Direct Mail Marketing Trends for 2025

welcome everybody uh we’ll kind of start a little slow to give a few more people time to kind of filter into the room but

uh I have to say this is like one of our more popular webinars and you know we were just discussing in the in the green

room before everybody came in we were kind of like what what made this so popular because Morgan and I do these

about once a month and I’ll tell you this one’s gotten about 50% more we maxed out our Zoom registration at 500

people on this so there’s three guests one or all of them must be a VIP or

celebrity status because as I said I don’t think it’s Morgan and I but we’re very excited that so many people came uh

we were wondering if people just don’t have much to do as we get close to the holidays so we’ll be happy to fill that time this is a panel

discussion um I will start by introducing myself and then I’m going to turn it over to the other four panelists

and let them give a a little 60-second commercial on what they do so I don’t

mess it up and then we’ll dive right into it uh I you guys are welcome to ask questions in the chat or in the uh raise

your hand or however it’s done I’m self-moderating here I’ve already got a comment here that says Mike is the

celebrity so that does it it’s you so I’ll give credit where credit’s due but

uh I’m Brad Kugler I am the CEO and co-founder of direct mail 2.0 as well as

the recently acquired who’s mailing what which has been around almost as long as I’ve been alive so I’m glad to be the

one trusted and take care of that and build that brand as we will continue to do into the next year and uh I will be

your moderator for the next hour we will end on time so I’ll turn it over to my trusty colleague Morgan who are

you thanks Brad I’m Morgan DiGiorgio I’m the senior vice president sales and marketing for Direct Mail 2.0 and now

who’s mailing what and our sole purpose is to make Direct Mail the most effective form of marketing by

integrating it with cutting edge technology we have a 15 technology Omni Channel marketing platform with a

real-time reporting dashboard that integrates digital marketing into Direct Mail campaigns and provides tracking and

attribution data and printers and mailers all over the country buy a license to White Label and resell or TCH

stack to their direct mail clients now as BR alluded to um as of May of this year we acquired who’s mailing what so

uh now we get to assist printers mailers and Brands take mail to the next level with competitive intelligence insight

and lead generation opportunities to seek and acquire new Direct Mail customers so we’ve got a lot more in the work some of which we’ll probably touch

on today in this webinar and we continue to grow and evolve so we can add value to the direct mail industry thank you Morgan Ashley tell us

about yourself and what you’ve been doing okay yeah so um I’m Ashley Roberts I’m the content director of printing

Impressions and some of you on um this event might be uh familiar with printing Impressions Mark Michaelson was in the

role that I’m currently in for over 40 years he just retired in September end of September so I’m new to the role um

but I’ve been in the printing industry for 10 years um and uh previously

working in packaging wide format a little bit a little bit of the commercial side of things um and I’m

very happy now to be focused um on the commercial side of the printing industry

um and yeah super excited to be here thank you very much Ashley Dena

I am Dena Kesler I’m the president and co-founder of Kesler creative we are a

commercial printing Direct Mail company based out of Jacksonville Florida we actually serve clients Nationwide uh my

husband and I started the company 17 years ago and we have grown quite a bit

um to where we today where we started out originally print and probably 95%

Direct Mail we do a lot more different variety of commercial printing we also do a lot of marketing um generation lead

generation for clients um as well as we have a whole large format division thank

you Dina and Mike everybody you’re the celebrity so

so I thought that was Dena um I’m Mike Philly I’m the principal of the Philly

group so I started the Philly group in 2007 to try to leverage my uh experience

in the commercial Direct Mail uh print space where I spent almost three three

decades working for you know in companies in those type of companies um just having a blast doing

what I do which is really helping companies working with owners and CEOs of organizations print print Direct Mail

packaging organizations uh helping them get from here to there safely uh meaning their

business is either they’re in a good place and they want to try to get better sometimes they’re not where they want to

be and they really they you know there’s a little more sense of urgency to to make those changes uh work with companies all over nor North North

America as well also getting involved in leadership

development I’ve got a couple other those programs and peer groups um you know and I I will share I probably

shouldn’t say this but so I’m finishing up my 45th year in this industry um

almost starting to like it right so almost you know still trying to learn something new every day and but

was really cool and the reason I mentioned that is I just got off the phone with a um a

senior uh paper exac who works out of the Northeast in one of the major metropolitan areas and he was telling me

he’s been working in the paper industry for 37 years and still at it works

Nationwide and you know it’s nice to see that longevity and but but constantly learning constantly trying to bring new

IDE ideas to the table so uh Brad and and Morgan and and Ashley Dena I’m humbled to be um on the stage with you

guys today so thank you well thank you guys all for appearing this has been uh a handpick group that has a lot of

different viewpoints on the direct mail industry we’re all here to hear about what we see is the direct mail trends

for 2025 and all of us have a little bit of a different perspective so as your

moderator I’m going to start with mine and then we’ve got question is we’ll

we’ll move into that I see the key word of 2025 as consolidation all right this

is something that I’ve seen myself over the last few years of a consolidation of

commercial printers um you know obviously that’s there’s good and bad

with something like that another thing that I think has been a big change is

our post office they’re going through an Evolution and whether it’s become obvious to you or not they’re they’re

focused on being a profit-making business although it has not been very successful the last several years they

hope that they’re moving towards that uh the current admin I’m sorry the incoming

Administration who is all hellbent on on uh Department of government efficiency

or whatever you call it I’m sure will be uh accelerating that push but I

wanted to bring up something interesting interesting I saw just yesterday and you may not have seen this

and I’ll share the link but the Royal Mail that’s been around for 500 years

has sold the entire United Kingdom post office to a check investor for $3.2

billion I don’t know how many of you guys heard that I thought it I I couldn’t believe it at first but I

looked it up it is true um they they offloaded the whole thing

the whole thing I’m not suggesting this is an idea or on the table for our USPS a privatization

of that but seeing what the incoming Administration is doing and now seeing

it actually happen in the UK I would not be surprised if something like that may happen in the next five years so my

little point on trends of the consolidation and the changes with the USPS are probably two of the driving

factors followed right behind it by AI which we’ll talk about and everybody has

their own opinion on that so I’m going to start letting each of you say since

I’ve already stated my Trends and hopefully I didn’t steal anyone’s Thunder I’d like to hear what you think

is the biggest Trend that you see coming in 2025 and we’ll start with Mike since

he was the one to finish up well thanks Brad um so to me it’s it’s the the chasm

between the haves and haves Nots continues to to grow and gets wider and

wider um my experiences tell shows me that I mean basically every week is that

those companies that are doing well are really doing well and they continue to grow by Leaps and Bounds um they’re not

selling it by the pound they’re selling it by the truckload when they go after key accounts they go after Enterprise

level types businesses businesses and I and I also I get that it’s not for everybody right I totally understand

that but the the bigger the better well-run more efficient uh are are

continue to pull away from the pack this this is not new this I think really started uh I remember back in my days in

nap when Andy used to talk about this uh that Gap you it used to be everybody

kind of grew and and receded um the same

Pace 2008 2009 really we saw that start to change and the Gap started companies

that are in in the middle in the bottom tier and in the in the top tier they’re doing fine don’t get me wrong but the

ones at the top are accelerate just I see that acceleration um they’re not doing at

willy-nilly it’s very calculated um some through consolidation some through

acquisition some through organic um but they’re just they’re

pulled away from the pack and I guess to me that’s a lesson that I see that people need we all need to be on our

game because otherwise you know the pie keep continues to get smaller and smaller yeah if I can say this effort of

of going after Enterprise and larger level customers this is kind of what separates the weed from the Chafe you’ve

got to kind of grow up and be get your big boy pants on or you’re GNA kind of

get swept away you have to deal on that professional level everybody should be trying to improve their business and

improve their professional ISM to go to that next level of customer so I I I definitely agree with that Mike and on

that note I’ll quickly go to Dena for her major trend for

2025 yeah so I similar to what you guys are saying um we see it on the

perspective of the spend right so you talk about consolidating companies are

being Smarter with their dollars they are being very focused with them so it

may not be as many marketing campaigns it’s the impact that those campaigns are

going to have and how they can do the add-ons to them that will make that campaign reach more of the audience than

just by sending right just so it’s not just the mail piece it’s what can we do

to addon what can we do digital components IP retargeting those kind of things to stay in front of the prospects

as well as when you’re marketing to your loyal base right so it’s the same thing it’s it’s

your you know who your loyal customers are you know doing a

great piece and on the front part of how to communicate with them throughout the

year and not just a direct mail piece but what are the other components we can add on and focus and again I think

you’re going to see a lot more analytics a lot of people are going to really analyze they’re going to do more testing

the AB testing is never uh you know it’s never too old right to test things to

see what’s working best maybe it’s not mailing to 200,000 people maybe they’re

consolidating down to 50,000 because they know that’s the Target and how do they you know stay in touch with those

people throughout the year so makes sense I we’re we sing the same song

about the Omni Channel presence and doing more than just putting ink on paper that’s I think a given and more

and more coming to see that thank you very much Ashley you you’re kind of

press for this industry if anybody’s got to have their ear to the rail on all fronts it’s probably

you yeah you know um so there are a couple things I was thinking about this maybe in a little bit a different way um

and actually I think I’m going to change my answer originally I was going to talk about um sustainability because it’s

something that I’m maybe passion hyper Focus yeah passionate about but also very focused on right now

um and I’ve been talking to a lot of companies about their sustainability initiatives um but actually now hearing

what Dena said I’m gonna say um embellishments another passion area of mine um and

I’m going to say it because I just had this conversation um actually with Jeff Peterson of fsca um for an article I did

and he was talking about how they worked with this small car wash um in this

local area and they um did a targeted mailing and they split it they did AB

testing half of them got this you know a postcard nice postcard um with the code

and then half of them got an embellished postcard that had spot and textured codings and um these beautiful digitally

produced enhancements and they saw 4% lift in response rate from that um and obviously that’s you know kind of one

example um but when I have had conversations with people recently I

think you you know there are so many cool things that can be done especially with digital technology um you know and

using hyper personalization along with uh embellishments so that’s something

that I think that I’m excited about and I want to see more of in 2025 um yeah well that’s great Insight

just just to lift on that point is next month our webinar is is going to be entitled um Direct Mail add-ons that is

specifically focusing on embellishments and Omni Channel and things you can do on top of the Inc on paper only models

so uh I’m plugging next month’s event make sure you watch our website for that so last but not least Morgan I have a

feeling I know what you’re gonna talk about but go ahead I’ll get out of your way well I definitely agree a lot with

what Dena and Ashley said but one thing I just want to touch on a little bit is about Direct Mail volumes because you

know as Direct Mail costs have continued to rise and volumes plummeted as some marketers pull out of mail or they were

lowering their DM budget because of cost I think that there will be more awareness from the marketers that did this of how the pullback on their direct

mail marketing budgets has affected their business and revenue and that the realization that mail is an integral

piece to the overall marketing strategy and the leveraging of both digital and direct mail in a seamless manner through

that Omni Channel marketing approach is what is really delivering the best results and especially in today’s marketing ecosystem where mail isn’t the

only technology where cost has increased you know digital marketing is saturated and cpms have increased and response

rates have declined for the digital marketing as well so using just digital

without DM is not a favorable strategy and I think that the marketers that were going in that direction are going to

start to feel some of the pain there and be moving back into an investment in DM

and um you know I agree with a what Ashley said about about the hyper personalization now personalization in

mail has been a growing trend for several years but I really believe you’re going to see this being taken to

the complete Next Level you know with the use of detailed customer data to to tailor each mail piece with unique

offers and recommendations and content based on past purchases or website behavior um and lastly because Omni

channel is is such a a favorable marketing tactic and we have more marketers employing that silos among

media channels are diminishing and and that’s caused a little bit of an attribution Gap when Direct Mail is

deployed into the media mix so I also think that there’s going to be an increase in the use of Technologies to

prove and show Direct Mail attribution and it’s increasingly more important as

the cost has continued to grow customers want to know is my DM converting and I think they’re going to continue to

invest in the analytics necessary to close this Gap and really see which channels are converted I I couldn’t

agree more the the the ability now to uh

track and report on Roi on Direct Mail is is sort of bulletproof at this point especially when digital uh Omni Channel

campaigns are added on to it so you know this was this was a problem

10 or 20 years ago you know you asked the person at the front desk did anybody bring in the postcard or use the you

know so that those things have been solved so that is good well good we got

through one question all right I’m gonna skip there’s a lot of chatter in the chat about this USPS s and Royal Mail

thing as I figured there might be so I’m going to jump right to that um I don’t

know if you guys saw but but Lewis dejoy was hauled in front of Congress last week and uh did his face in the hands

and got into it with the Senators and all that and and as I stated I think that’s going to be a trend changer for

2025 in one way or another I don’t know but it be it seems like you know was

what’s going on in Canada with the strike and what’s going on in UK this is a this is a major point of contention

and I’m going to throw out one of my uh you know one of my thoughts and

opinions because I can and I will but it’s always been my thought that why is our USPS competing with FedEx and and

DHL and all these other partial companies stick to the mail that’s what the original charter was from Ben

Franklin in in 1789 and uh they’re chasing the dollars

by higher Revenue pieces such as parcels packages great you know uh if you want

to increase Revenue absolutely the way to go but why would the government agency compete with private companies

that’s not the job and it was never intended by the original founding fathers in my humble opinion so if I

were to try and use the post office to improve Direct Mail of which I have no

Authority only my you know uneducated opinion I would say do something with

postage to encourage people who have never mailed there’s a generation of

advertisers out there that they don’t even know what Direct Mail advertising

is you know they get a bill in the mail and you know they probably don’t even know how to write a check and put it

into back into the mail system they go online so you have an entire generation

now that doesn’t even understand the value of using the post office to Market

to people there are no privacy restrictions there are no you know you’ve all seen the memes where you can

send anything through the mail so i’ think and again this is my opinion and I

I I voice it here so that maybe it gets a ground swell and people disseminate what I think might be a good idea if

others agree is create a postage discount that would allow firsttime

mailers or people that have never mailed in years five 10 years to get a decent

discount when I say decent 20 30% off that first or second mailing if you’ve

never mailed or if you have not mailed in five or 10 years that one mailing or

the two mailings or six months worth of mailings do that figure it out I’ve brought it up to

the powers at B at USPS oh it’s too hard to figure out it’s too hard to track well some of the stuff they’ve done with

with postage discounts is the most wild hairbrain tracking ideas I’ve ever seen

they’re so complicated it’s not worth the four or five% they save all right something like this would make it

worthwhile I’m sure a bunch of smart guys could figure this out that is my preach that is my opinion USPS does

anybody else have a USPS opinion let’s hear it Ashley’s chomping at the bit I

mean I well I was gonna say some so and someone else in the comments had mentioned incentives for um you know

USPS I I totally agree I think um you know and expanding the the male growth

incentives that they have um you know kind of rewarding the the people that are you know experiencing growth there

um and expanding what they already you know they offer for example I saw in 2025 going back to sustainability

because it is something I’m passionate about they’re offering 1% as an add-on to the other incentives which okay fine

but one% addon is good yeah add-on yeah um but you know expanding what they’re

you know the the programs that they have I think and you’ve said is yeah it’s

place they could they could start agre well I mean they doing that the comment

on the uh AI promotion right you had a very good point that you brought up Morgan you want to tell everybody or are

you dare not well no I mean the AI promotion I don’t understand because you’re incentivizing people to use chat

GPT and taking jobs away from creative designers and people that are putting offers together you’re literally taking

a service away from the industry I just don’t get it I mean and and just you know I have to get on my sto boox for a

minute I just have to say like stop raising the cost of postage like I I

know there’s no postage increase in January 2025 and we’re getting a little break but I mean what other product or

service can you think of that has a twice a year price increase year-over-year for several years in a

row what business what service what product none any business that wants to incentivize sales offers a discount or a

sale and marketers are paying more and more for the exact same product they’re getting a diminishing or decrease in the

results the post office 2024 fiscal report shows Revenue up but to the

detriment of direct mail volume down unproportionately and in a political

mail year where we know mail volumes are always higher so you know that’s something that needs to be looked at and

the other thing is too it’s like like you were talking about Brad why are we competing with UPS and FedEx stop

cannibalizing your unique selling proposition USPS has a unique selling proposition that no one else has mail so

like why are we going after packaging and like leaving our unique selling proposition on the table to die I think

much bigger Revenue well yeah but you know we need to to have more resources

into educating marketers on the effecacy and power of mail dissect every outpoint objection on mail and heavily promote

its use and penetrate brands with powerful statistical iCal back data to keep mes a contender in the ring and you

know I’ll say this last thing and I’ll get off my my Soap Box you know the joint hasn’t done a terrible job okay

and the position he’s inherited is beyond challenging and and he is getting a lot of heat he maybe hasn’t done the

best job but he hasn’t done a terrible job but the other thing too is why are we holding USPS to standards that we

don’t hold other government agencies too why is USPS the only government entity

that is not allowed to run in a like I don’t get it they’re they’re treating it like it’s a private

organization but I don’t know at any rate I just don’t think that the aggressive postage increases and and dropping M as a family Outcast is a

solution to the deficit problem I don’t so agreed all right Mike your turn yes

so I want to add on to some actually something that that Dena said and I thought it was really important you know we’re seeing more and

more uh um feedback from our mailings right there’s more and more tools

available to figure out what’s working what’s not working and not trying to jump ahead here but I

think with with AI some of the AI tools and some of the services that like Morgan and Brad provide and some of the

others I think what that does is open up because let me back up the big guys the

big direct mailers have been using data to to understand what’s working what’s not working for years because they were

able to collect that information parse it out do the analytics and figure out what’s next and they didn’t stop at just

AB testing they had AB B CDE EF and and a whole bunch of others testing all all

along right I think what’s what’s as a trend perhaps and and I think just

piling on in Dena what Dena said is that I think this starts to open a door for

if if we if we’re smart about it it opens the door to other people that might not have used direct mail in the

past because now we can provide them a little bit more tools a dashboard if you

will right so they can see how it’s working they can see how it’s been more

being more effective and particularly as you combine it with you know in an omni channel uh campaign so it’s just it’s

the the the we’re we’re we’re taking off the you know the the shroud of secrecy

of our you know what works what doesn’t work a little bit through through more technology um again AI plays a big part

of this and again particularly with some of these services that you guys are all providing to the to the customers so I think we’re going to see more customers

I guess is the the bottom line and if you’re if you’re a service provider then I think think you need to you know

promote that and and teach that to the people who may not have gotten into direct mail in the past but based on

their business model it should they should be doing it right um anyway so I

just I thought I’d add that to it because I think D made a great point about that good well thank you Mike for

that I want to give Dena the chance to to make any comments on up USPS and and

that aspect of it before we move on yeah and I tried lightly what I say but um

because of my relationships with the USPS and what we do for a living but I will say the male growth incentive plan

was great uh it continues to be great there’s another 25 sign up you know um

we’ve had we have customers utilizing it they are doing way more mail because of

it I think the level and the threshold was set very high so maybe

instead of 30% give back for those doing large volume there’s

there is a level like what if we went in and dropped that in half and then did 15% credit you know maybe it is the

incentive for the first time mailer they’d have to set a threshold you’re not going to say oh the first

time mail are doing 5,000 pieces right is going to get 30% off but I think

there’s so many levels they can take that male growth incentive and focus because it is it is targeted towards the

male owner um which is great it’s the ultimate person paying that bill and that postage bill so I think there’s a

lot of opportunity there they easily have the ability to track that they’re showing that with the current mail

growth incentive it’s very easy for them to track for the mail service provider track the mail order track super easy

super easy way to get that those funds back and designate where it goes to so I think they open the doors they need to

explore it more they need to work more with um the mail owners and service providers and how they can make that

happen and then I’m going to say something that’s probably not politically correct but um

you know they spend a lot of money yeah so while they’re in a deficit they can

take a hard core look just like any organization does and how they can save money and their biggest thing is their

payroll so there’s definitely departments they don’t need and they

could easily wipe out labor by getting rid of those departments and you know

you talk about going after like the shipments right and the packages um you

know there there’s a there’s a part of that that you see it well if I can get 20 bucks for that box

to deliver it as opposed to 50 cents for that mail piece right and collectively

I’m delivering to the household to generate more Revenue that’s where I think leou de Joy has done a really good

job of you capitalizing on that right but you have a Salesforce that’s

selling maybe they don’t need as many of the Salesforce yeah you know what I mean I don’t know I don’t know the answer but

I think they should take a look at all their different departments and what they can do to streamline some of that

labor just like you would have to do Brad I’d have to do right Ashley if your

budget got CAU Mike say like if we had no Choice we’d have to make a decision

right so absolutely and you know until you’ve walked in someone’s boots you

don’t really know what they’re dealing with but you know he has made a concerted effort to improve

infrastructure and grow Revenue that’s I don’t think anybody’s disputing that and

and you know there’s some people that wouldn’t be able to accomplish that so kudos to him for that it’s created some

controversy you know we’re obviously uh not an impartial piece of industry being

focused on direct mail here so we’re tainted in that sense you know I’m not

I’m not disagreeing all right thank you for those comments let’s move on to the next

elephant in the room it’s it’s affecting every piece of Industry of every business probably everywhere on the

planet and it’s it’s AI it’s probably going to change everything in the next

five to 10 years almost every is I’ve said this for a couple years as much as the internet changed business in the

late 90s and early 2000s I believe AI will have a larger impact on more

Industries in the next five years than the emergence of the internet uh 20 some years ago um everything we do you know

so let’s talk about that in relation to the direct mail business all right um

again I’ll put in our our plug we’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to do uh predictive models for

Direct Mail based on the hundreds of thousands of pieces we’ve collected and the campaigns we’ve monitored uh I just

hope somebody will actually pay for the data to be honest with you you know I mean I think it’s a great idea everybody

I talk to says it’s a great idea but will they pay for it and I think that goes with any investment in AI the idea

is to make something more efficient to save money or if you’re building a tool you got to sell that tool all right will

people pay for that tool now I know businesses are paying for aspects of AI

to make more efficiency in their business but how can it be used in our

industry all right one of the biggest most obvious things and I’m not gonna I’m not going to let you guys comment on

the part about creative and copy creation we all know about that that’s old news sometimes it works out

sometimes it doesn’t we’ve all tried it and sometimes it’s terrible and you wish

you didn’t even bother but I’d love to know and if you don’t have a different answer fine how do you think AI will

change what you do in this industry and we’ll we’ll start with Mike on that so

really kind of look at four different areas on this right

um you know I think it it as I mentioned earlier AI is going to allow more and

more people to to do Direct Mail smarter right and and by that could be a

better better and more precise Prospect targeting who who do we really want to mail to and and why um more realtime

campaign performance uh analysis and results right looking at those dashboards and

seeing and being able to make decisions particularly for example if you’re a retailer and you’re dependent upon this

grand opening for I’m making this up here right but on the performance of this of this mailing that’s going out

right you can you get some realtime information and you can better prepare more so than ever before I think the

other side behind the curtain uh is much more automated production workflows so the

people producing the direct mail and getting it into the mailstream and all of those things it’s going to decrease

the cost increase the efficiency uh increase this the velocity of the work going through the shops that’s one of my

pet pees veloc how quickly can work go through and be be produced because clients don’t give you more time these

days I don’t think anybody does they give you less time uh and then the last area is really a more sophisticated um a

customer Journey mapping right so how do customers buy why do they buy from you right and I think the better you know

about that then the better you’re going to be able to design your direct mail campaigns to suit those to so you’re

meaningful and relevant to the audience you’re going after so I think those are the four things that I I think of with

AI other than spellchecking some of the stuff that I do

thank you Mike I’m just answering someone thank you all right Dina you’re next I’m just going around the circle as

I see you on the screens here so you know I’m gonna juggle us next time no

um I Mike what Mike shared about the customer journey is something that we’re

actually not currently for clients but we’re doing that and looking at that for

ourselves because you know I you know I talked about like labor and so forth as

a business owner like that’s the biggest component for us of what we look at and so if I not that I want to reduce staff

but if I can do more with the team that I have ai is going to play a part in that

right instead of me adding te like more team members I can take that our lead gen so we’re using AI to analyze our

Leen who we’re trying to go after how to go out there and without labor but using

AI find the right contacts for that I have a team that’s um been focused on

looking at different softwares talking to different companies about how we can do that to bring in more leads for our

Salesforce so that’s our Focus this year and going into 25 how we can utilize

that that’s a that’s a great point you know um Good Good Morgan how about you

tell me your thoughts don’t rubber stamp me yeah I mean just it’s kind of I’ll

just expound a little bit on what was shared here but I I think that AI will will play a lot into the key trends for

Direct Mail like the hyper personalization right we can analyze campaign data we can predict which

recipients are most likely to respond we can optimize mailing lists so you can be marketing to really highly targeted

audiences and the predictive modeling AI algorithms can really take this to the

next level because they can analyze really large data sets right to predict individual preferences like purchase

Behavior even life events right that would it would really allow for very highly personalized mail pieces with

offers and messages that are really tailored right to that Direct Mail recipient now the other thing uh too is

that uh in terms of DM campaigns themselves you can actually train AI algorithms on D DM campaign historical

data to identify the patterns and correlations between the campaign elements and the response rates and that’s what we’re doing with with the

dm2 doai um but also in the automization of the

tasks right so the data analysis the the content creation and then as Dena was

alluding to not even just the lead generation but some of this AI can actually be implored to even nurture the

leads that are coming in like you can set up funnels so that as the leads are coming into your organization as they

click on an ad and they come in you can have preset questions that are being answered and be grabbing data and

capturing data about them and doing some of the work for your sales team and kind of teeing that up for them to come in

and then have a more formalized consultative call with them so I’m pretty much the same tone here you know

that Dena and Mike said but yeah I I think there’s a lot that can be done with AI and I’m excited to see what it’s

going to bring to the industry although I will share that I am personally a

little standoffish on the AI I do have a little bit of a fear button there Brad is like AI like all the way I’m kind of

like scared we’re going to see like a real life Terminator here a little bit I mean I’m just sharing that it’s a little

concerned of where it can go without proper regulation so I’m just going to drop that right there be we need to be a

little cautious and responsible with the AI I just to interject I mean my my fear

on AI in terms of you know a hum a humankind threat to our species not so

much but more everybody’s using the Bud’s word Ai and and this happened to us we had used a legion AI company who

went through and created these funnels and these autor responses and you know

I’m a somewhat technical guy and I’m like What’s the AI here there was no actual ai ai is is where it teaches

itself based on a huge data set how to correct itself going forward this was

just a thing where you filled out some things and it put some funnels together and S it was just it was marketing

Automation and they called it AI so I wanted to make a point that buyers who are seeking AI

Solutions you need to separate the the the marketing from the from the beef you

might say you know what is the AI show me the artificial intelligence or the

self-learning capabilities of the tool that you’re being sold you know so

there’s going to be a weed out period where everybody’s calling anything they’re doing now ai and it just is not

the fact that I’m building one I know even more what’s a real Ai and what’s

not you start with a giant data set that learns and self-corrects the more and newer data that comes in that’s the key

Point here right Ashley I didn’t want to cut you off on this you you get your minute on the soapbox okay I mean I

don’t have too much more to add I think Dina Morgan Mike Brad you all had great points you know working smarter not

harder um someone in the comments said um which I really appreciate you can’t eliminate the human element especially

as a journalist that’s huge like I do use not going to talk about content

creation but um you know I do use it in some you know some ways to help build social media posts and stuff but there’s

always that human touch like I add my own voice and stuff um but actually to Something Mike Philly said um in you

know workflow optimization so thinking about it from the uction side of things um you know using AI leveraging

analytics for intelligent job grouping um and improving efficiency I think that’s going to be really huge um

especially you know as postage costs go up and everything else we want to make sure we’re doing things as efficiently

and um streamlined reducing waste as much as possible um so it’s kind of

where I see AI being really beneficial I I agree 100% all right moving on to the

world that I am not qualified to give an opinion on it’s the trends of production

and Manufacturing methods that are going to impact direct mayil over the next year I do not know enough even to

qualify myself as uttering a sentence here so I’m going to divert first to Dena and see what she has to say about

this so I think the Equipment Technology

side is the thing to watch um and I think Morgan shared it earlier when you said that the color and and the and the

capabilities with the variable Imaging and the variable you know messaging and

stuff it’s huge right so I don’t think that’s Cutting Edge it’s been happening

what I think is becoming Cutting Edge or what we’re going to watch and continue to see is the technology that continues

to happen out there with equipment vendors um you know we have inkjet

technology currently we have sheetfed we don’t have rfed we’re looking at rfed I think that that is what’s really

something to watch and it’s the speed that Mike talked about getting it out the door because there is no more oh

yeah we got a week to turn that project around no that’s just not today’s world so it’s how quick we can get it out with

how much impact on it and then the technology that makes that brings out

the life in it the color the embellishments that really makes it eye

appealing and eye-catching and a meaningful piece in a quick time frame

so I think that’s more The Cutting Edge that we’re going to continue to see and

that like obviously things have changed if you go back to like eight years ago to where it was then to where it is

today it’s amazing um that the automation side of it and the moving

things through along with software you know how a software help impact that and

set it up to get out to cut move over to the machine to cut uh get out to print

and then get it out to cut and all that stuff moving it through your operation quicker and efficiently and out the door

within a 24-hour time frame it’s interesting you know I I’m not a printer

but I have a question myself as if I was if I’m a printer and I’ve got a simple five color sheetfed press and I’m like I

need to invest in something new let’s say I even have a a a digital variable inkjet too but I want some post-

production piece you know whether it’s a coder or or an embellisher or a foiler

you know how does one even know what to invest that money you you let’s say you can’t afford to buy all of these

machines do you do it based on a specific customers need and it justify that investment off the off the line or

or where do you go where is the business seem to be leading if I was going to buy a post- production machine how would I

even know where to go uh Mike why don’t you probably have something to say on

this I was I was hoping you would pick me Brad the um so so I got a couple things

because there a lot to unpack some of the stuff that Dena said too I want to touch on but where do you go to buy

something new so I’ll I’ll answer the question with a question how did it go

with your last 10 quarterly business reviews with your key accounts and what did you learn I’ll wait for the

answer that’s a good point okay so what are we doing to you know really sit down

and talk about our customers business instead of just reacting to the next email or phone call no not phone

call but next email that comes through with either an RFP or or a quote or something right we don’t we don’t know

and here’s one of the things that I see remember in the opening statements the guys the the companies that are really

accelerating they are having those conversations they’re having those business discussions with their clients

trying to understand there’s no guarantees here right but they’re trying

to understand where their customers are going and why and how fast they’re going and trying to trying to keep up trying

to maybe take take a step ahead maybe the more they know about their customers business as well they’re bringing insight to them as well and understand

and making recommendations that you know you really ought to be doing this really ought to be doing that you really ought to be doing the other thing so we really

need to be in front of our customers and not just pitching our our latest new piece of stuff

it’s really understanding their business what keeps them up at night uh what and

the higher level people as well um here’s my other pet peeve with a lot of

this stuff technology is way ahead of our ability to make money with it right and has been for years for

years right and so one of the one of the biggest things that has to happen for us to all be feel good about this stuff is

adoption rates by by the end customers one: one and variable stuff has been

around like for for ages right but how much you know so I’d ask people that

that have a a digital Inkjet or digital toner box what percentage of your work is actually

variable start there right because if it’s not variable you’re just doing short run color short run black and

white and all You’ all you’ve really done is reduce your cost and probably reduced the you what you’re charging for

it as well the the more variable the more targeted you can be with all the different things you can do the higher

the higher value you bring to your customer right the higher the higher value they’re getting with that printed

piece it’s not the printed piece it’s what the printed piece does for them does it drive people to an open house as

it drive people to fill beds or School seats um I get a little passionate about

this right because we we lose sight of all that stuff um we we need we need to

not just focus on the stuff but what our customers are doing with the things that we do you know a

question I ask all the time how are your customers making money with the things you you deliver to them and if you don’t

know don’t pick up the phone again until you do so so let me see if I can

simplify this and if there is a if if I’m a I’m a $5 million printer $5

million a year and I said to you Mike I I need to get to $10 million in two

years here’s my what pieces of major equipment would I need to have that the

industry requires for that type of growth and Industry size is there you

got to have a you know an indigo 8000 I don’t know the names of these or km1 is there something that they got to have or

it doesn’t really matter I don’t see I don’t think it matters really I mean depending upon

what space you’re in but you if you’re five million you you have some stuff whether you’re all digital or you may

have a small Inkjet or you have an offset press you know are you are you s here’s the other part of it too right we

we outfit our our businesses with equipment you know start at the

Baseline are we are we looking for work that’ll help us fill that equipment to fill that that shop to be more

productive or are we are we are we looking at work that happen that we happen to stumble on or by accident they

call us and and we’re quoting on that happens all the time right um you get

sales people that bring stuff in and they say well we don’t do that yeah but you know you know it’s a good

customer or we think it could be a good customer so let’s do it anyway that’s okay if you’re if you’re going to be a

general commercial be all things to all people but I think that’s just harder and harder to do these days I just think

it is um you know what are we doing to make to make an impact on our customers

business and you don’t have to be 50 million or 500 million you could be five million you can be a million dollars to

have those conversations and chances are you probably have enough equipment already right to to take yourself to the

next I don’t know I haven’t been to any shop that is over that is that is tapped out they have absolutely no more

capacity they can’t grow I mean they’re all looking buy but they’re all looking to buy new stuff

that’s that’s a good point and I really appreciate you know it’s kind of like saying you know you can’t be a a

Michelin Chef unless you cook on Ironclad or lack cruset and and you don’t have you know the latest Japanese

you know 440 Steel knives it doesn’t it doesn’t you don’t need that equipment

to get the next job so I I appreciate that and I think it’s important for people to hear that Ashley you haven’t

said anything in in this you have noticed Trends in manufacturing or post production so I mean you know Dina

mentioned inkjet digital um technology digital digital embellishing um and

um talk about that but one thing that Mike said that uh I thought it kind of triggered something I had read this

morning um that came into my inbox um about hyper personalization um and being

able to use the software digital technology to provide this personalization and the article was

personalization is not customization and it made the point that

you know there’s some confusion maybe or some uh you know maybe misunderstanding

uh sometimes where we think just slapping a name on something makes it personalized but that’s not what

personalization is it’s building a bond between the you know the brand or the

the the company and the recipient um and I thought it was just it was a great

piece that um was I think it was inma um who posted it um but yeah I just wanted

to add that in because I think um there is definitely a a differentiation between the you know customization

personalization targeting and just keeping that in mind 2025 excellent great Dena did you have

any comments on post- production and or you already did that I gave you that one first didn’t I so unless you had a

followup Morgan do you care about this subject you care I mean you know I’m like you br I’m not a printer I’m not a

mailer but I am in the industry I I work with printers and mailers all over the country I mean I I think I have enough

knowledge I don’t know I mean in my opinion I think that methods that align

with the postal incentives will be prominent like interactive elements Maybe in 2025 we’ll see mail campaigns

push the envelope pun intended like when it comes to interactivity and sensory engagement um probably see like the use

of textured paper maybe augmented reality I don’t know I mean augmented reality has been around a long time and

there was like a lot of uh you know talk about it but I don’t see a lot of its use I don’t know Dena do do your clients

use augmented reality a lot or you know that’s it’s a it’s tough it’s expensive

and it’s you know you have to have the tools to to create it and to make you

know so no we don’t have many clients that use that at all right and so like this is look how long it took people to

to get used to having QR codes on everything exactly exactly and like this is something I’ve seen as a a postal

incentive year-over-year and like it’s a neat feature but yeah some of these things are are expensive to incorporate

into the mail but I think that the tactile experience is something that can very easily be used and I think that

marketers and Brands can can really start taking advantage of that and then you know Ashley kept talking a lot about

sustainability and it is becoming a top priority for customers and I think that printers and mailers are going to start

to follow suit in terms of echo-friendly materials and printing techniques so

great all right so we’re down to the last five or six minutes here and um I

want to see if you guys have a specific on within the world of omni

Channel marketing we’ve all talked about using multi- channels to help and assist

the lift on Direct Mail do you feel there’s something coming around the bend or there’s some new trend that could be

coupled with direct mail in the Omni Channel Universe to improve it in the next year or so I’m gonna go we’ll start

with Morgan since this is her bread and butter and then we’ll move around the group I mean listen I don’t know it’s so

vast and Broad I don’t know that I could nail or pin it down to any real any one element that’s incor into Omni Channel

but I just have to say that firstly and foremost Direct Mail is the PowerHouse in the Omni Channel campaign and given

our ability to create a hypert targeted audience and Mark it to the right people you can then take advantage of the

powerful impact driven by mail it’s tangible it activates a long-term memory centers in the brain and then you

utilize technology whichever one you choose you know to drive prospects to a website where you can engage the

prospects most likely to respond right so you’re making the best utilization of your digital marketing budget because

now you’re engaging the people that actually responded from the DM and and the thing is though too is that even

without a QR code or or something driving them directly to the website DM recipients are going to go there anyway

if there’s interest but using those interactive digital features will give you tracking capabilities and you know

the other thing too when you’re like well what one one channel or one thing you have to understand that the average

number of channels that a consumer is engaging in in a prospect journey is eight eight channels so I would say the

more channels that can be leveraged through the Omni Channel campaign the better consumers prefer to start the buying journey and some they prefer to

convert in others so I say the best mix is you start with mail you enhance with

digital and you close the deal with direct mail and you know I just got to put a little plug in here because it’s

our webinar we have built an entire business around this at Direct Mail 2.0 so we started almost a decade ago with

three Technologies now we’re up to 15 so if you want to try to figure this all out you can use our platform we have a

streamlined TurnKey solution that you can take advantage of and we can help with that thank you Morgan I somehow knew

that was gonna come up right Ashley you got any any favorite areas of omni Channel with d mail um you know I would

just say uh you know making sure in the coming years especially because the

generations that are you know entering the workforce that are consumers gen

gen Alpha by 2030 it’s going to gen Alpha is going to start entering the workforce crazy um they’re digital

natives um but I’ve been seeing something just hit my inbox the other day about how Jen Z loves Direct Mail

like they they they don’t get mail but they they do but they don’t get as much mail maybe as other Generations but they

do love it sticks out to them because they’re digital natives because they have this you know an inbox that’s just

inundated every day um targeting them and actually doing

something that’s effective Direct Mail like Morgan said then targeting them you know through email or some other digital

way and then going closing it with direct mail it’s going to be effective and and

just keeping in mind that things are going to change you know with with the type of people that you have to Target

over the next few years absolutely Dina I know you do a lot of omni Channel you

guys do it pretty well obviously because you’ve never been a customer of ours so you know what you’re doing you don’t need us I understand I’m not hurt tell

us what you think what you’ve seen is what or what you think is coming around the bend or see

growing you know what we see most effective with Direct Mail because

Morgan’s right like Direct Mail is the best bang for the buck when you are Prospect prospecting and trying to stay

in touch with your customers IP targeting for us is something that we do a lot with with

customers and it works really effectively with mail I think that it really depends on the product or

service then we can talk about what components work because there’s there’s

aspects where ADS Google ads Facebook ads like that tied into Direct Mail

works there’s there’s some email might work um I say that quietly you know

there like but everybody’s so flooded right so that it just depends on really

the product or service we don’t really talk about components until we understand the product or service the

customer is trying is selling and what it is they’re trying to accomplish and then we can talk about building it from

there but I would say the one thing tied to direct mail we see the most of is that works is IP targeting interesting

yeah that that’s it’s not a cheap solution either you’re paying a lot more to get in front of the eyes of those

individuals specifically you know it’s not cheap no not cheap marketing is

worth the investment yeah exactly Mike did you have did you have a horse in

this race that you’d like yeah so so so I’ll just I’ll just say so I’m not a um

you know I’m not an expert on Omni Channel marketing by any means but I I do believe it kind of kind of goes back

to what we’ve all been talking about is have how do we have a conversation with a

customer right and so it’s got to be multiple channels it’s got to be multiple ways multiple steps but Brad I

have to take advantage of this that you know being living just outside of DC and kind of being a political junkie I’m

going to I’m going to answer the question with with something that I want to talk about it’s something I should have said earlier when you ask me about

the equipment you know what to buy if you’re $5 million to get the 10 million I don’t have the answer for that

but if you’re doing direct mail today if you’re doing a lot of direct mail and and Dena talked about this earlier where

she has sheetfed inkjet looking at rfed ink chat one of the things know one of

my pet peeves is eliminating are minimizing the amount of

touches that we have on a project as it goes through the shop right increasing

the velocity of the job and one of the really cool things that I’ve seen shops with that put inkjet roll roll fed

inkjet in there let’s just pick something really easy postcards they’re coming out you know they’re putting roll to roll postcards they’re putting them

through an inline finishing device they’re coming out trimmed and stacked in six you know 6×9 postcards putting

them in mail trays no more taking them to a cutter no more taking them to a couple other different places right I

mean it’s just expedites and reduces the amount of touches through through the shop which is reduces cost uh increases

velocity all that neat stuff so I’m a big fan of that that really seen it put into practice here in the last few years

that’s excellent that’s excellent so as we wrap up I want to make sure that our uh esteemed panelist get acknowledged

for their time here and as always I like to end on time uh feel feel free to scan

these codes contact these people I’ll leave this up but uh I really appreciate

your time it was very insightful and uh I’m excited about 2025 and uh we’ll do

one of these again next year so feel free to uh scan the codes we’re going to send a copy of this out there was

amazing stuff in the chat which I did not even get time to go over uh we got

through most of the questions but again everybody have a great holiday thank you again and uh it was great seeing

everybody in chatting for an hour thanks guys thanks guys thank you bye bye