filled page, or the purchase page, and abandon cart. So they don’t necessarily have to just be driven to a landing page.
[0:18:04] DC: Okay. Now, the reason I’m asking this is because there are times, a lot of times actually, I get my mail from outside, and I sort of have my own little sorting system in my kitchen. Like, no, no, later. No, no, now.
[0:18:18] MD: Me too. Yes.
[0:18:20] DC: Now, when they go to that later stuff, what happens if three months from now I see that DirectMail2.0 enabled technology, which is also known as a postcard. Or some piece of mail in my pile, and I scan the QR code, or I type in the link, or whatever? How does DirectMail2.0 get credit for that after time has gone by?
[0:18:44] MD: Well, you’ll have to leave the campaign open, right? We track the results in the dashboard for as long as you choose to leave it open. So it could track those results into perpetuity. I think that you make a good point, because it’s very important to have that campaign open and have the ability to track your results, maybe some time as long as even a year after the mail campaigns running.
[0:19:06] DC: But what I’m saying is, if I’m not going to a dedicated landing page that was accessible from that postcard, and it’s three months later, how does direct mail or the printer still get the credit for that interaction?
[0:19:20] MD: Right. The technology is actually tracking that attribution to that mailing list in itself. So any type of website activity is instantly suppressed against that mail file.
[0:19:29] DC: Okay. So then, it drills down to I know I sent you a postcard, so if you’re responding, that’s the only way that it probably happened.
[0:19:41] MD: Correct.
[0:19:41] DC: At least the first time. After that, you have the ability to – which is why you asked for ads, because after that, there’s a way to set programmatic advertising and reminders out into the interwebs. Yes?
[0:19:54] MD: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[0:19:56] DC: Okay. Let’s get into now the increased responses. I want to say that I have not only heard firsthand from what I would call your customers, the printers, and marketers in the attendance at your event, people I know who have your product. They tell me that is one of the most profitable things that they do, and you publish your response data, and your increased revenue ranges everywhere. I have to assume that you would have or you have been challenged on it many times. Because I consistently see it, it’s accurate.
I’m prefacing this because it is ridiculously high when it comes to, yes, it is not always easy to get somebody, especially if they’re doing a large mailing, to add a few cents to a piece of direct mail. That is like postage, when postage goes up, it’s a big deal. But not when you look at terms of not what it costs, but what it’s worth.
[0:21:06] MD: Right. The good thing about having a technology company is we have access to all that data, right? We do have the ability to acquire all that data, and disseminate it, and provide proof of the lift in response of direct mail campaigns. We have that in our favor. Not to mention, we do have numerous case studies from a lot of our partners’ resellers’ clients. But as far as lifting the response rate to the mail, I would love to say that we’re doing something along the lines of rocket science here, that this is some wild idea that we’ve created. But really, all we’re doing, Deb, is we’re employing the most successful marketing tactics that are out there. One being the power of repetition.
We are just utilizing marketing technology to employ the power of repetition, and we’re doing it inexpensively. By utilizing repetition, we’re able to achieve a lift in the response rate to the mail. I think what it boils down to, if you’re thinking about it from a marketer’s perspective, is that it has to make sense. Let’s say, for example, that the value of one customer to you is $10,000. You layer on DirectMail2.0, the cost of DirectMail2.0 is $1,500. But we’re going to get you 10 additional customers for that additional $1,500 and spend, so you’re going to make $100,000 on your $1,500 investment. That is where it starts to make sense from a marketer’s perspective.
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[0:23:08] DC: You also have a really amazing ROI calculator on your website that breaks up – I mean, there’s must be five or six different configurations there, if not more. I didn’t count. But to enable, I’m assuming your customers are people interested in your technology to play with. By the way, you don’t have to do math, it does it for you there. You just have to enter in some numbers. But can you speak about that, and also about transparency, because honestly, your company is one of the most transparent out there when it comes to not only sharing numbers, but not spinning them. You don’t have to believe me, take your numbers, go on the calculator yourself, and you figure it out.
[0:23:58] MD: Right, right. That’s just expounding on what I was talking about there, right there. I mean, I want to make it make sense for the customer. I want them to go in there, and plug their own numbers in. And be able to see for themselves that this is obviously a viable product, and something that can really help them grow their business, and increase your ROI, and their marketing spend. The first thing that I want them to take a look at with the ROI calculator, and it includes everything. The cost of your print, the cost of your postage, and incorporates all of that.
Then, you put it in, well, what’s my average response rate to the mail. Now, you’re going to see what your ROI is on the marketing spend. Now, we can look at what the cost of adding DirectMail2.0 to a campaign will be and how much additional ROI you’re going to get or what is that ROAS on that additional ad spend. So that you can see for yourself if this makes sense for you before you even give it a try. Because a lot of times a customer says, “Well, gosh. I want to do a test. I want to see if this works.”
The good thing is, like you’re saying, before, we have access to all this data. So we have years and years of historical data, where we can show this average lift and this average response rate. We just take that data, we plug it in, and they’re able to see what they’re going to get out of their campaign. I think transparency is very, very important. I’m not fearful to share the data that we have, of course, there always going to be competitors that come on the scene. But sometimes, competition is a good thing. I don’t ever want to hide anything. When you have that transparency, people feel comfortable moving forward and actually taking a look at the technology, or exploring, or looking into it further.
[0:25:29] DC: Yes. Before we push recording to this podcast, we have a very transparent conversation about reasons why people don’t sign up for DirectMail2.0, or do, and then abandon it for some reason. In the conversations I have had with anybody who fits that category, at the end of the day, they said to me, they couldn’t sell it. Which make sense to me, and then it doesn’t make sense to me. It makes sense in that, yes, you have to have the right customers who get it, or who want to get it, or have a really – or making an investment in investing in their response rates and more targeted direct marketing campaigns. No more spray and pray. Let’s find the exact right people and keep communicating with them until the end of whatever the result is that you want.
Where I don’t understand is because I’ve been to enough conferences, and I’ve been to enough webinars and demos that you guys do. I know that you will actually help people get on phones, and help them sell it, as in technically as a salesperson or a representative of that company. Can you and your full transparency hat address that?
[0:26:51] MD: Well, yes. There’s a lot to it. I mean, listen, there’s a couple of things. First of all, it’s a 14-technology complex marketing product. I think that it is something that will be a little bit challenging for somebody that is just used to selling direct mail to be able to fully absorb, understand, speak articulately about. I think that it would also be perceived as being a little bit overwhelming. But that being said, really, all you need to be able to sell DirectMail2.0 is to tap into the resources that we provide for you.
When you do sign up with us, they do get an account rep, we’ll call it an account rep. It’s a marketing and sales consultant, but they will act as an extension of their organization. They just need to know enough to be dangerous. Hey, Mr. Client, are you interested in getting a 23% to 46% lift in response to your mail? Well, yeah, that sounds good. Who isn’t interested in that? Right? Well, nice. We have a 14-technology marketing automation platform that would do that, would you be interested in learning more? I’d like to get my subject matter expert on a Zoom call with you. You got 30 minutes next week? Sure. Sounds good. Bring your account rep on the call, we will represent ourselves as an extension of your organization. It can be entirely white-labeled. We will represent ourselves as a sales rep at ABC printing, selling Mail Smart, or whatever it is you white label the product. We will go through the zoom, and we’ll sell it,
Now, I will also say this, okay. One of the most valuable things about partnering with DirectMail2.0 is in the acquisition of new print business. The reason for that is because you are offering something above and beyond just the ink on paper. There is a revenue stream with selling DirectMail2.0. But the idea here is to go out and acquire of the new mail business. All of our marketing and sales consultants are very well versed in the selling of direct mail and print as well. They have no problem being able to help you achieve new male business through the utilization of this product. Use them as a resource, I will say that.
That being said, there’s unfortunately, I mean, there is a little bit of skin that needs to be put in the game when you partner with DirectMail20. I mean, yes, there’s a valuable tool, but they do have to invest some resources. First things first, you have to market yourself. Nobody’s going to wake up in the morning, and say, “Hey, I need DirectMail2.0, or white label a name and whatever it is. I know exactly how to find it at ABC printing company.” You have to put something on your website about it. Use the self-promo credits that we gave you to market it, and appropriately market yourself because you’re positioning yourself as a marketing consultant. They will be paying attention to how well you are marketing yourself.
First things first, market yourself. Also, in the print industry, notoriously, it is known that it is very challenging to have a true hybrid through and through sales rep. Okay. A lot of times, I am dealing with account managers, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Listen, an account manager plays a very integral role in an organization. They’re managing millions of dollars of business in these companies and they are very important. But if you want somebody to go out and start cold calling, and starting conversations, and pounding pavement, you need a sales rep.
That is an entirely different breed of an individual than account manager that’s used to just picking up the phone and working relationship management. So you need somebody that at least has enough wherewithal to be able to make those phone calls, talk about the product, and actually get somebody on the phone. I will tell you that that has been one of the greatest challenges that we have, because we at least need you to be able to get them and bring them to the table for us to be able to help yourself.
[0:30:21] DC: The 14 technologies, do they all have to be enabled, or can they be tiered? Can people pick to use certain ones and not use others if they are feeling overwhelmed or to take the crawl, walk, run approach with customers?
[0:30:39] MD: The 14 different technologies are broken up into four different bundled tech stacks. Each of those four different bundle tech stocks have a different mix of those technologies within them. So you’ll never have a platform that’s added on a mail campaign and incorporates all 14. It will be a different mix of all of them. They’re meant to do different things.
Something that we’ve done a DirectMail2.0 to try to simplify, and streamline things, and make this easier for print sales rep to sell is we’ve taken the cost of each of those individual technologies, and then, we’ve converted that to a price per mail piece. When you layer platform A onto a direct mail campaign, you say, “Okay. Well, it will cost you eight additional cents to layer this on, and you’re going to get the tracking, and a 23% to 46% lift and all of that.”
Now, that being said, we also do have the ability to sell some of these services a’la carte. Not all, but some of them. So say that you do have a customer that maybe isn’t totally vested in, you get them access to the dashboard, give them some mail tracking, and informed delivery. They’ll start to see everything else they have access to, get inquisitive. “Hey, what’s this? What’s that?”
There is a crawl, walk, run approach, or bare minimum, what I tell them is just put one of our lead match pixels on their website, start building a mailing list. Then, reach out to the customer and ask them, “Hey, would you like to mail in these people, they’re actively raising their hand and saying I have an interest.” And then, you’re going to keep your process running and put more revenue through your direct mail revenue streams there. So there are a few different approaches that you can take.
[0:32:15] DC: Absolutely.
[0:32:19] DC: Like what you hear? Leave us a comment. Click a few stars. Share this episode. And please subscribe to the show. Are you interested in being a guest and sharing your information with our active and growing global audience? Podcasts are trending as a potent direct marketing and educational channel for brands and businesses who want to provide portable for customers and consumers. Visit printmedcentr.com, click on podcast, and request a partner package today. Share long and prosper.
[0:32:54] MD: One of the best examples I remember hearing at one of the events was a printer who was working with the University. They sent out a direct mail about request information and it’s time to apply. We want your kid to come more, it was to the kid, whatever it was. What they were able to do was drill down on their website how many people went to the financial assistance page, and how many people kept going back to the financial assistance page. To the point where they could just send them financial information and start a relationship with them.
I guess, in a bigger sense, you would say those people are further down the sales funnel because they’re trying to make a financial decision now. They’re past the sports that I like there, the subjects I like to study are there now. How am I going to get myself there and afford it? Or how if you’re in a fortunate situation where your family can help you, how is that all going to work out? That becomes extremely valuable, that makes that customer acquisition almost – was the price of that postcard.
The rest of it is now a potential relationship to manage. Being able to go back to your cost of your printer, and you’re selling this, or you’re even a marketer, or an advertising agency. Being able to go back to your customers and say, “We know exactly who’s ready to buy a car or who’s looking at financials on that. We know exactly who’s been on your appointment page four times for landscaping, or making an appointment at the vet” or anything like that enables targeted, meaningful conversations to follow up. That has got to resonate with people as value in the process. One printer’s making me postcards. One printer is helping me generate business.
[0:34:59] MD: Yes, absolutely. In today’s current marketing ecosystem, and what I think that – well, what I’m definitely hearing from the printers that we’re working with, their customers are wanting more targeted direct mail campaigns. They’re not into the spray-and-pray method anymore. They’re not into, “Acquire me a big list.” They’re more cost-conscious, and they want to get a higher response rate on who they’re mailing to.
Utilizing these tools are going to help provide exactly what they’re looking for. Not to mention the fact that the utilization of things like personalization are huge in improving the response rate to mail. So now, not only do I know how many times they’ve came to my website, I know in particular exactly what they were looking for. So Mr. Customer, I have this digital press that I can actually print a picture of the exact thing that they were looking at on that website, and I can customize that for every individual person that went to the site, and further improve the response rate to their mail. I mean, there’s a lot of tools and technology out there that can really help improve the response rate to their client’s direct mail campaigns, but also set them apart from other printers because they’re adding so much value.
[0:36:04] DC: Correct me if I’m wrong, but you have a unique relationship with the United States Post Office, is that correct?
[0:36:10] MD: Well, I mean, I would say that it is unique in the essence that we get a lot of indirect support from the United States Postal Service. They’re not really able to fully directly support anybody. But they have what I would think is a lot of appreciation for what we do for the mail business, because we do improve direct mail. That in turn leads to more direct mail going through the mail stream, which is very good for the United States Postal Service.
There are a lot of our technologies that directly coincide with some of these postage incentive programs that they run, like the QR code technology, the informed delivery. We have a special approval letter for this technology in particular that we’ve been speaking about for the last few minutes. Where if somebody uses this pixel, and they pull down a list, and they mail to them, they can get a 5% postage discount on their mail. But yes, we have a unique relationship with them. We’re consistently speaking with them, we’ve had a few different meetings where we’re talking about ways that we can utilize technology to improve mail, make it better, and increase revenue, not just for them, but for printers and MSPs.
[0:37:15] DC: The utilization of DirectMail2.0 also fits into some of the marketing promotions that they have at the United States Postal Office offers during the year. We talked about the United States Post Office several times here. Now, does that mean that DirectMail2.0 is only currently for America or does it work in other countries too?
[0:37:39] MD: That’s a good question. We have had a couple of Canadian partners. It’s a little bit challenging for us to fully support a printer internationally, just because things work differently. We don’t have a full integration into the postal systems internationally. There are some technologies that work differently. For example, we run a lot of digital ads, and there’s GDPR, and opt in, and other types of –
[0:38:03] DC: Different sizes.
[0:38:04] MD: Yes. I mean, a lot of things work very differently internationally. And not just internationally as a whole, but differently within different countries. But we do have a couple of people in the UK that are looking at our technology, and we are actively looking for somebody that might have an interest in potentially licensing DirectMail2.0, and doing a full build, and having it work exactly as it would work within their country or within their postal system. But from a very high level, we can run a DirectMail2.0 campaign on a direct mail campaign internationally, but it will look different. And there are some technologies that we will not be able to utilize depending upon where they are and what the rules are within their region.
[0:38:45] DC: Well, you have a jam-packed blog full of information, webinar replays, customer testimonials on the website, content. You’re always involved in industry programming, industry events. You support the industry as much as you need the industry to support you, so thank you for that. Can people – I would suggest anybody listening to this podcast who has not checked out DirectMail2.0. Look in the show notes of this podcast, click on book a demo. What do you have to lose? It’s 20 minutes of potentially 10% to 15% revenue increase. Is that annually, monthly daily, it could be any of those. It’s a no-brainer, so just go. What is your best advice for you or call to action here, Morgan?
[0:39:34] MD: Well, I would say just go over to our website. If you’re interested in learning ways that you can improve your direct mail response rate, or grow your print business like Deb was saying. We do put out a lot of content, we do like to provide educational resources above and beyond just selling DirectMail2.0. We do try to be of service to the industry in a lot of different ways. We do have a lot of content that’s getting pushed out, whether that’s white papers or other ways to grow your business. Sign up for on newsletter or email content, it’s on our website. Then, you can tap into some of that educational information. If you’re interested in learning more about us, just go to the website and click book a demo and someone will reach out with you right away, and we’ll get you on the calendar. We’d love the opportunity to learn more about your business and how we can help you grow it.
[0:40:16] DC: Excellent. Thank you so much. All the links for everything you need to connect with Morgan, DirectMail2.0, get information are in the show notes. I know this podcast was a little more product-oriented than most of my podcasts are. But I really believe we are at that event horizon moment, where printers, marketing agencies. Designers could be offering this to their customers. Everybody is going to need an edge, and that edge is based on technology. It’s going to be a technology edge.
With 14 different technologies going on with your product, and the fact that you will help people sell it. Honestly, sometimes I’m like, I just don’t get it. Look into it. If you don’t have the right customers, speak to Morgan about how to get them. They have the data. They know what works. They know what the verticals that this works best for. They know how to sell into those verticals. They’ve been part of AB campaigns. They’ve been part of testing, they will talk to you because at the end of the day, a rising tide lifts all boats and DirectMail2.0 is clearly pushing that tide up. So thank you so much for that, for everything you do to help everybody. Until next time, everyone, direct mail long and prosper.
[0:41:46] DC: Thanks for listening to Podcasts From the Printerverse. Please subscribe, click some stars and leave us a review. Connect with us through printmediacentr.com. We’d love to hear your feedback on our shows and topics that are of interest for future broadcast. Until next time, thanks for joining us. Print long and prosper.
Mentioned in This Episode:
Morgan DiGiorgio on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morgandigiorgio/
DirectMail2.0: https://directmail2.com/
Book a Demo with DirectMail2.0: https://directmail2.com/request-demo/
MarketEdge: https://marketedgeshow.com/
Deborah Corn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahcorn/
Print Media Centr: https://printmediacentr.com
Partner with Print Media Centr: https://printmediacentr.com/partnerships/
Subscribe to News From The Printerverse: https://printmediacentr.com/subscribe-2
Project Peacock: https://ProjectPeacock.TV
Girls Who Print: https://girlswhoprint.net
drupa: https://www.drupa.com/
drupa Next Age (drupa DNA): https://www.drupa.com/en/Program/Forums/drupa_next_age
