State of the Industry: Oncoming Train or Light at the End of the Tunnel?

let’s start with an introduction I’ll I’ll go around the room starting with myself I am Brad Kugler the CEO and

co-founder of direct mail 2.0 and uh I’ve been doing this for

about I’m gonna say almost six years now and uh I came from a completely different industry somewhat related to

Tech I was involved in e-commerce selling CDs and DVDs and uh this opportunity presented itself and my

previous 26 care year career in packaged media was being disrupted and the one

thing I knew is I did not want to be in an industry that will be disrupted so I

decided to jump the fence and become a disruptor and uh I have no regrets uh and I no longer have a

library of media It’s All Digital now so I disrupted myself in the meantime uh

next um I’m gonna introduce the rest Morgan DiGiorgio who is the senior VP

sales and marketing for Direct Mail 2.0 know she’s been here what four years and change five years I’m in my sixth year

I’ve been here for a long time Brad yeah how time flies well thank you Morgan uh

a lot of you may know her or have talked to her or seen her she’s probably the

more frequent face of the company and does a lot of speaking gigs and talks to a lot of printers uh next we have Tyler

dornberg hopefully I didn’t butcher the last name and uh Tyler what’s tell me

again your title there I’m sorry these weren’t on the on the thing no that’s fine um actually actually uh recently

promoted to our VP of strategic sales position as of last week so um company

for about thank you so much guys been with the company for about five years we’re on a lot of different hats from uh

fulfillment to uh product operations to Partnerships but uh now working inside of our goto Market team and managing our

strategic accounts strategic book of business good in case anybody doesn’t know what lob.com is it’s probably take

you two seconds to type it into your browser and you’ll find out but uh I don’t even want to Tyler why don’t you

tell them in a sent or too uh broad Strokes uh Direct Mail automation platform um focusing specifically on um

building apis to help Fortune 500 sent direct M scale thank you thank you all

right Foster of modern postcard um funny story is in my previous career of

selling CDs and DVDs uh I was a customer of theirs in the 90s and they did a lot

of postcards for us and uh I think it was even before Chris was there I don’t

think you’ve been there 30 years or 25 years have you no been there I two two stints I’ve been there a long time okay

all right uh they were our primary vendor and I know them as a company that definitely Embraces technology with

direct mail so Chris tell us what your uh position is and your primary responsibilities there I’m the VP of new

business development and uh in Broad Strokes to use Tyler’s term I seek out

new life forms and New Opportunities um to and boldly go and push the business forward so embracing and finding new

technology Partners pulling that into our core offerings uh getting our sales and corporate sales teams up and ready

so that they can help our customers use these services to get more customers themselves thank you Chris it’s been a

pleasure working uh and learning about your company over the years almost 30 years to be honest likewise know you

though um all right Corey Corey I met recently from flow codes uh I’m sure

we’ve all seen or used QR codes uh thanks to the pandemic in recent years

something which has been around for 20 some years is now mainstream because of that and uh

obviously uh Corey’s business has benefited from that and I think a lot of people are understanding the use of flow

codes in print and advertising so Corey tell us about your position and loow Cates yeah appreciate it um I am head of

Business Development and have had you know a lot of a lot of different roles at at the startup been here for about

five years uh started in more of a product role but now in you know more of a API Business Development Partnerships

role um and again I’ll use the I’ll use the broad Strokes terminology of of what

flow code is is trying to achieve we’re not specifically in the print or direct

mail world um we’re very fortunate that QR code technology has become ubiquitous

as Brad mentioned but you know we’re we’re trying to turn any any point of

intent or interest into a moment of action and and you’re able to do that

through flow codes and QR codes and and our Enterprise you know premium uh

platform so really fortunate to be here and looking forward to the conversation thank you very much Corey and last but

not least Ray from the United States Post Office who I must credit is being one of the most

technology forward guys that I’ve met at the US Post Office and really is taking

probably one of the longest standing oldest government institutions and really helping to forge it into the 21st

century and uh he’s taken the lead in the last couple of months to sort of

help us put together a group of enablers of direct mail using the latest techn

ology so Ray why don’t you give us a little background on what you do and and what your title

is yeah so I lead marketing strategy at the postal service and I’ve actually been here like 18 or more years now it’s

getting a little insane um and you know so what I’m trying to do is to really

help all of us become more effective marketers today there’s a lot of digital

technology out there and there’s a lot of direct mail and we’ve all learned that Omni channel is better

than each individually this is truly a case of 1 + 1 equaling three um and

everybody else who you’re seeing pictures of the better looking people here you know all are driving the technology on the direct mail side and

what I’m trying to do is to figure out how we connect all of that with the 10,000 apps doing technology on the

digital side so we can all send Omni Channel campaigns easily and measure them all

effectively and thank you Ray your efforts are definitely appreciated and I I really do appreciate the USPS sort of

being and and taking on this role to help push the integration of digital

technology into Inc on paper industry which has been that way for what 200

plus years so uh this is an industry for disruption and you know now as we get

into the kind of the point of the webinar it stated is the state of the industry well the state of the industry

is always in flux that’s nothing really new but you have have the kind of I

don’t want to say the critical mass but the convergence of several things which I’ve noticed in the last few years you

you are at the Crux of what I believe is a major disruption in direct

mail processing delivery targeting whatever you want to call it that we the

the the group has built a better mouse trap and I want to make sure that despite what might be happening so

socially politically economically in the country we don’t get the idea that the

industry or or Worse the entire economy is headed for a crash because I know there’s been a lot of talk in media that

there’s a Slowdown or a soft Landing or a hard landing and I think that there’s been some trepidation uh amongst

industry professionals and owners and seite members about that so one of the

things that that we like to do at dm2 is we like to understand our customers we

like to understand where where’s the head space of where people are at so what I want to do is I want to share a

uh little survey or research that we did to kind of

help understand the mindset of the industry at this point

I’m I’m assuming and plea please make confirm this that you can see a little

survey that we did and the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to go over this survey and just kind of share

this information because you know I think it’s helpful to know attitudes because one of the biggest barriers to

moving a business or selling a product or changing an industry is understanding

what’s holding it back so if we understand what people are thinking out there in this industry then we can find

solutions that hopefully remove those blocks or those barriers so we survey 52 people in print companies across the

United States over the last couple of weeks and we basically asked them have you noticed the slowing in the economy

in the last 60 days all right uh a pretty big portion 65% said they felt

they noticed this a tightening of money now a lot of this could be due to Rising

interest rates uh when when that happens the money supply dries up so just like

economics 101 there’s less money in the system because it’s being sucked out of the system in terms of interest rates

you have a holding or a tightening of the money supply now obviously there’s people that aren’t affected by this no

matter how bad the economy gets there’s always people that do well and congratulations to them uh more power to you you know uh I

next asked what do you find what have you found most troubling okay and they

were allowed to pick as many answers as they want when I said and this was in reference to building a business growing

the business sales moving forward the the biggest one was new customer

acquisition I’m a part of another group of Technology Group who also notice the lengthening of the sales cycle where it

used to be maybe 30 to 60 days is now 90 to 120 days people are taking longer to

make decisions the next biggest one was because of inflation that we’ve heard

about the last year or two uh business and overhead costs are increasing much faster than Revenue so again these are

the things that are on people’s mind to to to a greater or less degree uh another one which you know I wanted to

bring up and it’s something that we can actually have an effect on the issue being lead gen and marketing efforts not

as effective you know I’ve run into this over my 20 or 30 years in business something called marketing fatigue maybe

just because you’ve done a marketing action that’s worked two three four five six times that doesn’t mean it’s going

to work forever you get to a point where you’ve hit that customer base so many times or they’re so saturated

that the results from that campaign where they’ve been miraculous before fall off a cliff all right so what do

you do then do you keep beating your head against the same wall or do you find something new whether it’s a it’s a

new campaign a new creative is it a new uh Prospect list better targeting

something has to be done so when I see lead gen not as effective anymore I think of marketing fatigue which is

something all of us can offer a solution for

next question there’s only six questions so this won’t go very far what actions if any have you taken as a result of the

above number one answer is I sound like Family Feud staying the course most

people are holding firm they’re not ready to like change course you know do

anything drastic which is probably a smart move you know the first sign of trouble you jump ship that’s probably

not the greatest thing the next two biggest answers were paying down debt using cash reserves to hunker down so

they’re not spending as much which may be affecting some of us on this panel and some of those listening and the

other one uh they’re increasing marketing or higher plans so so this is

somebody these are people that are going right into the face of it which I can tell you from my interaction is when

people find a slowing of the economy one of the first places they cut is marketing and it’s probably one of the

last places someone should come you know we’ve heard this story many times that most opportunities are found in a

downturn there’s less competition for the same prospects people are not

spending as much money so the people that increase the marketing efforts or do not decrease them may end up with

more market share once the economy recovers and the money supply loosens so

it’s a great argument to have when you’re talking to customers how long do you expect the

Slowdown to last I mean that’s a good one we had some interesting responses here number one was through the election

of 2024 so that is about 50 weeks from now um and depending on what happens in

the election assuming there’s no funny business or civil unrest you know that’s

a long time to wait for something to happen I mean I don’t know about you but I can’t put my business on ice for 50

weeks waiting for something to happen the next biggest response was there is no slowdown good for you again the 20 or

30 % that are have the touch of gold more power to you um maybe they should

do a webinar and tell us how they’re doing you know and this was kind of a an odd one I

put in there because I’m curious as to how much of external influences are affecting people uh from

one to 10 how affected are you and your business by planetary issues and current events specifically Ukraine us politics

Middle East social issues ETC uh the biggest

response uh was a three out of 10 all right wait number three so a lot of

people felt that it was it was affecting them a three out of 10 I mean that’s interesting you

know the next biggest one 177% called it a nine out of 10 177% of the people

think that the external influences in the world are having a huge effect on their business all right well short of

aliens landing and people thinking they don’t have to pay their mortgage because of something like that I I’m not sure

that that’s a great responsible thing to do but it’s interesting to know that there are a lot of people affected by

things going on that they watch on the news and the last one you know I was

sort of curious about this is the male growth incentive plan that’s coming out

next year um I’m wondering are people pushing mailings into next year because

they are waiting to get those numbers up for that 30% discount next

year most said no but I was surprised that 27% are actually holding back

mailings waiting to get that discount incentive next year so people are

holding back mailings waiting for the discount next year uh I don’t know if that’s such a good idea either but

anyways that that is the the survey in in its entirety if you guys

have any questions or perhaps the panel would like to chime in on anything I’m

willing to step down from the podium and let you guys

opine silence well I I’ll jump in I I think what’s interesting is the is the idea of

societal planetary changes things that are outside of a business control and and I think that one of the things that

we talked a lot about in our business um especially when Co hit is that there’s

certain things in a business that you can control right I can control marketing efforts I can control

optimization uh learn thing about our cash flow think about productivity right the cutting costs and increase in

customers those are the things um we could not control supply chain we could not control the price of paper or plates

um we couldn’t control the price necessarily of the going market for labor um right so there are certain things

that we couldn’t manage um and I think that’s separating out some of those planetary and societal issues as a

business and saying let’s only focus on the things that we can control things we can’t control can’t control figure out

how to work through or respond correctly um but I think that helped us in our

team to kind of you know not revert to kind of a chicken little Skies falling

mentality um and focus on no let’s figure out really smartly the things that are in um our our

hands absolutely I think that’s spot on we can only be we can only control what

we can control there’s nothing that any one of us on this panel or in the audience is going to do to bring peace

to the Middle East on an individual basis there’s nothing wrong with having your opinions on it or contributing to

the causes that you support but it’s not something that’s going to change or affect our daily lives so putting a lot

of attention on it I would personally consider that nonproductive but your point is well

taken let’s let’s jump into some of the prefab questions I have I’m going to

start with the first one to uh my compatriot here Morgan Morgan are you

ready I I think so yeah has digital integration I’m sorry

has integration of digital and Direct Mail been proven be beyond the shadow of a doubt and if

so tell me why and how what have you seen from your five almost six years

experience now sure yeah I mean I would say that beyond a shadow of a doubt is a pretty strong statement to make uh but

what I can say is that every reputable source of marketing data from the an napco USPS and nearly every which one in

between has provided data as the proof and effecacy of omni Channel marketing

or the integration of direct mail and digital now when you just think about it the the integration of direct mail and

digital harnesses the power of the most highly regarded marketing tactics one being repetition okay but it’s

utilization of these channels in a strategic way that can truly maximize the impact driven when combining offline

and online for example um when you take the powerful impact driven by mail it’s tangibility the high brand recall its

ability to ignite an emotional response and activate centers in the brain of long-term memory and follow that up with

repeating that seared impression through digital channels you have a high-powered conversion driven

uh marketing strategy on your hands and then flip the coin say you’re utilizing digital right the initial response is

going to a website about 96% of those people are leaving without converting and then you use technology you identify

those people you re-engage them with mail and you can thrust those prospects into conversion rates seen as high as

25% and the truth of the matter is is that in my opinion you should not be doing one without the other and the

research and data is showing also that customers are looking for campaigns like this small mailers are looking to their

marketing providers to provide them access to these resources and large mailers they’re seeking to UNS Silo

their internal marketing departments and deploy powerful Omni Channel campaigns even Google injects mail into their

marketing campaigns and here at Direct Mail 2.0 I mean we we’ve built an entire business around these marketing tactics

and when we first started Brad we were ahead of the curve right but now years

later we’ve executed tens of thousands of these campaigns and we’re showing an average of around a 23 to 46% response

rate over a standalone mail campaign and historically driven 9 to 18% conversion

rates when mail follows digital so I mean we have internally proven that this works and marketers are experiencing the

same types of results and I think that you know as there’s been more and more awareness for this H and the effess of

omni Channel over the years that you’re just seeing more and more marketing uh data out there that is is showing and

proving the effecacy of the integration of digital into mail absolutely couldn’t agree

more um let’s carry on with the next question so we can move through these and I want to give this one to Ray just

so that he can he can chime in here is there anything new USPS is planning or working on to increase the profile and

the use of mail in the next coming months or in

2024 yeah thanks for asking the question Brad and just to make sure sure you one of your survey questions was asking

about the the coming growth discount and I wanted to make sure that everybody knew what you were talking about there

we you as you know we have a regulator and we have been given permission to have a discount um for growth which

we’re incredibly excited about um and so if you are a mailer which is sending more than a million pieces any piece you

send above this year’s Baseline we’re giving you a 30% um discount credit for

future mailings and we’re doing that both on the first class mail side and on the marketing mail side um so you know

hopefully all the people uh in this you know in this um team are looking and saying okay how can we grow that and how

can we add more people because you know you were saying that there’s certain things we can’t do to change the world

you know incentives are one of the things that the postal service is trying to do to to help influence folks so

that’s a really um big thing um if you’re even bigger than that we’ve had our first Market dominant NSA um Ted ly

approved um so that if you can show us that you’re going to grow we want to absolutely work with you um and then

there’s the category of promotions many of you are probably familiar with them

but again you know we’re trying to help people um try new things in order to be

more effective in your Omni Channel campaigns um and so we’ve got one promotion around emerging and advanced

technology so if you include AR or voice

or QR codes in a mobile shopping environment or video in print or NFC if

you test these things we’re going to give you a discount for that because we think you’re going to see how effective

digital plus Direct Mail is similarly if you’re going to make your direct mail

sing by adding in a tactile or an interactive aspect folds and other

things that really touch on the various points of the brain that Morgan was talking about if you’re going to test

that we’re going to give you a discount on that if you’re gonna send in your bills and statements if you’re going to

add color and send messages there and make those Communications work better we’re going to give you a discount on

that if you’re going to use informed delivery um which allows all of your

customers to get a email every day with the um pictures of the mail they’re

receiving there’s 60 million people in the country doing that now um we’ll give you a discount on that if you’re going

to do Direct Mail retargeting as a way of combining Direct mail with digital

Behavior we’re going to give you a discount on that so we’re basically the postal service is trying to help make it

easier for you to test new ways of having a Omni Channel campaign and

hopefully you’ll find how effective it is and keep doing it excellent uh listen

that 30% discount is definitely one of the head Turners I mean normally the

discounts are what 5% at most for some very Niche area of the industry

so a lot of talk about that and I applaud the post office for really sort

of hanging their neck out there on that one so good good on that you know what I

think is interesting is if you look back at the survey that you were referencing in the beginning there’s such a large percentage of individuals who like their

biggest concern going into next year is new customer acquisition that’s all they’re thinking about they go to bed

thinking about it they wake up in the morning thinking about it but then the percentage of individuals who are actually investing more into their

marketing budget to try to solve that problem is significantly smaller it’s like maybe a third of the size of the of

the respondents right there’s this idea like and I don’t know if you guys have ever read the book take the THS by a guy

called Rory biten and it’s basically like about doing the hard things first right and he talks about this like metaphor in it where there’s cows and

there’s Buffalos and the way that they react to a storm is cows run away from it and if the storm is chasing them they’re in the storm for longer whereas

buffalos charge Into the Storm and so they’re through the storm faster right and so charging the storm is this kind

of idea of like do the hard things first lean into the difficult things and come out the other side of them faster and I

think that like USPS is really giving people like an opportunity to do that right now they’re not just saying like

hey send more mail because it’s your highest converting Channel or it’s a part of like any like well formulated

Omni Channel orchestration like they’re saying lean into direct mail right now because like we want to get through this

tough economic time with you we want to give you the tools to get there and we want to give you ways to like innovate

and engage people with these discounts it’s not just a discount for the sake of a discount it’s a discount to say press

something new connect with your end recipient in new ways right so um if anything like these tools that have been

around for a while are now maybe more important than ever 100% agreed it it it’s it’s I

couldn’t agree more it’s when there’s something that’s blocking you there’s the people that can front and head on and then there’s the people who run away

from it and and and and marketing is the one thing that you don’t want to back

off on as I stated before you’ve got an industry that is quieting down there’s

so much noise in marketing everybody’s getting what 10,000 marketing messages a day and in a time of economic slowdown

maybe that noise is a little less so this is the time where your marketing dollar actually will go a little further

and to me it’s logical but some people are like oh I’m making less money my margins are down I don’t want to spend a

penny more well I’ll tell you what fine don’t spend a penny more but don’t spend a penny less okay at least keep your

budget the same um so there’s also a lot more real estate in the mailbox right

now I mean if you look at marketing mail volumes were down I say that there’s a ton of opportunity there so take

advantage of it and take advantage of the postage incentives with it yeah to your point what uh when we talk

to clients you’ve got like you said Brad 10,000 marketing messages a day most of them are digital we get hundreds of

emails per day if you don’t see it below the fold it’s gone so unless you’re looking at it at the moment you’re very

hard pressed to see that email dozen mailers a day maybe in your mailbox the

competition for attention is just less and so the the technology discounts can help you now actually get in front of

your customers in a way that you wouldn’t be able to before right uh with the retargeting if you’re a small

business that’s competing against Lulu Lemon or Athleta you can’t compete with their digital retargeting budget but you

can absolutely compete in the mailbox and win that customer’s attention 100%

and may maybe Ray knows the answer this but you know being probably one of the older gentlemen on this panel I remember

as a kid and I’d go to my mailbox you know and pick up the mail after school and bring it in as one of my chores it

would literally be this fit of Flyers newsletters now you know I live in a in

a decent neighborhood that would be Target targeted by everything you could imagine if I get four pieces a day in my

mailbox that’s a lot and and that includes the bills too most of the bills are online now anyway right is there any

sort of metric on how many pieces are in people’s mailboxes per day per household

there’s absolutely a metric and I know what the trend is but I can’t give you the exact number was kind of interesting

up until around 1980 the volume of mail was just tracking absolutely with GDP

and then since then with the digital diversion more and more is being done digitally and that that number’s been

coming down and down um but you know it’s it it continues to be there and the messages that are there are tremendously

powerful because they have that that breathing space they don’t have the competition I mean I don’t know about

but I’m two to 300 emails in my mailbox every day I have to go machine gun

delete stuff just to go home with a clear conscience and not a full mailbox so

it’s if it’s purely a fight for eyeballs male wins hands down now we’re preaching

to the choir here so I don’t want to you know sit here and feather our own nest we know this stuff the point is is that

some of the clients need to know this stuff you know but let let me Mo move

into data for Chris here you know data has become a

very important tool on targeting mail yes mail is expensive so taret tting and

who you’re targeting is even more important so Chris can you discuss a little bit about the targeting the data

and and how that will affect the growth in Roi of mail on the long run absolutely the good news is that the

data is getting better um and that you know leveraging your own database your

CDN your you know CRM systems and the like but also looking at the data from a

customer or a prospect perspective we’re getting better data about intent we’re getting better data about Behavior you

can get better data about keyword searches you can get better data that links emails to postal to website

traffic um our friends and partners at flow code have better data in terms of figuring out activity and devices time

of day so the scanning Technologies the attribution some of that stuff is you

know you try to knit together but for a general marketer or business person the data that you have can be appended and

utilized in more ways than ever and so what that means is that you can Target better in the end of the day you know

you it’s better to send um 5,000 highly targeted very relevant mailers than

20,000 mailers that are cast into the wind um because R PE marketers and

businesses now are looking for the better return on investment and return on ad spend rather than just sheer

volume and so the good news is that if you talk to the right folks and listen the right partners and Stitch the data

together you can find those folks right you can find the people who are more likely to respond more likely to engage

based on a variety of data sources um it’s too um complex to talk about all

the iterations possible in a call like this but just think that there are over 60,000 types of lists that are available

um in terms of prospecting and in terms of behavior and intent data in terms of data modeling and then you every

business has their own data themselves creating that bridge between the data that you have and what you know and the

data that you want in terms of prospecting has been built um and uh so it’s better than it ever has

been I think agree I was gonna ask Cory I want I’ve got a specific I want to

tell a little story and then I’m gonna ask you the question so you know I I sort of got kind of hooked on QR codes a

year two years ago or whatever and you know we did a we did a mailing for our own business to to our own industry

indry and we sent out one postcard that had you know a tiny QR code and all of

the text and all of the images and I I think we got like something like I don’t know couple of couple of scans and

remember we sent out a postcard with nothing but our logo and a giant QR code we had like a 25% scan ratio you know it

was like I mean I knew it was out of curiosity and people just want to know what the heck is this and a lot of the

forms weren’t filled or anything but it was unbelievably high and I think people were upset I mean it was a little bit of

a bait switch but those are the two extremes you know so Corey there’s still

a ma I think you’ll agree with this a majority of maale goes out without a code right or

wrong yes I would say you know credit to the USPS again where the promos

incentivized for people to start testing I think are they utilizing the best

practice so that they can see that Roi in real time engagement probably not I think

there’s a lot of room to grow 100% so what would be your argument if you’re talking to a guy who’s like listen I’ve

been sending these postcards for you know 10 years and I get my you know 2.3%

response I’ve got my methods why would I want to put a code on it what what what’s the advantage it works now why

mess with it ain’t broke don’t fix it yeah I mean there’s a there’s a lot of ways that you can go about that right I

think you go back to to Morgan where I mean if if any direct

marketer had a you know digital campaign that had the con the con engagement and

conversion rates that you’re able to see in real time with direct mail they would

be ecstatic so you can you can take the data route um from a from an engagement

standpoint I like to talk about it in terms of personalization where

that’s that’s where that’s what people are used to on digital where you know

the the experience that I am getting in my email inbox or social feed is unique

to me and personalized to me you’re now able to do that in the mailbox which

we’ve already identified as something that you have a you have an opportunity to own because there’s a lot less

competition but now you can actually turn a you know static piece of paper with you know Brands already taking

advantage of variable data and on the actual piece to extending the

personalization to the experience right again we’re turning any any point of

Interest into a point of action and when that point of action has personalized

data feeding onto my Mobile screen the the increase in conversion is is

incredible um and so that’s really where I would I would push um the the audience

on this call Brands printers to to Really uh to really try try to adopt a

little bit more I agree 100 perc I mean I I almost think if you’re not putting a code on a piece of print you’re you’re

you’re losing engagement that could be picked up and even if you’re not getting certain engagement the information on

what people are responding to is reduced significantly you know the real

I mean it’s as good as an email then you know or or or a personalized ad that someone clicks on the information get

back so I agree yeah definitely I think the I mean Chris was obviously mentioning all the you know the lists

and targeting capabilities that you can use to to you know lead into your

campaigns the the interesting thing about flow code scans is that you’re now

able to use that as another me means to identify a unique cohort right if

someone’s if you have a if you have a a percentage of your audience that is

scanning more than three times I think you would probably want to interact with

those individuals in a different way even from the people that just scanned once right and maybe they scanned on a

Tuesday morning you start to get an understanding of how you can engage with

them and retarget them in new ways just just based on that interaction 100% I agree you know I

wanted to ask this question of Tyler and Morgan specifically because in terms of

of Technology enabled Direct Mail you know there’s a lot going on there what

do you think and and I’ll I’ll let Morgan start what do you think is the reason that some mailers have not

availed themselves to these technology advances that that you offer and I’ll ask the same question why haven’t why

isn’t everyone adop adopted lob.com you know what what do you think is the biggest barrier in adoption Morgan I

mean well there’s a couple of different things but in my experience you know I’ve been at this some time so I’ve had the opportunity to work with a lot of

different print mailers or you know prospected a lot of different print mailers for for these Technology based Solutions and I would say that one of

the main barriers is just having a traditional mindset you know they they have this resistance to change and they

prefer to stick with methods that have worked for them in the past they underestimate the benefits that the

technology can bring to direct mail campaigns and also underestimate the potential loss in business from not

embracing these Technologies and in additionally what I’ve experienced is that there’s account managers or aging out reps they don’t

want to learn about new technology they aren’t thirsty to use new tastics to go out and sell acquire a new business

they’re comfortable managing the business they have they create their own objections telling themselves that their

customers don’t have an interest in these Technologies or they won’t pay more and you know in all reality I have

to tell you it’s really unfortunate because the only thing constant is change and if you don’t have the ability

to adapt grow and change within the current ecosystem it’s inevitable that your business will be slow to grow right

and and I’ve had resellers that add our products onto bids and they acquire millions of dollars in new mail business

because they’re adding value for their direct mail customers and and mailers are losing business depers that are

taking advantage of these new technologies and are adding these value uh added components and you know the

last thing I want to say that you know one other thing that I see too is that I think that they might be a little bit fearful about the complex complexity uh

the implementation there might be challenges the learning curve wondering about the additional resources required

to implement programs like this um or just having like a contemp prior to investigation assuming it’s too hard or

it’s too complicated and you know this is our webinar so I I just have to put a little plugin for us here and say that

you know we do have one of the most comprehensive enhanced uh male Omni

Channel marketing platforms on the market and you know not to tut our own horn but we do a really great job at

providing access to most if not all of the resources that would be required to deploy something like this into a print

organization but at any rate I think as technology continues to advance and uh

its benefits become more apparent it’s likely that more direct mailers will gradually adopt these Innovations

because they want to stay competitive good absolutely and and Tyler you guys have a an absolutely disrupted platform

that never existed before you guys that I know of you’re you’re you a first to

market fully automated product what is

the I mean maybe you’ve already hit that critical mass but you know why isn’t every business or every every company or

or brand just lining up and do using your model what do you think is the

if I could answer that they’d make me CEO overnight that’s true that’s true what do you find is is the barrier is it

a resistance to the technology is it learning a new trick it you know so so

truly um I think like there’s a couple of things that it boils down to um number one is that like the types of

contacts that a software company plays well with are not necessarily the types of contacts that have been managing a

direct mail program historically and so like what we’re going in and we’re talking about with the Fortune 500

customers that we’re talking to is we’re talking about like a digital transformation of a program that may

have been the redhead setep child of your Omni Channel communication program

for decades right like you’re not getting the same type of data you’re comparing apples and oranges you know

that it works and so you’re putting money into it you know that you get a lift from it but your attribution rates aren’t perfect and that could have gone

from an online Source or could have come from a texting program or could have come from this you don’t really know

where these conversions are coming from but you know that it works right and so really what we try to do is we try to

come in with more of a baby steps approach and we say hey look heal off little chunks of your direct mail Program start running them through this

like I want everybody to wake up in the morning and I said this on a USPS um sales team call recently where I said I

want everybody to wake up in the morning I want to look them look themselves in the mirror and I want them to say Direct Mail is digital too and that’s the facts

right like now you have the ability you have modernized tooling that creates

parity between the programs that you used before and the direct mail and where you want your direct mail program

to actually be right and in doing so you can compare Apple to Apples on data you

can compare Apple to Apples on uh the life cycle of your program on your ability to convert new users but just to

get there requires that you have Buy in from people who aren’t maybe thinking of

their role in the direct mail program as one of job security where it’s like I control this I know how to control how

to control I’m the only one who’s controlling it and they’re thinking of it in terms of how do I make this better

how do I stop focusing on execution and start focusing on optimization and finding that con that that contact with

an organization can be really tough and I think it’s just part of like the slow transition into this kind of new world

of where Direct Mail is going um and we’re actually seeing that adoption rate pick up a little bit but you know in the

early days I mean people were like what do I need this for I got a whole department dedicated to this why would I need this software right and now we’re

starting to see that shift I I’m with you ATT track 100% And and one of the things um I want to go back to to Chris

there’s a few companies that are focused on people who don’t do mail a rising

tide lifs All Ships all right so somebody’s got to get out there and

bring in new blood that have never mailed before or maybe they mailed 20 years ago and they had a bad experience

and they just never picked it up and they’re fully immersed in their their social or digital uh marketing efforts

but there’s a few guys out there that are knocking on doors and bringing new potential Direct Mail customers into the

market and I know Chris you guys do that postcard Mania does it that’s where they focus so so based on that and I’m not

asking for any Trade Secrets here because I know you guys have a very specific Niche but what do you have you

seen that’s most successful in taking someone who hasn’t mailed in a while or has never mailed and bringing them into

the direct mail form well one of the things that we have found actually is it sounds like a overs

simple answer but it’s education um there are a lot of gen Z and Millennial

Talent out there and in fact gen Z Now is entering into the workforce and by 2025 is going to be 30% of the

workforce or 2026 something like that which seems like it’s going to be next year right it’s so fast um they’re all

digital natives they grew up with iPhones uh um they were born in

2000 um they had their iPhones in the family in 2008 they started to go on

Facebook now they’re off Facebook because it’s for the older people like me they’re on Instagram they’re on Tik

Tok um so the digital Comfort is really high they know nothing about direct mail

and so we find Brad that to bring people these new marketers and who are the decision makers right um they’re going

to try to create new customers and Tyler had emphasized you shown in the in the survey that new customer acquisition is

a challenge I wouldn’t be surprised if in every single survey every business from now until the dawn of time says

acquisition really a challenge of course it is it’s a challenge for everyone what you’re finding with the digital only

channels is that it gets harder even in those channels for customer acquisition

because of the saturation that we’ve mentioned and also because uh this next generation of buyers in gen Z are the

most Savvy consumers in the history of planet Earth they know when they’re being marketed to they don’t mind being

marketed to but they need to be marketed to in a relevant way that speaks to them and so educating new marketers about how

to reach that audience with direct mail is the way to go um because they don’t know it they don’t understand it um they

think it’s old they don’t quite know how it how it works and they might have in their mind Oh you mean like Bed Bath and

Beyond is that direct mail that 20% coupon oh that’s direct mail and so we

have to kind of overcome that baring no no no Direct Mail is actually it’s data driven it’s highly targeted it’s

incredibly personalized and there’s a variety of offline to online tools that you can use to engage the user in a

variety of channels and it’s part of your overall mix and here’s how it works suddenly when you say something like

that they’re like all right I’m curious I’m trying to learn more because my my CMO my director says get me new

customers and I start flooding my digital Airwaves and I’m like crap I’m not getting new customers and so giving

them an opportunity to learn how to get new customers with this new channel Channel I find is one of the easier uh

easier paths forward I mean it’s this highly specialized industry right and like

people speak this direct demand language that they’ve been speaking for 30 40 some odd years right and so if you’re

coming into it brand new you’re not only having to learn this language but you’re also having to have a procurement type

relationship with a manufacturing vendor right of some type and so like that’s really intimidating for somebody who’s

like a modern marketer who’s used to use utilizing modern tools tools right like I don’t have to be able to speak

knowledgeably about like um like transport layer security protocols in

order to send an email right but I do have to be able to understand postage saturation in order to have a

conversation about direct mail right and so for all of us software companies here in order to like really engage that genz

audience it’s abstracting way the specialization of the industry and providing a lower barrier to entry to

say you want to send direct mail start sending your tomorrow you want to send an email campaign you can start sending an email campaign tomorrow we want to

make it as easy as possible for you to take that step and to be able to say I’m

deploying tracking managing this message and I’m able to track how well converts

as compared to my other stuff in the exact same theem CDP marketing automation platform it’s all Apples to

Apples right yeah go ahead go ahead you as Tyler was

saying you know we’ve been having the last bit of the conversation been how do you add digital to direct mail and I think the you know

where Tyler is going is I think perhaps even in more interesting is there’s a number of people who are you know the

the genz the Gen who may have never used direct mail and they may have a be working an organization where the CMO

has never used direct mail so they they don’t know how to do that they do however have all these digital platforms

and they’ve got a CRM or they’ve got a CDP where they’ve got customer information and being able to talk to

them about the fact that you know right now you’re getting a 10th of 1% response rate on your best desile and you know

that means that 999 out of a thousand opportunities are just going away because they’re not responding and being

able to talk to them and say you know you could get 5% 10% of that and

significantly increase their new sales by adding in direct mail to that and

then using tools such as lob or such as other ones that are out there in order

to make it absolutely easy so you can hit that button take the creative you’ve already got for your social media turn

that into a postcard add a QR code better yet a circular QR code so that it

has a high response rate um and be able to measure the effectiveness and then all of a sudden you’re measuring on a

cost per acquisition basis and you can really see how that all works together and so the technology is enabling the

digital natives to add direct mail and we just need to get that word out

something that not print focused and I I I gave that caveat in the in the you know beginning of the call but something

that you know analogous example to to where flow code sees Direct Mail going

we actually kind of already have seen it in the TV World um and video right three

four years ago we were beating on door is saying you have no

idea you don’t have any direct connection you don’t have data um let us

test with you uh let’s let’s figure this out together fast forward I don’t know if

anybody was watching the the Black Friday um Amazon Prime uh game but it

was bothering you guys are all over the place there there’s a lot of there’s a lot of there’s a lot of direct

connections with with QR happening um and flow code and you know that’s that’s

three short years of of people kind of having having that aha moment so I think

that we’re we’re a little bit on that Journey already but the the look

yourself in the mirror and say you know Direct Mail is digital it’s already starting to happen um but if it it can

if it can happen with 80% of the local TV stations across the country it can

happen with direct mail and that I mean that’s what that’s kind of how we’re we’re looking at it and with TV there

isn’t really the ability to personalize right it’s a singular unit and and and

now with Direct Mail you’re actually holding something it can be personal to you it’s you’re even you’re taking it a

step further so um just wanted to share that example but pretty interesting great example agreed just before we uh

break for some from Q&A at the end I wanted to ask each of you guys and and I’m I’m hoping it can be an impartial

answer but I’d like to know from each of you guys what do you think has been the

biggest game Cher to direct mail in the last couple of years what do you think has had the biggest impact whether it’s

a technology product a hardware product a manufacturing product um something USPS has done or perhaps not done what

has had the biggest impact on Direct Mail in the last couple years and uh

let’s let’s start with Tyler and then we’ll see where we go from there um I

think like um if I’m thinking um impact per

release uh informed visibility data and the intelligent mail barcode has

absolutely revolutionize the way that people send direct mail um like and that’s we are built on the backbone of

informed visibility like I like to say all the time like look it’s and I said this in the Q&A section like it’s usps’s

job to create infrastructure right and it’s our job as software companies to turn that into something that’s like

beautiful and adoptable and something that people really want to engage with with and um build their programs around

and I think like form visibility is a really great example of that it’s not perfect we don’t get all the data that we want out of it but as it’s grown over

the years I mean we’ve gotten to the point now where USPS has Geo fenced

every single mailbox in the country and we have GPS data from every single truck when they drop a mail piece into that

mailbox it’s incredible like that’s something that if you look at like Royal Mail or Deutsche Post or leost or

Australia Post or like any of these huge mail carriers around the world they’re not even coming close with Canada Post

is like a decade away from the type of innovation that USPS has created for us and so just like bang for your buck

Innovation the ability to track the life cycle of a mail piece end to end and to trigger through like a web hook or an

API endpoint like this is out for delivery I’m gonna hit this person with a text you can’t do that anywhere but

the US right and like so I think that’s a that’s a pretty incredible Innovation fantastic Corey you got something to

chime in here on oh I was I was interested to see if Ray

agrees I’m joking no I I look the the informed delivery is huge right that

that tells you from the entire you know Logistics process to

delivery obviously where I sit is the next piece right where it’s in your

household are they engaging with it and so maybe less of a technology because QR

has existed but more so of a mindset shift is that you know QR is

ubiquitous you know people know how to engage with it their mobile phones now

have a better experience post scan because everyone has the you know a

newer version of a of a of a Android Android or iPhone where the you know

mobile web browsing is 10 times better than when you know 10 years ago when everyone was in the print world was

testing QR um and so that that kind of has opened the door for another another

means to test this new new engagement piece um so I mean I would I would say

less so from a technology standpoint and more so just you know the pandemic teaching

everybody this new way to engage and go from an offline medium directly to a

conversion Point good all right Chris what what do you say I mean we don’t have a

manufacturer here but you know I I I I have a pretty clear answer from my

perspective because I’ve been in the industry since the late 1800s um but I can see that you are older

than I can see that uh the direct mail retargeting retargeting a website visitor to me was one of the most

gamechanging Innovations for Direct Mail simply because it brought non- mailers

into mail um when we started to launch our own program someone asked me she

they said well who do we get I said well 80% of our um modern iio Direct Mail retargeting customers if not more but at

least 80% will be brand new to Modern that’s interesting it’s their first step in

yeah it’s their first step into direct mail so if I’m an e-commerce company that’s never done catalog that’s never done Direct Mail uh Direct Mail ret

targeting is a no-brainer it’s their first exposure and experience into mail um because it makes so much sense in

terms of where the customer journey is so I think that in the last X number of years that I’ve been in this industry

that’s been to me the biggest driver and wouldn’t you say that the behind what

you said and and and Tyler and everybody else behind behind most of us would you

agree that the high-speed variable data inkjet printer uh things are key to

almost every one of our business growth so you know where whereas you know obviously I want to plug my own product

but I think behind most all of what we’re doing is predicated on some of

these new print manufacturing devices that have helped us grow would that

right that get some consensus here Absol absolutely yeah absolutely good yeah I

think that you know what we’ve been hearing over the last few examples are all sort of subsets of how can you

deliver a more highly valued direct mail piece two people and it starts off with

data in order to do the targeting so it’s not spray and prey that it was 40 years ago and then it gets into that

personalized message where using the data in order to figure that out use a digital printer in order to um to give

that personalized message with a personalized QR code so that when you scan it you know who the person had when

the person arrives at that website that they can have a personalized experience that’s all things that people are used

to on the digital side and now we’re able to deliver that in a mechanism that

is so much more effective than a digital screen and I think that to me that’s where it’s all come from agree agree

100% Morgan I didn’t let you uh pipe in on this one did you have something you wanted to add I mean all good points I I

think that the utilization of technology to show attribution to an offline channel has been just so remarkable

because just to further expound when Ray was talking about the spray and prey method I think that historically male

was very challenging ing to track and unfortunately marketers that were using mail as a channel really didn’t have the

tools to really show what they were getting out of their direct mail campaign so I think that that tracking

and attribution has just been a total GameChanger and then you know Brad you talking about uh you know machinery and

equipment I mean how about the ability to add uh texture and scent and you know

all of these other different features to mail that even further improve the response above and beyond what we were talking talking about today with multi-

Channel and onom the channel exactly and Ju Just to wrap up I think we’ve only sort of reached the tip

of the iceberg of what’s to come in the next five years I mean with the with the

widespread use and availability of AI to help targeting and help creative and help modeling of of of targeting issues

I think that that’s going to become a big game Cher I think is we are all become more integrated with each other

and simplifying the process there’s a barrier with a lot of this technology is

you know you got to go to Tyler for one thing and Corey to another thing and you know your local printer for another

thing and you know there’s there’s a lot of segmentation or uh diversification

this industry and I think the more that we can work together to integrate our products to make it as seamless as

possible for the user whether it’s a commercial printer or a brand I think is

where we’re really going to see the biggest benefit and uh I see I I’m completely bullish on the

future of direct mail I think that the in terms of something that we know already has the highest Roi or or

engagement rate over ads or email is only going to get better with some of the tools and as we improve our

Integrations with other types of Technologies so this is all good

and this industry ain’t going anywhere it’s only getting bigger so uh I I know

time is up I’m monitoring the chat and the questions most of them are comments very positive comments that we will

share I’m not having any direct questions other than that will there be a recording of This webinar there will

be um there there was one question here that Jamie was asking he was saying that

he uses co-mingling and hasn’t had an opportunity to take advantage of some of the discounts so I mean for us we have

resellers that co-mingle their mail and they do do have the ability to take advantage of the informed delivery

discount they just have to make sure that the serial numbers are sequential or that their co-angler is aware that uh

that they’re using the promo I mean so I think that there there are ways that you can take advantage of those those

discounts even if you’re Co mangling for sure and if you have any questions on that pleas please reach out to your

salesperson or to The Postal Service you know we’ve we’ve got a group that works with everybody doing their promotions so

if you’re having technical challenges let us know some of them you know the the first year of the um the growth

incentive we were limiting it to to people where the incentive goes to the actual um brand person paying for it but

that’s first year for future years um we hopefully will be able to expand that more thank you Ray and and I want to

wrap up and and thank the entire panel and everybody that showed up uh great conversation in the chat and lot of

participation and yes a recording will be made and I’m sure it’ll be up on social media and email to attendees or

Reg strs within the next 48 to 72 hours so guys have a great week thank you again and uh let’s keep the ball moving

forward and making things happen