104 - Is Direct Mail Still Worth It in 2025? Here’s What the Data Says

Zac: If you could get an 80 to 90% open rate on your next marketing campaign, would you take it? Even if it's a direct mail campaign? And, uh, yeah, we're gonna talk about that in this episode. Rich, good to see you. All right. Well,

Rich: I mean that's, that's a hook, Zach, like, I think. I don't know who would say no to that.

Um, though, like there's this hole, is direct mail dead? Is it live? Is it, you know, on life support? Um, and I think it's a great, great topic because, um, you know, it's just a. I don't know. It's an interesting one 'cause everybody has an opinion, right? Like, and as we were doing research, I was trying to find stuff and I'm like, oh, like some interesting facts, but we'll get to those in a little bit.

Zac: Yeah, it's kind of all over the place too. Mm-hmm. Some people say, oh, it's re, it's a resurgence, like, buy into direct mail now. And other people are like, well actually it's dying. And like you said, we'll talk more about that in a little bit. But yeah.

Rich: Well, and then there's the whole. Don't call it a comeback.

People like, where it's like, it was never dead. It's always been fine. Um, I think direct mail's different though, and we're gonna talk about that. So like, this isn't gonna be like, you know, your, your grandpa's direct mail episode. Um, but we can, uh, we can get into like, does it still work? What's some of the data on it?

And then what do we think, you know, how do we feel about it as marketers? So, all right, you've got a cocktail. And I love this one because it sounds like a person, Brandy Alexander. It sounds like a girl you went to high school with and she was kind of problematic. Um, her name was Brandy Alexander. So, uh, what's this one about?

Zac: So the Brandy Alexander is actually like a really like creamy, almost chocolatey kind of cocktail, which I thought was interesting to pair with Brandy, uh, gained popularity in the 1970s in upskill Manhattan bars. I feel like I've said that before about other cocktails on this show. But,

Rich: um, well, I mean, Manhattan was cocktail culture in the sixties, seventies, I mean.

It kind of always is where you think about like cocktails. Um,

Zac: yeah, that's very true I think. Uh, so this one is a brandy based variation on the original Alexander, which is a prohibition cocktail made of gin creed to dec the cow and cream. Uh, so instead of gin, this is being replaced by brandy. The original was believed to be, have been created by Troy Alexander at New York City's Hotel Rector, which, yeah, those

Rich: New York City hotel bars just crank out the cocktails like nobody's business.

And it's always

Zac: some random guy like they, it's, I, it's interesting to me how they can track that back to one person if it becomes like that popular. Yeah. And what's wild

Rich: about this one is, so just to clarify like what you said, so before Prohibition, it was just an Alexander and it was basically this, but with Jen.

Yeah. And then this is a post, uh, like redo of it, the Brandy Alexander, which is its own thing in W right in, you know, W Rights came about in the seventies where somebody just decided to replace the gin with cognac and. Let's see what happens. All right, so, um, one and a half ounces of cognac, uh, which is brandy.

I mean, it's, uh. It's, you know, same, same, uh, an ounce of dark creamed. A cacao. Um, I have, I have all this stuff here actually. Uh, one ounce of cream oop don't have any cream. Uh, that's the one thing I'd have to go get, and you can garnish it with a grated nutmeg. So the cognac dark cream, it. Cream to cacao and the cream all go into a shaker with ice and shake until well chilled.

Um, and definitely don't shake until you have like, you know, whipped cream. You're not gonna, you're not trying to whip the cream, it's just get it all mixed and get it chilled. Um, strain that into a chilled cocktail glass or a coop glass. Um, I would absolutely say this is a great one for a coop class. Um, and then just garnish with fresh freshly grated nutmeg.

And that is it. Um. It's gonna be a little bit foamy, a little bit creamy, and that nutmeg's just gonna sit on top. Um, it feels like a holiday drink to me.

Zac: It feels like a great dessert drink. Just like after your meal. Have that. Oh, man. I don't know. Like, would you, would you drink it? Because usually I know you're pretty, like I am.

Either you will or you won. So

Rich: this one, so I'm not a, not a Brandy fan or a Cognac fan. I've had some brandy before, but I mean, it's typically, it's just straight, right? It's in a brandy sniff drink. You're drinking it like blah. This, uh, so one, I'm a huge fan of creme de cacao. Um, this has the cream in it and then the nutmeg.

I feel like the brandy is like just an attendee at this one. It's not the star of this show. Um, I think it

Zac: makes it interesting. Because like, how would you describe like the taste of brandy? I've had it before, but like, it's not like a mental, I don't have like a mental note of how it tastes.

Rich: I mean, it really depends on the brandy, but sometimes it tastes like, um, like overly fermented fruit, like apples that have gone bad.

Like it's got kind of that smell to it a little bit. Um, I don't know. It's a hard one 'cause it's. People like to, so would

Zac: it be, well, my thing is like, I'm wondering, only wondering, 'cause would it be like almost like, like a fruity chocolate kind of flavor? Is that kind of like, do you think like what it would taste like or, um.

Rich: It can. Yeah. So I mean, brandy's got a little bit of spice to it, a little bit of fruit to it. It's a little bit oaky, and that's what kind of pushes it into those kind of bourbon. Oh, okay. The world is that oakiness, so you can get a brandy that like. Plays in between all of that stuff. So I think that what's happening here is they're really accenting a lot of that.

So the creme de cacao, that chocolate is going to really help with like the fruit piece of it and the fruitiness. Mm-hmm. And then the nutmeg is gonna enhance the spice and the cream is really gonna cut, um, some of that oakiness and smooth it out. So it's, that's why I don't think that the. The cognac or the brandy is really the star of this because it's like, it's like an ensemble cast, right?

Like there's no one standout. They all work together. It just helps to balance

Zac: it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That makes sense.

Rich: Yep. Where like, um. Yeah, I just, I think this is an interesting one. I think it's a good dessert drink. Um, maybe when we're in San Francisco for inbound, we can find a good Brandy Alexander at a bar and give it a shot.

Zac: We're gonna have to, we're gonna have to go down the list. We have a lot of cocktails to try.

Rich: I know. I know. I know. And I know you're working on finding us places to go, but we do have to go to the conference as well. Um, all right, so with that, should we, uh, wrap up the intro, take a quick break and come back and talk about direct mail.

Is it dead? Is it not dead? Who knows what's going on with it?

Zac: Yeah, let's look into it.

Rich: All right, we are back. And it's time to put Zach on the spot. You threw out in the hook an 80 to 90% open rate, uh, insinuating that maybe that's what direct mail gets. What's going on there? What's that stat and where does that come from?

Zac: So that came from post Alytics. Okay. Which is something that you'll find some of these statistics that, like if you look up the state of, uh, direct marketing or direct email market, direct mail marketing, not direct email marketing, but if you come, if you like, look up, start looking things, looking into it, um, you'll run into a lot of industry, like platforms that are trying to sell you mm-hmm.

On the idea of direct mail. So a lot of that, like those statistics and data points can be skewed.

Rich: So grain

Zac: of salt. Yeah, so take it with a grain of salt. Open rates are on average, higher for direct mail mm-hmm. When compared to email. Um, but response rates typically land around three to 5% for in-house lists, so basically lists that you're already sending out direct mail to, and then one to 2% for lead gen campaigns.

Which is kind of a pretty big gap,

Rich: but that's still like one to 2% on lead gen is pretty good. Like email open rates and email, well, email response rates can be that low from a lot of people depending on your industry and what you're doing. Um. Okay. Yeah. That's interesting.

Zac: Yeah. So, and I think one thing that I was thinking when, like I was reading that is how do you calculate open rates for direct mail,

Rich: right?

Because you're not standing here watching open my mail, are they looking

Zac: through my trash? Like, what's, what's going on with that? But,

Rich: and um, and the other thing is like, so like a lot of it's just a postcard. Like if I, if I get the postcard out of the mail and look at it while I throw it in the recycling.

Did I open it? Is that an open rate on that postcard? Like,

Zac: yeah, so going into this, like I didn't know much about direct mail, but after looking into it, I have some skepticisms about like some of the things within it. Or like Yep. Some of the, the strategies, I think it's also like

Rich: when, when people hear direct mail.

And what's really funny is you stumbled, like with direct marketing, direct email. 'cause like we don't say direct mail as often. Yeah. You know, email marketing, um. I think when people think direct mail, like we all think about what it was before, even before the internet or before, like email marketing. And some of that came about where you would buy this giant list of people and you would just send everybody like a postcard or you'd send everybody this letter or this offer.

Um, and that's really not how it works again anymore. So I'm gonna talk about it as an integrated campaign. We'll get there. Um,

Zac: and yeah, I think that's where it makes sense. Yep. For me. Um. I don't know, like open rates, like yeah, that's a huge number, like we said, but it doesn't really mean. They're acting upon what they're seeing.

Right. For me personally, when I get something in the mail that's like marketing related, it goes straight into the trash unless it's a really good deal or coupon or something like that. So, so I'm

Rich: a, I'm a good recycler, so I open them. So if my name is on the front of it, name and address, like. Printed on the envelope, I just shred the whole thing.

But if it's like not, I'll open it and take out anything that doesn't have personally identifiable information on it. Recycle that, and then I shred the thing that has my name and address on it. So I do. So I mean, but that, I don't think that's an open rate. Like, I opened it, but I opened it with the intent of sorting it, shredding it.

Like that's just being a good recycler. Yeah. So, all right. So, um, I'm gonna put you on the hot seat a little bit more. I've got some stats and I want you to actually guess before I tell you what it is. Awesome. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're Gen Z, right?

Zac: Yes. I'm like an elder Gen Z person. Okay, you're ready?

I was born in 1998, so, okay,

Rich: so the elder Gen Z, so your generation, gen Z, what percent of your generation says that they would miss it if they didn't get any physical mail? So like no mail came, it just stopped. No physical mail. What percent of your generation says they would miss it?

Zac: They would miss getting mail.

Oh man. I'm gonna say like 10% because. I don't think many peop, I mean, Amazon get packages are pretty awesome. Getting those in the mail. No, it's, it's, it's mail, but that's, it's

Rich: physical mail, like letters, envelopes, magazines, those things.

Zac: I, I would say like 10% PE of people would actually miss it. And maybe that's too low, but that's, maybe that's too high.

I don't even know.

Rich: So what's wild about it? And this one kind of blew my mind, 72. A survey. Really? Yeah. And this was from a, a data source. It wasn't actually from a direct mail like, um, direct mail company, but now this is just mail. Right. This isn't if you are getting direct mail or getting offers in the mail.

Oh. So just getting mail,

Zac: I guess if you start thinking about it, like, yeah, it would kind of suck not to get like letters from family or like, yeah. Letters like that.

Rich: And I think I, I mean, I think there's a nostalgia part, right? Yeah. Because you did grow up, like with your grandma mailing you a birthday card or a Christmas card, those kinds of things.

Um, so that may be, um, wow, that's way higher than I thought it was gonna be. Yeah, it was really high. Um, so here's one kind of to go with your stats. Um, this is about marketers. What percent of marketers say direct mail gives them the best ROI of any channel?

Zac: Uh, I mean, it depends on the, where the, where, where this like is coming from, like what the source is in my mind.

But, uh, it's

Rich: just, it's a survey company. They just surveyed marketers. This wasn't, oh, from like a direct mail place. This is from an

Zac: industry. Okay? Mm-hmm. Uh, let's do like 40%.

Rich: 84%.

Zac: Oh my gosh. Wow.

Rich: So yeah, that one kind of blew me away. So I'm gonna, and I'm gonna get to a point here with these. Um, so the next one kind of starts to take you down why these numbers are as high as they are, because this is, these were all surveys from 2024, so just a year ago.

So these are not. Buy a list. Spam the list. See what happens. These are people and companies and marketers who are doing integrated campaigns. So if you combine social email and direct mail into one campaign, what is the lift you'll get? What increase percent increase will you get on the campaign overall?

Social, going email and direct mail. I've been going

Zac: pretty low. I'm gonna say like 80% or something like that. Oh, too high.

Rich: 63, which is still really good. Right. That's a better than 50% lift. That's really, and then, um, I will just, I'll give you a hit between those two numbers, is how many webs, how, how it'll increase your website visits.

Zac: Like percent increase in website visits.

Rich: Yep. If you do it integrated social email and direct mail.

Zac: I'm gonna, I'm gonna go 80, 80% again.

Rich: 70.

Zac: Oh, you said it was in between. Oh, dang. I said it was in

Rich: between. Yeah, I tried to lead you as soon as she said. I was like, oh, okay. And so here's what's interesting about it.

Um, the average person gets 4,000 digital ads a day, and which. I know it's funny 'cause you want that to be shocking and when I saw that I'm like, yeah, that's probably true. Yeah. Like, you know, like I look at like in my email and on my phone, like everything that's coming, I was playing a game and there's an ad that pops up.

Like

Zac: yeah, you're probably get an ad. Like, I wonder how many times you get an ad in like this span of like 10 minutes if you're just on your phone.

Rich: Oh, it's gotta be multiples, like per second I would think. Yeah. Um, so how many, how many direct mail pieces do you think people get a day on average in the US?

Zac: Like in total or like per person?

Rich: Per person.

Zac: Per person. Probably like six. To seven.

Rich: Nailed it a hundred percent. Six is the actual number. Wow, that's great. I I got one of them right off. Wow. You've redeemed yourself. So that's where you talk about like that integrated campaign, right? Mm-hmm. Um, so some of those stats are, because it's part of an integrated campaign, and we'll talk a little bit later about how to do that.

Um, I think we might even give you a campaign. Everybody, a campaign. They can just steal and execute today if they want to. Um, but yeah, that's the thing is you, you still have to reach people via digital. Right. Mm-hmm. It's not dying. Um, it's the way most people are consuming media today. That's just the way it is.

But much like anything, like if you do just, just social, if you do just banner ads, if you do just CTV, you're not gonna get as good a result as if you combine things. Um, and that's, I think, where the magic happens. Um,

Zac: it's just one tool in the entire toolkit. You need the whole kit mm-hmm. To accomplish.

You do what you're like,

Rich: you do. So what have you got? Like, um, where's your skepticism coming from? Let's talk a little bit more about your, like your skepticism.

Zac: So I am under, I am the type of person, like I said earlier, that when I get like marketing mail, I will more than likely, unless it's a really good deal and it really stands out, it's going straight to the cycl.

Like you said, and another thing that really grinds my gears is when, uh, I'll get, I'll get a piece of mail that looks super important. No branding on it. Like it looks like something different from everything else that I've seen. I open it and it's an ad to like a, a credit card company that's trying to get me to mm-hmm.

Sign off to get their credit cards. That's probably the most common one I get, actually wait

Rich: till you have a mortgage because like, oh no. So we'll get things that have like, um, re and the name of the bank that has our mortgage, and then so you think like, oh, like maybe it's something to do, do with your mortgage and you open it and it's like.

Mortgage insurance or it's a reverse mortgage or it's a home equity loan, like it has nothing to do with it. Um, the other one you get is it looks like it's coming from the city, like the city water department, and it's like a sewer insurance thing. Sewer, light insurance. Those are like, as you, again, as you get older and own a property.

Like those are the ones that you get

Zac: constantly. Oh man. It is just that. I think that is like the main, like the main. My main gripe with direct mail is that suspicious side of it or that like almost like mm-hmm. I don't wanna say Black hat 'cause I'm thinking like Black Hat. SEO, black Hat Direct

Rich: Mail.

Yeah. You heard it here first folks. Black Hat Direct mail.

Zac: And I was looking at a lot of, so the Data and Marketing Association did like a bunch of consumer like surveys on like consumer behavior. Mm-hmm. And how direct mail, like basically anything with everything with direct mail. And it said initial open rates would obviously increase a large percentage.

But it feels extremely deceptive and most people that encountered mail like that like said they'd never work with that brand again because it's just something that harm harms brand trust when you get like deceptive mail like that because like it's one thing to send like a blank, like a. Clearly branded piece of mail that you know what you're getting yourself into.

Yep. And it's another to get something that's deceptive. So that's one piece of the skepticism for me.

Rich: Yeah. And I agree with that. And that's a, it's a big tactic. It used to not be legal, but now, I mean, and you, then there's. There's ways to skirt it. So you can't send something that looks exactly like a priority mail package or exactly like a UPS envelope.

It can't be a direct ripoff, but companies have like. Toyed with that line to get as close as they can. Yeah. So because like if you get a U, like a true USPS priority mail, something like if you got something you might think it was maybe from me or from a family member or something important. Um, and so they, um, they try to mimic that and make it look like this urgent.

They'll put confidential on it, so. That's not what we're talking about. We are really looking at, well-branded direct mail to somebody who cares about what you're doing. You nailed it with like the inside list, the list of known people, your customers, and upsell. A cross sale is gonna get a way better response than just a blind thing.

Um,

Zac: my question is, rich, what experience do you have with direct mail like marketing and. What kind of people typically see like a better ROI from it? Because from my perspective, like I've never like really worked with direct marketing and I'm kind of just like curious on, on, you know. Who see successful it the most?

Rich: So I mean, I've had quite a bit, like I've been at places where we've done a ton of direct mail. Um, back in the nineties, especially again, like we didn't, we, we weren't really, there was no email marketing really at that point. It was, email was more for personal use. Um. And even then, not a lot of people had it, like you had a OL, you know, and there were banners that's on a OL and whatnot.

Um, so I think the thing that I've seen is for retail, it can work really well. Um, that again, is to your customers. And the goal with that is usually to get a repeat visit. So if your average customer is visiting three times a year and you, you wanna get 'em to four times or five times because you're gonna get more money from that.

Um, but the issue is the same as with email. It's about the offer. If you're just sending a postcard or something. So same idea, you send a 10% offer, probably not gonna get much response, 20% offer 30% offer, you're gonna get more response. Um, so there's that piece. Um, with business to business, what's been interesting for me is I've had the opportunity to do some back in the day and even, you know, more recently, um.

That one, it's a physical package. So corporate

Zac: gifting is more of Yes. Okay.

Rich: But relevant corporate gift, because think about it, if you get, uh, a generic envelope in your office mm-hmm. Or a postcard, or you get a small box that's well-branded and looks interesting, which one are you gonna open? You're gonna open the box, I mean, a hundred percent.

Oh, a hundred

Zac: percent. Especially

Rich: if you know what's in it or you have an idea of what's in it. So the thing with that, um, is it has to have, it has to have value. And with B2B, sometimes those things have like a 200, 300, 400, $500 value. Um, but you send them to just your top like 10 or 15 prospects, that kind of thing.

Zac: And where does that, in your mind, where does that fit? Like in the funnel? Like at what point would bottom, would you send that to a prospect? At the very bottom?

Rich: Makes sense. I'm trying to get them over the hump and I need to know that they're qualified. I need to know that they're worth spending this money on.

Um, I have to get 'em like it's, to get them over that last like 20%. If I'm like at 80% sure they're gonna close, I wanna push them over the edge with something. Um, could

Zac: it work middle of funnel if you sent them like an. Like a physical guide or a physical offer? Yeah.

Rich: Yeah. So when you look at a corporate gift of high value, that's definitely a sort of a bottom of funnel.

As you move up the funnel though, you can do it at all three places. So for instance, our cocktail book could be a middle of funnel for prospects if we wanted to. I would want, I mean, it's, it's pretty niche. So from a relevant standpoint, I'd wanna make sure that they enjoy cocktails and whatnot. Um, but that type of thing could be, um.

Could fit in there. But a, um, a how to guide or a checklist, like some of the things you'll do in email, you can do in direct mail. And where I think the real power is, is combining them, right? Yep. So if I've, if I've emailed you our guide to choosing an agency in 2025, you know, or guide to choosing an agency in the 21st century, whatever you wanna call it, and I've emailed you and asked you to download that PDF.

And you've opened my email a few times, but you haven't clicked on the link to download the PDF Might be worth it for me to mail a printed version of that to you. A decent quality, maybe it's like a soft touch or something, um, with a little intro letter, just in an envelope. Like maybe it's worth the, the two or $3 to mail that to you.

Um. So that's where you can kind of combine things and that would definitely be more of a top or middle of funnel. Mm-hmm. Um, I feel like there needs to be something between the top and the middle. But anyway, we're not gonna re reinvent the funnel today. Um, but that's where. Direct mail can really work, and that's again, that integrated campaign.

If you've seen my banner ad, if I'm targeting CTV ads to you, if you've seen my social and I've emailed you and you still haven't responded, my last ditch is to put something physical in your hands.

Zac: Because not everything works. Not any one thing will work just for one business or one person. Correct. You need to diversify how you're putting things out there.

Mm-hmm. And that makes a lot of sense. Yep. For, I mean, you were talking a little bit how mu, about how much it's costs to send things to people. I was doing some research and the United States Postal Postal Service said for every mailed like piece of direct, like. M direct marketing like mail. Right. It was 50 cents to a dollar 50 per mail piece.

Mm-hmm. Including printage and postage. So, yep.

Rich: That's about right.

Zac: So, um, I don't know, like how does that compare to like running an email campaign with this already established list? Or I mean, so because, well, and the reason I bring that up too is because when you're looking up a lot of direct mail platforms, like postal links, one of the major selling points is that it's a higher open rate than email, and it's better than email because you'll get a higher like percentage of people making a decision.

But you are making the point where it's not a one thing. It's not like you don't want it to be replaced, your email. You want it to work together. So I guess I'm just curious, like on some of that.

Rich: Yeah. And you've mentioned post lytics and we use them. Um, and the thing about post lytics is they're designed to be integrated.

Now you can just launch a campaign from them. But the other piece of it is it used to be expensive and cost prohibitive because you, the, it was a volume based thing, right? So the more you send, the cheaper it got. Like if you're gonna be 50 cents on printing and sending, you're sending tens of thousands of those.

Um. Because you've gotta get that volume on the printing, um, and the volume on the bulk rate to be able to do that. Um, what Post Lytics has done is kind of democratized direct mail, and now what you can do is direct mail on demand. Um, so. You can actually integrate it with HubSpot or with another tool.

They've got others where you can have a workflow, do what I just said. You've emailed somebody, they've opened the email twice, but they haven't actually clicked the link or downloaded your offer. You can then push them over and email them, or sorry, direct mail them a postcard, a letter, an envelope, a printed piece, and it's print on demand, mail on demand.

So it generally, depending on what you're doing, it can take. You know, 24, 48 hours for it to actually go out. But you're based on, you're still based on bulk, but you're based on your total volume. And even if you're doing just one-offs, it's, I wanna say like a postcard is around a buck. Printed and mailed all in.

That sounds about right. Um, and if you send one, you're fine. If you send 20, they're fine. You know, somebody like us, we, we have some larger clients that are sending larger things, so we pre-buy and we can pass that on to everybody like that savings. So I think we're at about like 80 cents a piece for an oversized, for a large postcard, like a six by nine postcard.

Um, but you can send a letter, you can send almost anything, and that's where it gets better because you're. You're hitting somebody that, you know, um, you're doing it cheaply and timely. You're not holding onto things for three months to have enough people to mail, and then you're also, um, it's more relevant, right?

They've seen your offer already. Mm-hmm. You know, so here's the deal. They opened the email. That's the first trick on this, is we're not sending the people who didn't open, if they didn't open the email dead to us, like we'll try to email 'em with the new subject line or whatever, but if they open the email more than once.

Something got 'em, but they didn't click. Mm-hmm. So let's just put it in their hand. Let's just send it to 'em, put it in their hand.

Zac: Well, I'm feeling a little less skeptical after hearing some of your insights from all that stuff. Yeah. I think, I think, I think my main point is like with the skepticism is, is direct mail going to be around like forever, even like.

F 10, 20 years, is it still gonna be like a viable thing? Maybe because, you know, packages aren't probably ever going to like die, so there's always gonna be a place for, yeah. Lots stuff going for mail, but I think, I think there's a lot of interesting ways that you can use it that I didn't even think about before this.

Mm-hmm. And I'm wondering, like, I guess you've kind of touched on a lot of things you can do, but if you, if a client came to us today and like wanted to run. A direct mail campaign, like what would you like, what advice would you give them to like get started? It doesn't have to be a full campaign, but maybe just like a quick start.

Rich: Um, I mean, same thing I would do with digital. I want you to hone in on your target customer as best you can. I want, I want that narrow, I don't wanna blast a zip code. Like, so that's the other thing. You used to have to blast zip codes or neighborhoods or cities, like depending, and now we can hit individuals.

It's the same as with CTV and audio and like all that. Um, use those principles from digital. So narrow your audience, be very focused. Um, have an extremely relevant offer. And ideally, um, reach out to them in some way digitally prior to sending the direct mail piece. Um, and that's just an old school. Like if somebody heard you're out on the radio, saw you in the newspaper, saw you on tv, they're far more likely to act.

It's that awareness piece, right? Mm-hmm. Um. And I think somebody could do just direct mail. The other option is you've got a list, you have addresses, but you don't have email addresses or you have email addresses, but it's technically illegal for you to email them because of the CAN Spam Act. Um, so send 'em a, send 'em a direct mail.

Um, the other piece of this is now like open rates. Yes. So opening. I don't know who opened what. Um, and there's ways they try to measure that or try to understand that. But, um, conversions and tracking is, you absolutely can, um, track it. So everything has what's called a pearl, a personal URL. Um, there's usually a QR code.

Yeah. So if somebody goes to where you want them to go, you're gonna know that that happened. You also get delivery stats. You get. You get forwarded stats, you get return stats, all of those things, um, that you would, you would normally get, um, you'll see. So I think it's worth a shot for most companies to, to try it as part of an integrated campaign.

And honestly, it's just fun to make physical pieces. Right? Yeah. It's kind of fun to print print things. It's nostalgic.

Zac: Um, I mean, the way you frame it too is just like an additional. Piece of the puzzle. Not it's you can you do it, do it as its own thing. I feel like in my head when I was like thinking, oh, some of this, you know, I don't know about some of this.

It was more of just the people who send out mass amounts of mail with very little to know relationship or any idea of where I'm at in the funnel. Mm-hmm. Just spamming me in real life. That's the part I bought. I hate it, but using it in a smart and uh, you know. Forward thinking way makes a lot of sense.

Rich: Yeah. I mean, I get from a, a local furniture store. I won't name them, but they know who they are. Um, I probably get three. I I know who they're now. I, everybody knows who they are. Um, I get three postcards a week from them every single week. And it doesn't influence my decision to go there or not. I'm not gonna see that TVs are 20% off and suddenly go buy a new tv.

I don't need a new tv. So, you know, the other thing is with digital lists, you can get that in market. Indicator. So, and I think that's where like combining these together works. Well, if you can get your email list or a digital list for people who are in market for something and you have that thing to offer and can give them some sort of a hook or incentive, that's gonna be your, your CTV will work better, your audio will work better, your banner ads will work better, your social will work better, your direct mail will work better.

Like all of it will. So I think it's not about, um. It's not about direct mail dying. Like I don't think it's gonna die, honestly. Um, and I don't think it's dead. I think it's about being smarter and more efficient so you're not wasting as much. Yeah, same as every channel. You don't need to

Zac: send out thousands of pieces of mail to try and make someone buy a tv.

Be smart about it.

Rich: You know, shotgun versus rifle is the old thing. Like do you just try to hit as many people as possible hoping that one of them's right, or do you find the right people and go straight at them? And that's where the power is and that's what I would say we need to do.

Zac: Awesome. I think we covered that pretty dang well.

Rich: I think so too. It was exciting. Like I, I don't know, like geeking out about direct mail is a little weird. Um, so we will have a new episode coming. Not sure what it is, but, um, there'll be one next week. Take us home, Zach.

Zac: So if you have a question, like always, maybe, uh, head your way. Oh, wait, wait. No, no, no.

Actually go to our website. End it@sevenone.com. We have all of our socials there. Uh, if you have a question you'd like to send our way, hit the CTA podcast live to shoot us an email, or even better, leave us a voice message on our hotline at 4 0 2 7 1 8 9 9 7 1. Your question will probably be its own episode.

We'll probably roll out the red carpet for you. Uh, absolutely. Maybe you can send us some mail if you have a question, if that's your thing. Our address is

Rich: on the website, so on uh, anna 70 one.com. You can mail us if you want to. Uh, all right. So we'll, uh, we'll be back. See you next week.