Mail it or Fail It? Judge Real Campaigns LIVE!

Welcome to everybody. I’ll give a few seconds for them to filter into the room. I saw there were a lot of guys in

the waiting room and you guys will be uh Oh, you’re flowing in. I love it. We we we had some pretty good registration

numbers on this and we’re super excited to go over this. Um that’s our entry

slide. This is who is going to be talking and we’ve got a lot to go over. And first I want to thank each of our

panelists. Uh Morgan’s getting paid for this because we work in the same place. So maybe I don’t have to thank her, but

um the others are doing this out of the the gratus of their own heart and to show you that we think we know a thing

or two about productive or wellthoughtout and executed direct mail

campaigns, but we’re going to add a little a little fun to this. We’re going to make it a little interactive. So,

what we’re going to do is we’re basically going to go over some mail pieces and before our experts chime in

and tear it apart or build it up or say whatever they’re going to say, we’re going to show you the mail piece and

we’re going to push a poll to you. It’s mail it or fail it. All right? and you guys are going to choose and then we’re

going to give a few seconds or a minute to let those surveys roll in and we’re just going to go around the experts and

have them comment on what they think and then Morgan’s going to kind of take you and some of these things I think we do

have some results on that can back up what we’re saying or we’re not sharing any results due to privacy and security.

Remind me here we’ll share uh two campaigns where we do have some results data at the end. Yeah,

believe it or not, it’s a it’s a touchy issue when you ask clients if we can

share results. Um, they don’t want to give away any secrets to their competitors. I guess all of us in direct

mail have experienced this. And it’s honestly one of the toughest things when people say, “Hey, so so give us a case

study. Give us, you know, this or that.” And and and it’s it’s not something we can easily answer. So, we’re going to go

over what we’ve learned from our probably cumulative and I don’t want to date anybody here, but I’m going to say

50, 60, 70 years of direct mail experience. Uh, we will not put it in

any one corner of any particular person here, but I think we’ve got a pretty seasoned board and we will get right to

it. I’m going to start by announcing or introducing each of you and I would appreciate if you guys give a little 30

seconds on what you do. I’ll start with myself, Brad Kugler. I’m the CEO and co-founder of DirectMail 2.0. We’ve also

acquired Who’s Mailing What. We have a new brand starting next month, direct mail 2.0.ai, which we’ll tease you a

little bit at the end. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last seven or eight years. Morgan, what do you do? I’m

Morgan DiGiorgio. I’m the chief revenue officer at Direct Mail 2.0 and who’s mailing what. And collectively, our sole

purpose is to make direct mail the most effective form of marketing by integrating it with cutting edge

technology. We do have a 15 technology omni channel marketing platform that integrates into direct mail campaigns to

lift the response rate on average about 23 to 46%. And we also provide real-time

results in a reporting dashboard so that you can dive into the reporting data of mail campaigns, see what’s working,

what’s not, and utilize that data and leverage it to continuously improve direct mail campaigns. And I just want

to say that, you know, we’re not here on this webinar positioning ourselves and clouding our our expert opinions. But I

think that collectively we all care about direct mail as a marketing channel and the efficacy of it. And if we can

lend any value into how we can improve that channel through our opinions and others, I think that that is a valuable

resource that we can present today. Thank you, Morgan. Mr. David Foley,

please introduce yourself and do not be shy. Hi, I’m I’m David Foley. I’m a partner

in Direct Mail Insiders, which is a an online mastermind that helps uh

marketing people and business owners who want to do direct mail, but they don’t know what they don’t know, and they’re

prepared to admit it, and we help them along the way get better results. It

takes time. It takes patience, but uh in the end, I think it benefits everybody.

Thank you, David. And if I may be so bold as to ask, how many years of experience do you have in direct mail

marketing on and off? Probably

30 some odd. Thank you very much. We appreciate your experience and thank you for bringing

that to this panel. Uh David from XMPI, tell us about what you do.

Hi Brent. Uh so David Baldaro I’m the marketing manager for XMPI uh global

software organization uh been around for over two decades now um helping

organizations print service providers market service providers and enterprises across the globe um deliver personalized

print direct mail um web to print omni channel communications we really strive

between driving the the digital form as well as the physical form in exactly the

same um in a very creative way. So, I’m going to I’m going to come at this from a very creative perspective.

Thank you. And that is very much appreciated. And David, you’re you’re across the pond, too. And I believe

where are you calling in from or zooming in from at this? I’m based in the UK. I’ve always been in

the UK. Excellent. And Brent from Lob, uh I think you’re over the pond as well,

correct? Uh this week I am. Yeah, usually I’m in uh uh sunny Iowa, but uh hi everyone. Uh

I’m Brent Hagen. I’m the the uh chief supply chain officer at Lob. Uh for

those of you that don’t know, Lob is a direct mail automation platform.

uh where uh our our primary focus is on the the enterprise uh level uh client

and and offer um regionally based fulfillment and logistics

uh to to help you navigate your your national campaigns. Excellent. Brendan, thank you for coming

to us for being on the road too. We really appreciate all of your opinions. I’m going to turn it over to Morgan to

kind of kick it off. And Morgan, once you’ve shown the piece, I will open up to our uh audience a poll and we’re

going to see what they think before we dive into it. All right. All right. Perfect. So, before we get

into our collaborative judging of these campaigns, uh just want to talk about

the anatomy of a successful direct mail campaign. There are some core elements

that should be inclusive in a direct mail campaign. The offer, it must be enticing. Someone must find value in it

and and have the desire to act on it. The creative is probably one of the most fundamentally important pieces. And I’m

looking very forward to hearing more about David’s perspective and in his experience in that regard. The audience,

we have to be marketing to the right people. You could have the most killer offer, the best creative and strong call

to action, but if you’re marketing to the wrong people, you’ll never get a response. Call to action. Why are they

acting on it? cause them to act now and then the integration. So the days of

utilizing or leveraging one channel are long gone. All all marketers are

typically leveraging multi-channel or omni channel marketing and the direct mail is such a core and foundational

element in your marketing strategy. It’s tangible. It impinges it. It activates the long-term memory centers in the

brain and it causes uh an inclination to respond to other channels. And having

some sort of seamless integration with your direct mail campaign or integrative elements on the direct mail piece that

are facilitating a leadin to your other channels is so imperative in today’s marketing ecosystem.

Now 10 elements every postcard should have. I I’m not going to go through and

and list all these but I just wanted to throw this up here. These are some of the things that at its core we will be

analyzing a direct mail piece or from the audience’s perspective when you’re looking at these direct mail campaigns.

Most I’m sure in the audience or joining us on this webinar today are in the direct mail profession in some regard

and probably have good working knowledge of what these core elements are. So we’ll be looking for the inclusion of or

lack thereof of a lot of these core elements. But above and beyond that, there’s a lot of things that can lend to

a successful direct mail campaign that produces ROI on marketing spend. And

we’ll be expounding a lot further above and beyond these 10 elements.

So, our first direct mail campaign, this might be a little challenging. I I just I think I’d like us bra before you open

up to the audience and and we can review this, but I couldn’t really put the

front and back on a slide so that it could be easily viewable. So, we’ve got one slide with the front of the

mailpiece for the audience’s viewing pleasure. And then we also have the back of the

mailpiece here. So, just take it all in for what it’s worth here. And now, Brad,

if you would like to Here it comes. Hopefully you guys are seeing this and

you can throw in your votes right now. What do you think of this piece?

Amazing. Okay. You know, you’re going to have to You

only have two choices. You You either mail it or fail it. So, so do not be

shy. Uh I mean, throw a dart in the wall for all I care, you know, at this.

I see a lot of comments. hot mess. Hurts my head. Overwhelming.

I see it too. And and I can tell you as the votes are coming in, um 155, 156,

uh we got a overwhelming fail at score on this. Um honestly, at first glance, I

I would have to agree, but I’m going to hold my comments. I don’t want to influence anybody. I’ll give you guys another another few seconds. you know,

we’re we’re we’re coming close to almost 200 uh voters on this. So, I thank you

guys for your participation. I love the comments and this makes great fodder.

And now I’m really even more excited to hear what our our panelists say. I I

think that we’re going to get some universal agreement on this. But I’m going to end the poll now

and I will share you the results. I

Do you see them on the screen? Sure do. 8% mail it, 92% fail it.

That That’s a pretty overwhelming uh

ca vote cast on this piece. So So um Morgan, I’ll let you decide who to start with. I’d have to say if I wanted to

chime in, this is just so busy and so all over the place. They’re trying to put a catalog together and send it in,

you know, four square inches. That’s my review. But that’s that that’s the overwhelming

response of the audience. And and and why I picked this too because I actually

see this more often than not. A lot of times the industry that I see this leveraged this kind of tactic the most

is in HVAC heating and cooling. They like to put all of their different products and services. And there’s just

so much. And with direct mail, less is more. I I I can’t even tell what’s going

on here. It’s so overwhelming, so many price points, but what’s the

value that’s being driven for me? Uh, I do see some key core elements that are

good in engaging a response uh from somebody that may take enough time to

look at this mail piece, right, to respond. But, um, I definitely would not

have put this into production. And I ju I also wanted to actually say this, too.

So for everyone on the webinar today, I pulled all of these mail pieces out of our who’s mailing what archive. So all

of these mail pieces came out of our collection uh of mail that we have. And

I think as a print and mail or service provider, if I was going through our collection and I came across this piece,

I would see an opportunity here to potentially find the contact information in our database and reach out to this

marketer or advertiser and talk to them how I can add more value or them

better. I actually love that. I mean, this is you can go to this type of client and

say, I’ll give you a design for free if you’ll take my call. This is what we Let’s get from the other guys here. I

don’t uh David, I’ll say David B and David F. Okay, David B, why don’t you uh give us

your feedback? I think it’s pretty obvious on this. I’m loving this. I mean, I’m sorry, but

I’m I’m just scrolling through the comments and these are gold. Great. I wish we could make it all

and if and if everyone can’t see, I don’t know if everybody can get everybody else’s comments, but Jennifer Miller sums it up for me. Can’t get an

AC unit big enough to cover this hot mess. It’s

I don’t know where my eyes need to go first. I need sunglasses. They’re going to bleed. I mean, I’m trying to be hold

the English reserve to this, but there there’s no nicities. Um it and I guess

for some ways, I mean, for me, it’s about, you know, creative input, and there was clearly some creative input

here. and the designer just didn’t say no to the client when he came back and said, “We just fit one more unit on here, please.” Um,

it has to be creative. There’s no relevancy unless you happen to know that I’m in an HVAC or that environment. It’s

not personalized. There’s I don’t know where to start, but no. No,

just no. And no, no. I mean it and in some ways it

reminds me you know having been in the industry for like so many years and talking to so many PSPs you there was a

time and 10 years ago plus where you go to a printer’s website and you would see

their you know unit list and their equipment list and that was all it was and this reminds me of the same thing.

It’s just a data dump of stuff that is holds no relevancy to me or no way of

really navigating it or seeing the value behind this piece. I agree. But um yeah,

and and for for taking the fifth, we’ve obscured the name of the vendor or the company for obvious reasons. All right.

Uh Mr. David Foley, do you have a comment on this? Well, as everyone has said,

this is a real mess. To Morgan’s point, who do you mail this to? I could only

come to three potential audiences. Property managers, apartment uh owners,

and commercial laundromats. And in fact, maybe the laundromat mailing needs to be

a separate mailing. You take the HVAC mailing and you make it a mailing and you do the commercial laundry and make

it a separate mailing. So you can do some of the things that are so obviously missing from this uh piece uh which is

some information to help somebody make a decision beyond price.

Yeah, I agree. All right, Minister Brent, people are already wanting to see the next one. I guess they like this.

What do you have to say about this? Anything different or maybe ju just just a little bit different. uh

you know it it does seem like they they may have taken this straight out of out of their catalog or something like that,

put on a 6 by11, you know, and and and shipped it out. There’s there’s a lack of personalization. Obviously, uh this

this feels like your standard, you know, shotgun blast spray and prey uh sort of

campaign where they want to put as much stuff on a 6 by11 or whatever as as they

they possibly can, you know. And so the the lack of personalization they um the

the the part well where I’ll comment on what David Foley said was like there was

I would find it unlikely that they had a target audience outside of someone who may possibly want an air conditioner

when they were focused on that, you know, and that’s that’s really where the the campaign in of itself, they’re they’re going to look back from an

attribution perspective and say like DM’s not performing for us. And it’s it’s really it starts with this

creative, you know, in and of itself. Good. Yeah, I would agree. All right, let’s I I I do want to say this though. I do

like how they have a unique URL to track attribution, right? They want them to go

to this website/mailer if anybody responds. They do have through this.

They do have a phone number, you know, for someone someone to call. Uh so they didn’t do it all wrong. And then it’s

covered up, but they do have a scan and save with a QR code here. But again,

it’s so buried in in this here that it’s really challenging to see those called

actions. Okay, next we have

a credit card mailer. Well, this must be the back the Well,

it’s a multi it’s a multi-art piece. Okay, multi-art piece.

So, they’re talking about the offer and how to take advantage of the offer

with guidance and uh

the last part of the offer. So, this has got four pages. It looks like it’s a multiffold.

Yeah. Okay. So, trifold. All right. Let’s push this survey. I think that we’ve all seen

stuff like this ourselves, so we can kind of get an idea of how it’s packaged. This is flying in right now at

40 or 50 votes a second. Uh coming up on 100 votes, not as clearcut.

In fact, it is it is definitely leaning one direction.

Anybody of our panelists want to guess or can you see the poll that I’m hosting now as it comes in? you know. All right.

Well, I’ll give it another few seconds. I’d like to know where you think this one’s leaning. And and Morgan, if you

can flip through the pages just so people can see the different pages for the last few that need to vote.

I’ll give it another 15 seconds. That’s Yeah. Uh, what do you guys think? Do you think this is going to be a mail it or

fail it? I’m asking our our panelists, so I will not say anything. Okay. David, what do you think?

I’m thinking no. All right, Mr. David Foley, you got an opinion?

Um, yeah, I’d mail. This looks very much like uh Capital One. They’ve been using

this format for the last couple of years, and if they do it for a couple years, given their uh testing, you know,

it’s working. Oh, someone made a good point. So, it says roofing on here.

Yeah. And so, we’re going to have a little challenge because I didn’t I was just doing them in order. Well, I

didn’t realize this, but I made some changes to the deck after Michelle. Okay. So, so we’re gonna have to

remember the roofing one is the credit card. I will recall. Yes. Okay. All right. So, I’m ending the poll and

I’m sharing it. And surprisingly enough, the majority of people said mail it. And

I think David hit the nail on the head. This is a known piece. I think we’ve all seen it. We all knew it was Capital One,

even despite our efforts to mask that. Um, I cannot confirm nor deny.

Okay. But I think that we know that because they’ve mailed this by the probably tens of millions at this point.

We’ve all seen it. They must know something already that this this thing works. So, I’m going to shut up and I’ll

let uh I’ll let whoever wants to comment. We will have to speed it up if we want to get through all seven or

eight of these. So, so go ahead and make your comments. I know people like to vote, so we’ll we’ll get

No, I’m happy to go first. Um, you know,

uh, Bob works with with Capital One a lot, not on the the acquisition side.

Uh, but often, uh, what what you see here is like there there is uh there’s

nothing I don’t think fundamentally wrong with the the mail piece itself outside of does it really need to be

three pages. It looks like there’s there’s fairly redundant information in here. um they’re getting their call to

action uh on on multiple pages when it could be one. So, uh outside of the fact

like there’s nothing physically wrong with the the mail piece, it it looks it looks great. Uh to me, it’s very easy,

very clear call to action. Do you need to spend the money on a multi-page

um campaign like this when you could you could maybe uh fit that into um you

know, a singular postcard? Good. Uh, David Foley, do you have any

other comments to make on this? I think you kind of nailed it with what you said. No, no, no. Let’s just keep going.

All right, David. I I just I just have to say that from my perspective, and I I am confident that a

mailer of this magnitude has ran some testing on specific offers to specific

audiences and what performs well and what doesn’t. But from my perspective,

and and this just goes to show how important your audience is and the offer, uh I don’t really care about free

credit monitoring. So, if I were to receive a a credit card offer and they told me that the value was free credit

monitoring, I wouldn’t respond to that. You know, I want to know what your interest rate is and how is that going

to outperform what I currently have and what other benefits do I get with this besides free credit monitoring. when

they had that big uh data breach a while ago and got everybody social, I just shut everything down. So I and I got

offered free credit monitoring by everybody under the sun. So there’s no value in this for me or nothing like

prompting me to respond, right? And then I will say this too, I I it does appear

as if things are rather redundant, but I do feel that it is important for to have

your call to action be explicitly clear and provide a step-by-step instruction

on exactly what you want somebody to do and exactly how you want them to do it so that you can ensure that you get the

conversion. And so they do dive into that. I I think it is overly abundantly clear how you respond to this credit

card offer. And then they also even take it one step further here and say if you

don’t have internet access, they’re also giving you another way to respond. So they really cover all the bases here in

how to respond to this offer if you see the value in it in the first place.

You pretty much summed up the reason why I said no, Morgan. You know, the design is super clean. You know, it it’s all

there. It’s what you’d expect. But I mean, I’m reading it and it’s like, you know, fraud liability, you know,

personalized account. There’s nothing there that would entice me or give me a

value to go and I know when you say see if you’re pre-approved, you don’t know if I’m pre-approved because you don’t know who I am my name. So, I’m going to

have to put all the details in. I’m have going to know. So, I’m going to have a look at the process, but there is no I’m

not pre-approved. I might get one, but that’s only after I give you all my data, but there’s no value here to drive

me to that at all. You know, there’s what’s the interest rates? What’s the length? Can I is there a what’s the

value behind it? There is none. And it’s all about the audience though.

You know, it’s targeted to probably a specific person, but for me, you know, I wouldn’t respond. So, okay. Uh, next,

which which one is this called? So, I show the right probably real estate.

Okay. Good. You’re gonna show show both sides and I’ll I’ll launch the survey.

We got this and this.

All right, keep showing them the survey is on board. What do you guys think? I keep flipping back and forth. I’ll tell

you, I would not have taken a picture of a house that needs a little pressure washing at Hello. I mean, what the f

I mean, it’s it’s it’s really it’s mindboggling that this was what

that would have been a real easy fix to whoever this realtor was. Man, oh man. Let’s take the bad pressure

washing uh mistake out. Oh, the house was properly pressurew washed.

Would you still vote the same way? Okay. Okay. Well, but I have more commentary on that

because I can’t take it out there. I have some things to say about that. And and whoever allowed the whoever took

this from their client and said, “Sure, we’ll print this for you. You should be arrested.” Okay.

All right, let’s see the back again just so that we can see if those points of an ad are included and all the proper

things. How do they contact? I mean, okay. All right. I I think that

we got what we’re going to get out of this and I will end this poll now. We

got a couple hundred there. Uh share the results. It’s a it’s a pretty

a pretty hard no on this piece. You guys can see that, right? Anybody

have any comments about this particular why it’s a hard no? Something that’s not

obvious like the pressure washing issue that I brought up other than like the the content. I mean,

is the house for sale or because there’s no price there. There’s no QR code for me to go and jump to see the property.

But then on the back, the copy is like, do you know someone looking to buy in your area? Are you thinking of selling

your house? What what is the cool what are you looking for? Because am I supposed to be buying the house? Am I

supposed to be selling my house? Am I supposed to be giving it to someone else? It’s a bit

muddy as to what its purpose is literally as the the photo on the house is just that.

I would agree a thousand%. I mean us as us as as print professionals, we have a

responsibility to not just be like we are servers at McDonald’s and take their

order. You want repeat business. You want the customer to be successful. Don’t accept something like this. Don’t

take their money when you know it’s probably going to fail. It’s missing some key points. Am I right? If if I

that would Yeah. I mean that that is my point, right? I just think that too often I see

that a client will will bring will bring something to you and you you have no

consultative regard for the actual response rate of the piece. Why not put

a little extra effort and care into this and say to your client, listen, you know, can I print this and send it out

for you? Absolutely. But I feel it would be beneficial and helpful if I can give

you a little a few suggestions to how we might make this a more effective mail campaign for you.

And the and the irony and you this is the house and the picture and photography and real estate and the

tagline is freshened up and ready to move in. Well, there’s the price in my sixpoint

type right there. I see it’s there. It’s just uh there’s a lot a

lot wrong with this and uh it’s not effective. There’s so many different ways that you can add value in the real

estate industry. And I also to expound on what you were talking about, David,

what is so beneficial about this agent in particular? Why do I want to work with

you? Real estate is such a competitive space. So, you just put this atrocious

uh photography up here. uh and then say, “Hey, are you looking to sell or buy?”

Well, why would I engage in business with you above all the other real estate experts in your area? And that would be

something that would be more valuable to outline on a mailpiece like this in my

opinion. By the way, everybody should be reading reading the the the chat. There’s there are some very spot-on comments that I’m

learning stuff from. Uh someone mentioned this is a great candidate for a map, you know, hey, where is this

thing? you know, someone’s having the laugh of their day from this entire process so far. Great. We are here to

entertain as we are to educate. But there’s some great stuff in the comments and and I want to thank the audience

here for for chiming in. This is this is fun. Okay. I think I think this is the probably the

advocacy the fact that know anybody can be a designer and you can design in anything because this is clearly not

designed. You know, it’s almost the candidate for being designed in PowerPoint. Yeah, the OCD for me at the

moment on that front page is just going off the scale. The image is like not aligned. It’s it’s just

Oh, this must be a graphic nightmare, you know, just OCD kicking in on all

angles. For sure. I I I agree. So, all right, let’s move on to the next one.

Brian, did you have anything to add or do you feel we’ve covered it here? Well, the the the only piece that’s left for me is it it feels right for an

audience list, you know, and and really much more deliberate targeting. um as as

well as all the the camera comments and stuff that were that dirty house aside, even though someone’s going to look at

it and say like, “What is this?” and and probably throw it away. that that that aside, I think a better target targeted

audience um could could perform a lot better because it certainly as much as selling the house, the real selling

themselves in the bottom few sentences on the on the back side, this isn’t uh

the house in which I would think a realtor would uh want to sell themselves, you know, on. So, I think

that’s as much a reflection on them as it is uh the house. Absolutely.

Yep. and the print provider that agreed to print it and send it.

All right. Uh, next one. All right. Let me find the right one. All right.

Show it to us and then I’ll survey. What do you got? Do you have one that says I do Nissan service.

All right. So, here is the front of the mailer.

And here is the back. Is that a QR code underneath one of

those maps? Yes. So there the uh company information and URL is is here and there’s a QR code

here and then on the back there’s also another QR code here.

Where’s the QR code? Do you know Do you know where the QR codes go, Morgan? Is it just to the the website or

It is actually to the service related website, but I like your point about

where does it go? And then you Brad and I were discussing something earlier as well

about and this this has a lot to do with the integration. What’s on that website when you land there, right? Because we

can have the most compelling offer and call to action and drive traffic to the website all day long or drive phone

calls into an organization until the cows come home. But if the website is

terrible and people bounce as soon as they get there or it doesn’t have relevant content or the salesperson on

the other line of the phone I isn’t good at what they’re doing, then we can drive inbound leads, but there’s a large part

of conversion that lies on the other side of things. So yeah, and this one has something

interesting if you go to the other side which I noticed the ask Siri. Yeah, ask Google or ask Siri or Alexa to

take you to there. That’s that’s unique. That’s a unique piece of uh technology I don’t very often see.

But all right, I’m going to end the survey. We’ve been going for about a minute and a half. This one is um

I would agree with the mail it. I I definitely I like unique technology use. I like the It’s big. You know what’s

going on here. They’re trying to sell you some service. They’re giving you a a nice discount. Uh let’s see the other

side again. It’s It’s to me this this is not bad. There’s a lot going on here,

but it’s the message comes across and what to do. That’s my two cents.

And and the call to action. 20% off is enough to motivate people. You know, sometimes you see the five and the 10.

20% will get people off their butts in most times, you know. Yeah. But at the same time on the back,

you know, I’m a loyal customer and it’s and so like for me marks Mark’s

up because it’s actually personalizing. It’s the first piece that we’ve seen that’s actually contained, you know, the

relevancy and and the personalization of someone and the recipient. So, thumbs up to that. Um, but so I’m a loyal

customer. My car still needs attention. don’t quite know why. Um, but you’re going to give me money off for it

anyway. It seems bit like a loose offer. Um, I would rather have something a bit more tangible, I guess, to it rather

than just say here’s it just looks a bit generic, but it’s to me there’s that you’ve got my trust the minute, but then

it’s a bit messy and the call to action is 100% clear. And I think when you when

you’ve got something that’s personalized, the call to action really should be very directed. And I think there’s a point to be made about QR

codes today in that when you put a QR code on a mailer, you have to be very

clear because I think people are becoming more consciously aware as to scanning on QR codes because there’s

been a lot of, you know, uh, duping or taking you off. You don’t know where it’s going to go. You don’t know where it’s going to take you or what’s going

to happen when you scan that QR code. So, I think it has, you have to develop that trust and you have to convince them

that what they’re going to scan is going to be valuable. I’m not I would probably still mail it because it it’s it’s

nicely designed. It’s personalized, but I would still probably go back and say, “Look, you could you could do better in

this.” I I agree. Most of the comments I’m reading personalization

um uh too wordy, which I agree with. Um I don’t trust QR codes. Uh I think most of

us are past that at this point. Um anyways, I’ll I’ve talked too much. I’ll let you guys talk.

Well, I think it’s I think it’s great that um you think about the integrated technology promotion. I think somebody a

few referenced that and the USPS. So So kudos to them. Kudos to the to the printer who hopefully worked with them

on that on that promotion and and hitting that calendar item. Um I’ve seen the personalization call outs. Am I

missing the name somewhere? The person’s name. Oh, there it is. Yes.

Yeah. I I I think, you know, preferably it probably would have said, “Thank you, Mark, for being a loyal customer.” You

know what I mean? Like that that really shouts out it’s the largest font. That’s needs needs another exclamation mark.

Thank you, Mark. Bigger. I I agree. I like the personalization, but misplaced and under

under obvious. I didn’t even say that. My eyes went right to the Google Siri and Alexa.

I didn’t even see the name. Yeah. No, I mine mine was the exact same. might the exact same.

Yeah, I I think it definitely has some very good core elements to it, but it

needs improvement, right? And and it’s very obvious that they were just including some things to include them uh

to take advantage of the postal promotion, but there could be a better use case and placement of them. I also

like and you you can’t you wouldn’t know this because I blocked it out because

I’m blocking out company names, but this is a cross-promotional piece. So, this

company here uh offering the flexible payment plans is a financing company.

So, we’ve got some cross promotion, but yes, I I would more veer towards the

personalization on the front here. This would probably be on the back. Uh it would be more addressed to Mark here.

Someone also made a good point and uh how they could deepen the personalization of this piece. Is that a

picture of their actual vehicle or a personalized offer tied to the odometer

reading on their car? There’s always ways that we can take something that’s effective and improve it even further.

Well, Morgan, you just hit on the head what I was going to say. If you take the other side of the card, you have that

your vehicle still needs attention. that graphic that doesn’t belong there and David B I’m not a designer but I would

take that panel 20% off and I would identify what service needs to be done because chances

are it’s in the CRM at the service department every time I take my car in

for service I get a printed report that tells me all the things I need to have done I know they have the data Brent you

know they can pull the data make it variable able fields and in identified

on the on the postcard because they may have been reminded in the past that you

know by the way you need your brakes done you know just as an example. So

here’s a reminder of that and all they’re doing is they’re having a sale because the service bay isn’t working uh

12 hours a day, seven days a week like they’d like it to because it’s the most profitable part of the car dealership.

Very good. Great comments. Great comments in the chat. A lot of uh good

information being shared. All right. Which one is this? So I get the right poll up.

Well, let’s see the other. Part of the reason I picked it is because I wanted it to be a mystery as

I’m sure it is to everyone else what this is. I can tell. But it’s probably college. Yeah.

All right. The survey is up. Let’s keep keep circulating between the front and the back. Uh, obviously if we if the if

the name panels weren’t obscured, it’d probably be easier to tell. Um, it’s

Yeah. Or maybe there was if there was a relevant creative, it might be easier to tell. I don’t know.

Is this a well-known university that that the name is recognizable? No, not really.

No. Find your place here. I I would think it’s a it’s a campground. And then we go to the next side.

Campus visits are a great way to explore college options. Tour blah Can see

everything we have to offer. It’s just a it’s just a big old wide net being cast.

Hopefully they’re targeting the right people. Um,

you know, I I may break with the most people here that are voting and I’m

going to give it another 20 30 seconds, but this thing is definitely leaning one

way as hard as the first one. And

I’ll tell you, I’m gonna I’m gonna end the poll now. It looks like we’ve gotten most of the people and I’m and I’m going

to share it and I’m going to just say I would mail it. I am a sucker for

clean, simple postcards. Even though this isn’t telling, the the the hero

image is inviting and soothing to me and I would read the back. Okay. Now,

obviously, I’m not looking to go to university. That looks like a very stressfree, relaxing day, something I

might want to do. So, I would bail this and you know, rip me up and tell me I’m

wrong, but that’s what I would do. Okay. Well, I like the point that you’ve made though, right? Because you have

what, less than a second to get someone’s attention. So, you you’ve made a valid point. I just for me it’s not

relevant. But if the image is soothing and causes someone to look over to the

other side of the postcard to explain their offer, then hey, you know what? No way, Brad. They’ve they’ve done their

job, right? It it would have worked on me, but you know, I’m not everybody. So,

to me, I just feel like the uh higher education is such a competitive space.

It it’s extremely competitive. And so unless this is a piece that’s being sent

to someone that has actively shown an interest in this university already, you

are not communicating to me any of the value proposition of why I would explore or even take the time or the energy or

the resources to come and take a tour of this campus. Right? Is it are you sending this to me just because I’m

local or because you know that I’m you know interested in the university there.

It’s just lacking so much. I’m hoping they use some sort of targeting and just didn’t. I mean, yes, it’s it’s clean, but the

the creative is not relevant. Uh, and it’s not communicating any value. And

being such a highly competitive space, if I’m looking at, you know, four, five, six different universities that I might

take the time and resources to come to have a campus visit, I would like to see

something a little more compelling of why I should come do that at your campus other than I can go kayaking nearby.

That’s just sense. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it’s it it’s certainly clean. It’s it’s simple. It’s

it’s purpose driven. Um, I think that this is probably the the wrong image for

the the largest image. Um, as well as I don’t know if this is just my screen or

if it’s washed out on on everyone’s screen. I’d be interested in seeing the actual the actual mail piece, but it’s

very whitewashed. Uh, additionally on the other side, um, tremendous amount of

real estate, you know, left there where you could have added other things that are that are more compelling, more

photos or or whatever. Um, I I saw someone call out a trim issue. Again, I

don’t know if that’s the scan of this or there actually was a trim issue at at the top. So, you’ve got a a printer

issue um there if if it is. Um, but yeah, I I don’t think I would mail it

for for those reasons. Um, but certainly see your your points around it’s it’s

clean, it’s it’s simple, it’s purposeful. Yeah, I I think there’s a fine line

between underelling and overselling. I tend to like to heir on the side of

underelling. Morgan and I have many debates on this subject when we do our own promotions.

Um to some people the hard cell is

offensive or it pushes you off. Um I have fallen into that category myself.

So I like simple clean like this and it it gives me a sense of relief to where I

can look at it without be like 20% off here. Do this by this date. It’s like, “Wow, I feel like I’m at a used car

dealer or or a or a fair, a guy who’s calling out deals on on a walkway.” It

just gets overwhelming sometimes. Anyway, I I agree with most of the comments, but

I could just say for comic relief, the picture shown here would be much improved if the kayakers were having a

beer. Possibly, unless you’re a non-drinker,

maybe that does that does speak to uh college life, doesn’t it, David?

Yeah, it does. That that’s true. If you’re looking your college life, Sure. I think if if this if this is a college

piece, I think college I mean, when you get to that age, there must be so much that hits you in regards to this type

this type of mailer. I think you have to stand out. And I think, you know, I’m really hoping this college doesn’t have

a design course because again, I think they missed they missed the mark. I mean, the text on the right hand side, I

don’t quite know what justification that that is, but I’m I’m trying to work it out. It’s not centered. It’s not right.

And it it it’s a bit but and and I’m I’m sort of with you,

Brad. I’m I’m strugg I like the clean design and I like that you know the image is wrong on the front but it it’s

still I can see the vibe they were going for but I think again within that college education market you have to set

up there it should if you’re targeting personalize it if you’re you know driving people potential students there

should be a QR code that leads you directly in to get more there should be more value propositions about the

college rather than here’s a lake you can have a great time kay kayaking if that’s their best feature, then I think

they need to do a little bit more work on the on the value props. No, I agree with you, David, especially when you look at the recent studies that

have been shown out there around um Gen Z and younger generations really loving

direct mail uh because of how it how it reaches them. There’s ripe opportunity for for personalization and really have

this connect with them knowing that they love getting the mail. Sure. Yeah. And I like how Brad you were

speaking about it in a way that was off-putting, but you mentioned do this by this date. And expiration dates are

something that I have seen lacking in all these direct mail pieces, but are such anal and important part

to cause them to act and act now and and get the conversion that you’re looking for.

There has to be a sense of listen, I I agree that you need these things. And if everything was about the art and

aesthetics of it, then you may not get any any sales. There’s very few companies that have been successful at

creating sales based on an aesthetic or a vibe without putting things Apple,

Nike, but they’re are the outlier type companies that operate at an entirely different level than, you know, a

university or an auto dealership can. I don’t think that they’re in that can do that, you know. Sure. All right, next as we get to 14

minutes at the top of the hour. This is the seafood restaurant. Let’s see what we got on the other side. BOGO 20% off.

I like that. Scan to order online. Good gift certificates. Open hours. Lots of

things to eat and lots of stuff to drink. Okay, let’s see what everybody thinks. You guys ready for the seafood

poll? Hit it. Tell me what you think.

as I suspected. Good guys. Yeah, this this is um

this covers most of the things that we’ve talked about that need to be there. This one has got it going on.

Yeah. And audience really tends to agree. Let’s let’s see that you got a BOGO, you

got 20% off, you got gift certificates, you got hours, you got scanned order online. Obviously, they’re going to

capture your ID then. Um, not seeing any personalization. You

know, they’re obviously being timely with dads and grads for June, so that makes sense. Uh, if you like seafood,

the pictures are enticing. I I I I have to say that uh

I agree with the audience. What do you think they’re saying? I think they It’s overwhelming.

Mail it. You got it. Okay, I’m gonna end the poll and show it. This is where they voted.

I 100% agree. Anybody have any opposing points or

strengths that we might have missed on this one? I can see why they’ve they agree. And

yeah, I’ll probably mail it, but then there’s two for me there’s too much going on. Like I said, you got the the

buy one get one free, you got the 20%, but then the 20% doesn’t cover online

orders, but yet your big call to action is to order online, which sort of like negates negates that one. Um, I think

it’s for me, it’s middle middle of the road. It’s okay. You can see it’s going to get response, but it still could do

better. You know, the imagery on the back doesn’t entice me to come into that restaurant. You know, seafood is not my

favorite, but there’s far too much stuff on the back. Yeah, it’s too much.

Feature feature three items, not five. What the hell is that salad thing as the

appliances one? You must agree, right? Yeah. Oh, I yeah, I definitely I don’t

know if there’s a reason to include your I don’t know what percent of their menu is uh this is, but to include their

their menu as much as they could take some of that real estate and maybe put a map uh the location in there and embed

that like that would be really interesting. Um especially, you know, especially to David’s point, if they’re

going to um have a call to action that’s online while having a coupon right next to it that doesn’t apply to online, then

they could create two different sides, have one be focused online and and one focused with the the in store, like that

sort of thing. I think when you’ve got know the the the access to data these

days, you know, and be able to geo market, you know, when you’ve got a restaurant like this, you should be able

to know to to Brent’s point, there should be a map. There should be, you know, if if this is the local piece and

they are mailing out to local residents to try and all the grads and the dads and grads in, then it should be, you

know, this is where it is. We’re only like four miles away. We’re, you know, 10 minutes away from you. that I think

with the the capability of doing, you know, maps, geo targeting, even

personalized maps and say, “Hey, look, you’re only 5 miles away. You’re only 10 miles away. You’re only 5 minutes away.

It’s all possible.” And it’s like there it’s like a lot of the market needs to like do better. This is okay. And this

this will be mailed and it’ll get some results, but it can do better. And I think that that’s the piece that I think

I take away from a lot of these is that as print service providers we need to be going back and going I can do this but

actually I could do better for you if you just don’t ask me to do it and what’s my pay per thousand for mailing

them. If you give me a chance I can actually sit down with you and we can look at what data you do have how to use that data use constructively and

actually deliver a better result for you. Good. I I agree. Yeah. It has it has pros and cons. And

if the the mail pieces previous to this one weren’t so terrible, we may be a

little more critical of this, but there are pros. They’re capitalizing on on two different events, Father’s Day and

graduation. They do leverage an expiration date on their offer. They they have their uh offline to online

integration. And they’re they’re really trying to capitalize on a ton of different revenue streams here and target a lot of different audiences in

one place, right? Maybe too much. Maybe maybe the dads, the grads, we’ve got gift

certificates. They make a great present. Uh buy on. If you like to get uh drunk,

come on down. We’ve got tons of this. We’ve got food. It’s just a lot going on here, right? But it’s not bad. But it it

could use some improvement. Agreed. All right, we got two more to go in eight minutes. So, which one is this? Oh, I

think this is the roofing one and it will be called credit card. So,

uh, forgive us for our mistake. I’m going to blame it on Morgan who took It’s my fault. Totally blame it on me.

All right. So, let’s see the other side.

Okay. Google 5.0. Huh? Mhm. Five star review.

All right, we’re launching. We’re launching. What do you guys think of this this roofing thing? Definitely the

picture on the left looks like they need some work. I’m not sure what that middle image is, actually. Are you

I think the I think the only review was the owner. Yeah. Gave himself a five star review.

There was only one review. That’s all it showed. No, I think that’s probably it. Oh, they’re not showing numbers, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good eye. I would call that

um expiration dates. Uh honestly, I I don’t re I mean I

obviously get the image on the right. I see that the image on the left is definitely looks like a roof.

A carpet on the roof. Yeah. Is that a I don’t even know what that is. It almost looks like this side of a dog’s face peeking out. I obviously

I don’t know. I don’t know what is that but well they’re focusing on the problem and

the pain point right but they’re lacking the solution and hey this is our our

outcome or and I like that they’re I feel they’re on the right track here with this fivestar review but for some

social proof put an actual review of a customer or hey you know they did x y

and z for me in 24 hours or whatever to really communicate the value. This

looks rather generic in my opinion, but they do have a way to call, go online,

uh, or to scan a QR code. So, they have those integrative elements, and they’ve

got their expiration dates here, but it’s it’s yeah, the the photography and

the creative design element of it is pretty bad. I I would say mail it. It’s got enough

to where I know exactly what’s going on. that last picture kind of headed home with the the roof leaking and buckets

and there’s nothing worse than coming home or waking up in the middle of the night to a leaky roof. That is just a

that is a dream killer. Okay, I don’t know if you’ve ever had it, but it sucks. And um

I would have just played that up, you know, but you can see every this is a

pretty I’d say our second strongest mail it at 69%. So, uh, I would I would agree

with this one. I’m not going to be the vocal opposition on this. I mean, other

than my point on that middle issue, middle image, but communication was received.

Although, I must say, if you’ve got a leaky roof, you’re going online and you’re calling someone in five minutes.

Okay? You’re not going to wait till the mail comes and see if there’s an offer. So

hopefully you got this the day before or the week before and you put it on the fridge just in case. But

and I think that that’s that’s I think that’s something they missed because I think the photos Yeah, clearly you can

do a lot better. I think the photo on the right adds more value than the other two on there because you’re trying to work out what it is. I think the visuals

can work better. But then you hit the nail on the head. Like now the relevancy of this you’re going to keep it

potentially stick it on your fridge which means the QR code. Don’t take me to just a website. give me a QR code

that takes me straight into, you know, a booking form or, you know, contact you immediately because if and when I need

this card, I don’t want to be scrolling through your website. I don’t want have to like get that I give me a

instantaneous way to jump straight in, get you booked out, and get you in. And I think it’s that’s

I’d mail it, but again, I would go back and this this could work so much better.

All right, unless anyone’s got something else to say. We’re down to the final four minutes. Let’s uh anybody hold your

peace. Here we go. Last last one.

This was one of our inter interactive campaigns. Uh

wanted to touch on here. Oh, okay. And when we were talking about

uh the the integration of omni channel, right? So, we do a lot of campaigns where we layer omni channel or digital

ads on top of a direct mail campaign and on average we lift the response rate about 23 to 46%. However, if the

baseline or foundation of the campaign is terrible and we’re just repeating the same message of a terrible direct mail

campaign, you can put as many ads out into the marketing ecosystem as you want. It doesn’t necessarily mean that

you’re going to get a good response just because you’re leveraging multiple or more channels, right? So the direct mail

campaign has to be very strong and solid and then having a good translation over

into the omni channel creative design is so important at having and achieving a good desirable outcome to an integrated

or omni channel direct mail campaign. So uh this was a a prek through six school

and this is the direct mail piece over here. They do have a map on their direct

mail piece here. Uh, and then these were their their translating digital ads.

So, it ties it together. It does. It ties it together. Impressions. Yeah. Right.

All right. I guess we’re not voting on that one since we know. Was there How did it work out? Do you have actual

Yeah. So, we have some statistical data in our dashboard on it. They they did a test campaign. It performed really well

and they went on to mail 150,000 pieces for 18 schools. They got 453

enrollments at about $6,500 per student. They spent $200,000 on the direct mail

and their first year revenue was just under $3 million. So, it just lends and speaks to the power of an effective

direct mail campaign that has good creative, good core elements, strong call to action, way to contact them, and

then translating repetition into seamless omni channel

design. Um this other this is also a very good example, one of the best examples that I could find too of a DM

piece and the translation of the uh direct mail creative uh that will

trigger that brand recall or that high recognition onto the digital ads. And

there’s one point I just wanted to make about this as well and how important actually tracking the response rate to a

direct mail campaign is and from the website and through multiple channels or multiple technologies because this

campaign did not have a clear call to action to call them. It did have a phone

number and as a result you can see that they only received five calls. Now, if

you were gauging the efficacy of the direct mail campaign by the number of calls, you would think that this campaign was an epic fail. But because

we track how many people on the mailing list go to the website, we could see that 945 people that were identified on

the website actually went to the website from the direct mail campaign. So, it

wasn’t a fail. It actually performed very well. But because there wasn’t a clear call to action, they didn’t call.

However, they did have a very high response rate to the website.

Did the DMPS piece have a QR code on it or is that just a just a link?

No QR code. Yeah, just just a URL, right? So, to your

point, David, if they got that high of a response from just having a URL, what if

they had incorporated a QR code and how much high of a response rate would they maybe have got to the website, right?

So, okay guys, we are out of time. I want to put this slide up with a QR code for all

of our panelists. I want to thank them very much. Next month, we will be having a a uh demonstration of our AI product.

So, I was going to tease it to you today, but I don’t want to hold anybody too long. Um, we are very close to our

public beta. We are super excited about this is the I mean this is this is my

baby. So but uh again thank you to our panelists. Thank you so much for the insightfulness. The the the uh audience

engagement was fantastic and some amazingly smart and onpoint comments. We

obviously have a lot of professionals out there in the audience too. and let’s use our professionalism and our insight

to help our advertisers and our clients do better direct mail. We have

everybody’s agreement on that. Yes, sir. All right, guys. I thank you very much.

Have a great week and uh we’ll see you again soon. Bye bye. Thank you very much. Bye. Cheers, guys.