The Next Frontier of Digital Mail: Technologies That Connect Printers to Revenue & Customers to Results

okay we are back I think are we

back I’m here we’re back yes there we

are um this is going to be a very

interesting session I am gonna host it

for like the next 40 seconds and then

I’m actually going to join the panel and

why am I joining the panel I actually

requested to join this panel this topic

is super important to me um it has been

super important to me for the longest

time and that is how do we show how do

we prove the impact of a printed piece

and certainly Direct Mail 2.0 is one of

the tools and technologies that makes

that happen uh Morgan is the um oh

Morgan I don’t have your title in front

of me all son for some reason there you

are is the senior vice president of

sales and marketing at Direct Mail 2.0 I

also want to give a shout out to Bradley

uh who is the uh the CEO of direct mail

2.0 has just been tremendous partners of

of the printer verse for a long time and

I’m thrilled that you’re joining us here

and I’m actually going to turn over

hosting duties of this session to you

thanks Deborah I’m thrilled to have

opportunity to be a part of this event

and I honestly have to say I’ve been

tuning in pretty much all day and I’m

super impressed at a comprehensive group

of talented individuals solid content

the delivery the platform I mean really

just outstanding so I can’t imagine how

much work went into this so I just

wanted to personally thank you Deborah

for all of your efforts and and really

just for everything you do for the

industry as a whole thank you um but a

little bit about direct Mill 2.0 our

sole purpose is to make Direct Mail the

most effective form of marketing by

integrating it with Cutting Edge

technology and currently we have a 14

technology marketing automation platform

with a real-time reporting dashboard

because tracking and and proving the

effecacy of mail and showing that

reporting is so important um and that

all integrates into Direct Mail

campaigns to track show attribution and

lift the response rate of mail about 23

to 46% for pennies per mail piece and we

are known for having one of the most

comprehensive Sol solutions for Omni

Channel enhanced mail campaigns and uh

Printers White Label and reseller

platform to add value to their client St

mail campaigns and acquire new mail

business by offering something Above and

Beyond Inc on paper so basically we are

all about making mail more effective uh

on numerous fronts for print mailers

marketers and the industry as a whole

and I have the pleasure of having an a

steam panel today to speak to how

technology improves mail and adds value

for printers one of which is is the one

the only Deborah Gorn and I also have

two of our resellers on and our first

panelist is Alex feckner he’s the

Director of Business Development and

part owner of advertisers printing Alex

you want to tell us just a little bit

about advertisers

printing yes ma’am thank you Morgan and

thank you for uh having me on uh uh Alex

Fekner advertisers Printing St Louis

Missouri uh been in business for a

hundred years I’m the fourth gener a to

come into the company been with the

company for 15 years uh director of

sales and business development and uh

how I became partners with uh DM 2.0 was

uh you know ran into them at the

printing shows and you know being a

younger guy in the uh industry I saw it

and it just made sense um because I knew

that there was a lot more you could be

doing with your direct mail and I knew

it was going to give me an edge against

my competition so um roughly 30 40

million pieces of mail per year and

hoping to grow that a bunch next year

that’s awesome 100 years in business a

very remarkable accomplishment so I

don’t know if you’ve seen some of Alex’s

marketing content that they’ve been

pushing out on LinkedIn but it’s pretty

solid stuff so um and then next we have

Brandy SMY she’s a marketing consultant

and owner of Color Works Brandy you want

to tell us a little bit about Color

Works uh sure and I did want to thank

you both for allowing me to be here

today it’s really EXC exting to be able

to share how we’ve been able to

integrate digital and these new

technologies into our company because

it’s it’s just made uh worlds of

difference uh what’s interesting is both

Alex and our company our company as well

is a hundred years this year we

celebrated yeah it’s crazy absolutely

crazy we just uh posted on LinkedIn I

think it was last last week we had the

celebration so uh the ownership is thank

you Yes we made it

and that was not without a lot of

Reinventing and uh uh Direct Mail 2.0

was a huge part of that but um we’re an

integrated marketing company which means

that we can handle everything from copy

and design all the way through to print

and mail and um as Deborah was saying

you know don’t say no to the client

that’s really enabled us to evolve that

all our product offerings um cover just

about anything in marketing I like to

say other than TV or radio so other than

those two things were able to handle uh

projects for our clients phenomenal

thank you Brandy um and then last but

not least is Deborah Korn Intergalactic

ambassador to the pre for print media

center Deborah uh you want to tell us a

little bit about print media center D

thank you so much just just very quickly

I provide print inspiration and

resources to print marketing

professionals around the world and um

one of the things one of the

conversations I have all the time is

proof what is the proof that Print Works

um and so I’m just so honored that you

allowed me on this panel because Direct

Mail 2.0 is proof that print works with

the right message of the right campaign

at the right time with the right

recipient you need you need more than

just technology on mail uh you know to

to get a response to it but certainly um

at the end of the day people want to

understand what they got from that spend

and there was a time where well how many

people called the 1 1800 number today

you know and what if that mail was

delayed and you don’t know if they’re

calling it you know on a certain day or

they got somebody else’s mail so there’s

I’m just really super excited to be here

so thank you for the opportunity well

I’m gonna host your session for you in

like two seconds amen I like what you

said that it has to have all the right

components for to of an effective mail

campaign because we’re not miracle

workers but we do enhance mail campaigns

so um but today’s session is the next

Frontier of digital mail technologies

that connect printers to revenue and

customers to results so this will be a

discussion about the advantages of

adding technology to direct mail and the

benefits of doing so to make mail more

effective attractive and sticky and uh

the ancillary benefits that come with

that such as driving Revenue while

lifting the response and results of mail

campaigns now this session will be

purely educational but if anybody is

interested in learning more about our

company uh I will be hosting a demo in

the breakout session right after this

okay so um let’s go ahead and kick this

off um I’ll start with you Brandy what

what does digitally enhanced mail or

digital mail mean for your printing

services and when and why did you decide

to introduce this type of omni Channel

offering into your organization and what

has it done for your company from a

revenue and growth

perspective uh we started back in 2021

um so at that time we were already

realizing for a good bit of a good

period of time that we really needed to

differentiate ourselves from other print

providers and marketing providers so we

had started down the path of um being

specific in some verticals for instance

Credit Unions Senior Living other

financial institutions so in

specializing that way that gave us our

initial Edge but we realized that we

needed to go one step further um and

that was by adding the digital onto the

direct mail so that we could really um

show attribution to the campaigns that

we were running for our clients previous

to that we were doing digital separately

I sometimes I’ll say it’s traditional

digital because uh which is really a

misnomer but digital was kind of over

here and it was separate and apart from

direct mail so we really wanted to be

able to combine that and show that

attribution for direct mail so it was

kind of a no-brainer for us to do that

after taking that step of uh

specializing in a vertical this was just

that next step and um it has been

enabled us to be much more profitable so

I would say that our jobs are routinely

25% more profitable uh than our typical

print job so that’s really that’s been

huge for us and that differentiation has

also just been a game Cher uh because we

were able to do both um not just print

but all that creative before it goes to

print often times we would be

competitors of not just um other

printers but also advertising agencies

so the fact that we could start and do

that whole campaign with the creative

through to direct mail with digital

advertising agencies are not doing that

um they’re they they are very proficient

in digital only but the problem with

that is is if you only have a hammer

every problem looks like a nail

so and so by having everything together

being able to kind of bring that uh the

best of everything together it’s really

enabled us to be much more um

differentiated and profitable awesome

Alex did you have anything to add to

that I mean is your story similar

or did we lose

Alex wait you might be

muted can you hear me now

yes yeah all right it didn’t show I was

being muted but no um just to add to

what Brandy was saying and everything

you know it’s funny I think I got to

meet and uh be friends with Deborah down

at DM 2.0’s first conference and we saw

each other in the elevator and started

talking and you know we were just like

holy oh excuse me um no this is an

amazing well this is an amazing thing to

marry together and something that always

bothered me as being a printer is uh

when I talk to people about their

marketing they would say well it’s you

know it’s got to all be digital or you

know it’s it it was so such a print

versus digital and I was like it can’t

be that way you know they complement

each other so well so when I came across

DM 2.0 knowing that I could connect

those worlds and make uh make it more

effective and ultim return a higher Roi

for my customers it just made sense and

for what it’s done for us as a company

is I’m not really looked at as that

print salesman anymore like I’m just not

I’m not a commoditized guy that’s coming

in there when I actually start talking

about hey well I can track your mail I

can add you know call tracking to it we

can collect leads and we can show you

all this data on a dashboard they

actually start to lean in and they go

well tell me more about that and uh it’s

uh it’s done great things for uh for us

landing new appointments and uh you know

I’ve got case studies we can talk about

I don’t want to take up too much time

but um we had a nonprofit one that uh

we’ll just say that the uh the four drop

campaign paid for the printing and

Direct Mail 38 times over um with your

offering so Morgan you guys got got that

case study but uh the museum right yeah

the the Holocaust Museum yeah yeah it

was h two drops of building awareness

and then two drops of asking um to the

leads we generated and the goal was to

raise you know $2 million and we uh we

capped out I think close to four million

on $80,000 in print and postage so uh

yeah they uh they’re they’re still doing

campaigns and uh it’s the new that’s the

what they keep doing and it’s been great

in home services and if my ADD is taken

over and I’m taking us down me to shut

up thanks Alex no I mean it’s it’s just

wonderful that this has had the opp the

ability and opportunity to to drive such

good results for you be a differentiator

unique selling proposition but more

importantly um it’s added a lot of value

for your clients right and I think

that’s most important and it really

creates that stickiness with mail right

and when you’re driving those kind of

results for a client they’re going to be

a lot less likely to say I don’t know if

I I want to look at at at using Direct

Mail anymore or maybe I want to shift my

budget into digital right because

they’re getting so much paying for their

buck with the direct mail they’re seeing

that tracking they’re seeing that

reporting and there’s that stickiness

there right so absolutely Absolut good

stuff um Deborah what are your thoughts

on digital males and offering in your

opinion is there a need for this and why

I couple years ago I uh would do a

presentation and one of the sections

would be uh talking about holes in the

wine list you know everybody thinks that

they they have a restaurant and they

have this wine list that pairs with all

the food and then all of a sudden a very

crafty wine distributor comes along and

says yes you have a lovely wine list

that pairs with all your food but do you

know that you’re missing one wine here

and one wine there now if somebody’s

bringing that additional value to the

table and can help you see things that

you don’t see can help you serve your

customers in a way that you’re not

currently doing and can also do give you

all the other wines you already have why

would you not want to work with those

with that company and that is how I

think about Direct Mail 2.0 it is the

whole in the wine list that I guarantee

most of your competition out there is

not tapping into and there are reasons

for that but mostly I feel it’s

because it it is technology becomes this

over

overwhelming thing you know it’s not

what we’re good at it’s not what we do

but if you’ve ever had the honor and

privilege of attending a direct mail 2.0

conference they help you they will

freaking sell it for you they will help

you do everything I mean I remember the

first couple of conferences I went to

you were just trying to tell people what

the product was and I was sitting next

to people writing checks and I was like

what is going on at this conference what

and when I finally when they embraced

that you were really there to support

them so that’s what I would say this

should be a no-brainer for everybody to

at least look into if you cannot adopt

it for some

reason fine but at least you know it’s

there and at least it’s something you

can strive to but if it is for you or

you can make it work for you which you

should be able to do um it is super

important Direct Mail 2.0 can help you

if I can just say one other thing that I

learned at your conference that that I I

repeat these things because I think that

they are so

important I recall a case study for a um

for a a a what’s it I’m sorry a

university oh and the university sent

out um postcards and uh was getting

people and it was easy enough to track

who was on the website doesn’t mean you

have to contact them but you can still

understand that they were there yeah and

they were able through you have a lot of

tools uh that help people match

addresses and social media and all this

other stuff but the most interesting

thing to me was that the colleges were

able to see the IP addresses that were

consistently clicking on financial aid

information and that enabled the printer

to go back to the school and say we have

a list of people who are probably

further down the sales cycle so to speak

let’s specifically start sending them

financial aid information and that

actually helps customers print smarter

which means that they can add a little

more money to the direct mail to track

it and they don’t have to uselessly

spray and pay prey in the printer verse

sorry I told you I could go on and on

about no I mean it’s a good point

because personalization in mail is so

integral and in today’s current time and

space customers are wanting more

targeted mailing lists and and that’s a

great way to do that is to tap into

technology that can provide you

ammunition and that information where

you can cohesively put that type of a

campaign together and they they actually

got a 25% response rate on that mail

campaign and you know it makes sense

right because it’s the right people at

the right place at the right time with

the right offer you know it’s checking

off all the boxes of an effective

marketing strategy so um you know it’s

just proofing the pudding of what

technology can do to help make mail more

effective so yep but um I I think that

we’re already out of time here so no no

go ahead we started we started a little

late um definitely get to your other

questions of time so you know I I just

wanted to kind of throw in this one more

question because I think it’s so

integral right and and I think a a big

challenge in the print industry uh is

the attraction of workers right we we

need to make print look more sexy and

more attractive and attract this younger

demographic especially from a sales

perspective right we’ve got account

managers that are aging out or they’re

just managing their accounts and we need

to get some thirsty Hunter salespeople

into this industry that want to go out

and and tell people how amazing Direct

Mail is and how amazing print is and and

go out there and sell it so I mean

Deborah do you think a technology like

this can help attract a younger

Salesforce to the print

industry I mean anything having to do

with technology should be an an

attractive thing to a a gen Zer in in

some fashion um and then to um as long

as they understand that um how important

this their role is in in the company to

help this technology move forward to

they might understand it faster than

than somebody else that’s already in the

print shop but to to

actually just let them have at it and

give you feedback on what they think

about it and the messaging they would uh

share about it instead of like trying to

for Speed technology no this is what we

use it for and this is how we sell it

just say have at it you look at it how

would you sell it to to somebody your

your age How would how would you use it

don’t listen to about how I use it how

would you use it and I think that there

is a real opportunity to make them

thought leaders in in the printing

companies instead of entry-level

employees who just get things dumped on

them so that’s I think it is a gateway

to to uh uh more communication uh

employees for sure communication

channels sure yeah I mean and uh Brandy

do you feel like is this technology has

giv you an edge you know from a sales

perspective not just for you know

acquiring new revenue streams from your

existing customers but having that

opportunity to go out and present

something different and acquire new mail

business well I think Alex really said

it well when he said he’s giving a

presentation and people are leaning in

um it’s just completely night and day

day with this technology because

previous to that it was um just Direct

Mail we were doing digital but digital

was kind of Standalone but in to enable

to have everything works seamlessly

together and what we’re hearing or what

I’m hearing more and more when I’m

talking to new clients is that they are

doing more with less people everybody’s

busy they’ve got you know there’s lots

of turnover and so the people that are

there are often tasked with doing a much

larger uh lift in the marketing

campaigns they’re doing so the fact that

they’re able to see everything for a

campaign in One dashboard it’s just huge

I mean that’s really where people their

ears are perking up and you know I I

like to say previously how we did it is

we might drop a direct mail campaign uh

over here we might also send an email

separately um we’d be doing a digital

campaign separately and so then we’d

kind of have to report that back

differently we’d have a separate uh

technology for doing the call track

tracking we’d have separate reporting

for the

retargeting um and so to have everything

in one spot it’s just been amazing our

clients are just yeah we streamlined

yeah streamlined is just and save people

and not only I mean you’ve heard Alex

and you know Deborah talk about you know

case studies and and how much more

profitable it is but it it Bears

repeating or bears mentioning that the

time savings are something that people

often aren’t aware of but when you’re

presenting that and you talk about you

know how long does it take you to take

the results from all of these different

pieces of Technologies on your marketing

campaign and aggregate it together so

now not only is all that technology

aggregated in one place but you can

quickly compare previous campaigns it’s

just it’s amazing

convert thanks so much Brandy Alex

anything to add to that a few things and

I’ll do it as quickly as I can based on

time but Morgan to to reference your

last question as far as drawing younger

talent in the industry um two our last

two sales rep ties now one of them was a

was a senior salesperson who been doing

it for a while but she heard about our

Omni Channel offering and that was very

appealing to her because she wanted to

come on board because she had heard

about it and just like uh Brandy was

saying it was all so siloed and clunky

wherever else she heard it and she’s

like wait this is One dashboard and it

it’s all-encompassing within one

campaign I was like yeah this is exactly

how it works yeah and she’s doing great

with it uh you know Andrea and um and uh

Patrick was a young young sales guy who

came into our company and he wanted to

leave the industry but when he came

across us and everything we were doing

he was just like no I really think I can

sell this now he’s ramping up and

everything but two additional sales reps

that we you know without DM 2.0 that was

a big draw for them so that’s the first

thing we’ve had customers leave to go

get a cheaper printer um based on you

know they could save a few bucks on

their direct mail campaign and they came

back because they’re like well they just

can’t provide the data you guys provided

on the campaign the last the the the

last two things the third thing I’m

about to say that I really shouldn’t

admit but you’re gonna Morgan and I

haven’t I haven’t told you yet but um we

had a uh we had a call tracking issue

where a customer had decided to stop uh

DM 2.0’s campaign and I told him you

need to update the call tracking number

because the call tracking number is not

going to work and they sent new files

they never updated it they didn’t catch

it so the old call tracking number for

DM 2.0 ended up printing on there and

guess what they called me in a month and

say our phone calls have dropped off

what is going on and I said hey I told

you your call tracking number is going

to be deactivated and you guys never

updated the number so while I feel

terrible that that happened it proves

that much more that the only place that

call tracking number was on was their

direct mail piece yeah they were they

they estimated they missed out on like

80 phone calls in a month W so there’s a

lot of opportunity there and so again

like everyone every one of us who’s been

in printing you know all the printers

listening you all know that that’s

happened to you before too so don’t act

like it hasn’t

um yeah but then finally the lead match

pixel code it’s a catchall for

everything you’re doing so it’s not just

for the direct mail if they could be

running email campaigns they could be

running other Google ads they could be

running so many other campaigns that has

nothing to do with the printer yet we

are the ones providing them with all the

the the physical mailing addresses of

all their other marketing efforts for

pennies on what a usual lead would cost

what’s the average cost of the lead I

think in I don’t know in most Industries

B2B I thought it was I heard it was $180

they can get approximately on average

that’s the average cost of a lead yeah

oh yeah here’s here’s your lead for 30

cents thanks I mean like it’s just it’s

and and Deborah I don’t know if you

remember this line um but uh God I can’t

remember her name but I learned so much

from her at Market Edge she had said her

line that I’ve been using nonstop since

then was so you’re gonna pay 38 cents

for postage and you’re not going to pay

for what less cost than Postage and

you’re not and you’re going to get 14 or

15 more touches help me understand why

why you’d pay for postage and not get

any information but for just less than

that you could get this many more

touches and gather This Much Information

help me understand why you wouldn’t want

to do that and when they sit around and

think about it they go yeah yeah all

right let me let me let me go back to my

team and and figure out how to make this

work so and the I’ll finish with your

guys just helping us sell it and the

co-sales and everything else has just

been so huge and you know a big part of

our success so couldn’t be uh couldn’t

be better Partners in that way thank you

Alex I appreciate that thank you you’re

are welcome I’d love to say one more

thing if if I can then we we wrap it up

Morgan um you mentioned this it in the

beginning but just in case it didn’t go

through people’s ears into their brain

you can white label Direct Mail 2.0 to a

unique service that nobody else has like

Direct Mail accelerator response Ranger

I don’t care what you call it but people

can’t price it out if they don’t know

what’s behind it and Direct Mail 2.0 is

not trying to own that space they just

want to help you do better so I will TR

kick it back to you to wrap up and then

you have a breakout room and then we

we’re going to start the next session

after some a commercial break go ahead

Morgan round it up thank you thank you

so much and and thank you Alex and

Brandy I mean you guys have been amazing

Partners to dark mail 2.0 and they’re

just wonderful people to work with in

general I mean if you’re looking for

direct mail or marketing Services I I

would highly recommend either one of

them Deborah thank you so much for your

contribution to our panel um so anybody

that would like to learn a little bit

more about Omni Channel marketing or our

Direct Mail 2.0 platform uh I’m going to

hop over into our breakout room and do a

quick demo and so I really appreciate

the inclusion today and and thanks

everybody have a great evening thanks

everybody we will be right back after a

short commercial break with Trish rowski

Daniel dejon and Vicky stroll try to

keep calm everybody we’ll be right

back