E021 - Rich Walker, Direct Mail Deep Dive

Rich Walker is a 35-year industry vet who’s been responsible for over 10 billion pieces of Direct Mail.

Rich has led direct marketing teams at Capital One, the Winterberry Group, Deluxe Corporation, 2nd Order Solutions, and more recently, Aven.

So we jumped at the opportunity to get his take on how lenders can leverage Direct Mail to grow their customer acquisition programs.

 

We Discuss:

1️⃣ Why Direct Mail still matters -$3B in spend per year -The power of pre-screened marketing 2️⃣ Who should explore Direct Mail -High response, low LTV -Low response, high LTV -Breakdowns by product category 3️⃣ Direct Mail vs. other channels -How does it compare to affiliate marketing? -Attribution and overlaps 4️⃣ Unit economics -Cost per piece at scale (and subscale) -How costs breakdown by postage, data, creative/printing -Typical CACs & response rates 5️⃣ The mechanics of a campaign -Checklist of how to go to market -Typical GTM timelines -How to go from 0 to in market in 8 weeks 6️⃣ Building or renting a Direct Mail function -Case for keeping in-house -Case for out-sourcing 7️⃣ Optimizing the 3 big levers -List (targeting and modeling) -Offer -Creative 8️⃣ Ways to solve attribution -Invitation codes, QR codes, vanity URLs -GEO holdout tests 9️⃣ The future of Direct Mail

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction to Rich Walker and His Career (10:45) Challenges and Benefits of Direct Mail (14:50) The Future of Direct Mail and Its Comparison with Affiliate Marketing (31:41) Optimizing Campaign Costs (41:27) Invitation Codes Explained (50:29) Building Effective Direct Mail Models (01:01:04) Launching a Direct Mail Program (01:12:48) The Role of Letter Shops (01:22:01) Balancing In-House vs. Outsourcing (01:33:08) Evaluating Consultants and Learning Resources