April 29, 2025 • 29 mins
In a world dominated by digital marketing, it's easy to overlook the power of traditional methods. But what if I told you that one of the most effective ways to connect with your audience is sitting right in your mailbox?
Direct mail remains a potent tool for nonprofits to generate brand awareness, target new audiences, and communicate impact. In this episode, I'm joined by Wilson Zehr, a seasoned expert with over two decades of experience in high technology and telecom, to explore the untapped potential of direct mail for nonprofit organizations.
Why Direct Mail Still Matters
Wilson shares compelling reasons why direct mail should be an integral part of your nonprofit's marketing strategy:
- Unparalleled reach: Direct mail can access every household and business in America, six days a week
- Proactive communication: Unlike digital methods, direct mail allows you to initiate conversations when it's most relevant
- Precise audience targeting: Tailor your message to specific demographics with remarkable accuracy
- Built into daily routines: People are accustomed to checking their mail, making it a non-intrusive form of marketing
Creative Approaches to Direct Mail
Gone are the days of boring postcards. Wilson introduces us to various direct mail formats that can help your nonprofit stand out:
- Standard postcards: Cost-effective for simple messages
- Jumbo postcards: More space for impactful visuals and messaging
- Self-mailers: Ideal for conveying more detailed information
- Letters: Perfect for personalized, in-depth communication
- Snap packs: Intriguing format that encourages opens
Key Elements of Effective Direct Mail
Wilson breaks down the formula for direct mail success:
- 70% list selection
- 20% offer
- 10% creative elements
By focusing on these components, you can craft direct mail pieces that resonate with your audience and drive action.
Integrating Direct Mail with Your Overall Strategy
Learn how to seamlessly incorporate direct mail into your nonprofit's marketing mix:
- Complement digital efforts for a holistic approach
- Use direct mail to validate and reinforce online messaging
- Leverage the tangibility of mail pieces for lasting impact
Are you ready to revolutionize your nonprofit's outreach? Tune in to discover how direct mail can become your secret weapon for connecting with donors, sharing your story, and making a lasting impression.
04:09 Why Direct Mail Matters in Fundraising Direct mail offers unique benefits: reaching every household reliably, proactive communication, precise audience targeting, and integration into daily routines. With an average return of $12 for every dollar invested, direct mail remains a valuable part of a holistic marketing strategy for nonprofits.
09:38 Creative Direct Mail Strategies Wilson shares a case study of a successful school bond campaign using targeted direct mail alongside other marketing channels. He emphasizes the importance of tailoring messages to different audience segments and timing mailings strategically to maximize impact and voter engagement.
14:06 Direct Mail Formats and Best Practices Various direct mail exist, including postcards, self-mailers, letters, and snap packs. While there are pros and cons of each format choosing the right option is based on message complexity and audience preferences.
23:02 Crafting Effective Direct Mail Pieces The key to successful direct mail is understanding your audience, crafting a compelling offer, and creating eye-catching visuals. Segmentation, targeting, and aligning messaging with audience values to drive conversions and engagement.
Dr
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (00:00):
Who doesn't love to get mail in their
(00:02):
mailbox that isn't bills? I knowI do. I would love to get mail
that's fun, that's inspiring,that's impactful, and direct
mail is just that. And fornonprofit organizations, it's an
extremely powerful tool to helpyou generate brand awareness, to
target new people, to build newaudiences, to grow your base and
just to communicate the impactthat you're doing, but like
(00:24):
email and other social media andother marketing practices, we
want to make sure that ourdirect mail is not super spammy
and shares our story and doesn'tjust ask for what we need. Yes,
we want that ask to be there,but we want it to be part of a
story and an inspirationalpiece. So today, I've got Wilson
Zehr here today to talk to usabout some direct mail
(00:44):
strategies that we can utilizein our organizations to connect
more with our audience and withour potential donors. Dr. Wilson
Zehr has 20 plus yearsexperience in high technology
and telecom and over a decadeworking with internet related
products and services. Hestarted his career as a software
engineer, then expanded intofull life cycle product
(01:06):
marketing, program management,strategic alliances, executive
leadership, consulting andteaching at the university
level. Over the course of hiscareer, Wilson has created
numerous new products and brandsand successfully brought them to
market. Wilson has establishedand managed strategic alliances
with a number of the world'slargest technology and
communication firms, and he is aserial entrepreneur who has been
part of started or advised morethan a dozen technology
(01:29):
startups. He's also the cofounder and CEO of Zehr mail
sendex and Eastern Oregonventures. We have a great
conversation just around thedifferent types of direct mail
and ways that we can kind ofutilize them in our fundraising,
how we can use them to beimpactful, how we can connect
with donors, how we can makesure that they connect with us,
(01:50):
and that we know when we've sentsomething out that we have
information that we can, youknow, follow up on, that we can
engage with them. So I hope thatyou'll listen to this episode of
direct mail is something thatyou are thinking about
implementing or expanding on foryour organization. And I know we
typically think about directmail at your end, but there's so
many different ways that you canutilize it, and so I'm really
excited for you to maybe getsome exciting strategies in this
(02:13):
episode before we get to it.This episode is brought to you
by do good university. This is aunique membership just for
Nonprofit Professionals anddevelopment leaders to help you
with the resources that you needto take the next step to do the
dang thing and to raise moremoney. I'm so excited to be able
to be allowed inside thisplatform with founder, Patrick
(02:36):
Kirby, we go live every weekwith Q and A's where we answer
your burning questions. Sowhether you have a question
about your event that you've gotcoming up, or a capital campaign
or a marketing strategy, or howto make that ask, we are here to
answer all of them. And even ifyou don't have a question, come
hang out with like mindednonprofit professionals who are
going through the same thing youare that could use support, and
(02:59):
you can learn from them, just bythe questions they ask and the
feedback that they get. So ifyou want a free two week trial,
so you can check out two ofthose free live Q and A's and
see all the on demand coursesthat are available to you inside
the platform. You can do that atthe first click.net/dgu, there,
you'll find a bonus episode Idid with Patrick Kirby talking
about the power of communitywhen it comes to doing our jobs
(03:21):
better. And you'll also find thelink to that two week free trial
again. That'sthefirstclick.net/dgu the letter
U. Hope to see you inside at oneof our live Q A calls soon.
Let's get into the episode.
You're listening to the digitalmarketing therapy podcast. I'm
your host, Sami Bedell Mulhern,each month we dive deep into a
(03:41):
digital marketing or fundraisingstrategy that you can implement
in your organization. Each week,you'll hear from guest experts,
nonprofits and myself on bestpractices, tips and resources to
help you raise more money onlineand reach your organizational
goals.
Hey, friends, please join me inwelcoming Wilson Zehr, to the
podcast. Wilson, thanks forbeing here.
Dr. Wilson Zehr (04:03):
Thanks. Sami, thanks for having me. Appreciate
the opportunity.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (04:09):
So there's a lot of ways that we can
fundraise. Why is direct mailsomething that you are
passionate about and that youthink should be included in a
nonprofit's fundraisingstrategy.
Dr. Wilson Zehr (04:22):
You know, direct mail. Direct mail has a
lot of benefits as a marketingmedium. So, you know,
oftentimes, you know, in thecurrent times, we think about
digital marketing. We thinkabout, you know, SEO, we think
(04:44):
about AdWords. We think about alot of social media, of course,
a lot of tools that can reachout to people quickly and
inexpensively. But there anddirect mail, though, still
serves an important purposebased on. Characteristics of the
medium. There's certain thingsthat direct mail does that no
other medium can do. Inparticular, direct mail can
(05:07):
reach every household andbusiness in America six days a
week, and there's no mediumthick and reliably, no other
medium that could reliably dothat, certainly not, you know,
with the level of reliability.Secondly, it's proactive
communication. You know, if youwere thinking about search
engine marketing or somethinglike that, you have to wait for
(05:29):
people to find you, whereas withdirect mail, if I know who I
want to talk to, I can reach outand connect with them when I
want to have the conversation orwhen I think it's appropriate to
have the conversation. So wehave a special offer. It's the
right time of year, you know,right now we're talking about
income tax season. People aregetting refunds. If I want to
reach out to somebody and andsuggest ways they might want to
(05:53):
use that refund, this is a rightgreat time to get out in front
of them. Thirdly, is this ideaof precise art audience
targeting. You know, if I wantto reach Jewish dentists in New
Jersey that have purchased a carin the last six months, I can do
that with direct mail. Thoselists are very well developed.
If I'm doing that with, youknow, something like AdWords or
(06:14):
some kind of social media toollike Facebook, it becomes very
difficult to target thataudience at that level of
granularity. And then, you know,it's built into the American
psyche. You know, they trytelemarketing these days. You
know, you reach out and you callsomebody, you interrupt them
during their daily routine. Mostpeople, I think, of something
(06:35):
like only 30% of the population,US population, even use the
landline anymore. Everybody'susing their mobile phone. So you
call somebody in their mobilephone and you're trying to
explain to them why they should,you know, vote for candidate X
or candidate y. Office,oftentimes you don't meet with,
you know, very kind response. Imean, it's, it's a tough job
(06:58):
these days. Telesales, yeah. Butwith direct, with mail. I mean,
people are, you know, the PostalService talks about this mail
moment, right? They won'tromanticize it. They say, you
know, people come home and youknow there's, there's light from
the heavens, and you know,angels sing, and then when
people check their mailbox, andall the special stuff, and I'm
(07:20):
not sure to that extent, but,but me, personally, I come home,
I check my mail every day, Ilook through and there's some
things I want, some things Idon't want, and I'm done with
it. I move on to the next thing,some. Sometimes I'll find
something that's noteworthy. Iput it on the fridge to come
back to later, but it's all partof my daily routine. You know, I
don't think anything of it. Idon't think of it as being an
(07:41):
interruption as much mostadvertising is. So that all
works to our advantage. Andthat's why, on average, direct
mail, the Direct MarketingAssociation, tells us to direct
mail returns $12 for everydollar invested. And if you look
across the various range ofadvertising mediums that you
could work that's a very goodresult.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (08:06):
Yeah, well, there's two things. So two
things I want to touch on thatyou just said. The first one is
the beauty of when I seesomething, if it appeals to me,
I can put it on my fridge. And,I mean, I'm a digital marketer,
this is what we do. Like,staying top of mind is really
important, and that's why Ilove, like, this concept of of
direct mail being part of yourholistic marketing experience,
(08:27):
because it can very muchvalidate everything that you're
doing online. But I don't haveto, like, sort through all my
email to try to find that oneemail that I remember that I
want to take a look at. I cansee that direct mail piece that
I set aside, that I didn't throwin the trash because it's
something I wanted to addresslater. So I think that's one
really impactful thing. And thenthe second thing that you said
(08:48):
in that was the ROI piece inthat investing in marketing that
we know is going to bring backrevenue is valuable. I think we
tend to think that social mediais the place that we should go.
But what we know is direct mailhas good ROI, like you just
shared email marketing has goodROI. And so like, paying
(09:08):
attention to the strategies thatare going to bring in the
dollars for the organization issuper important. And and making
direct mail a part of ourholistic marketing strategy is
is really, really strong. Solike, how can we kind of think
about direct mail, maybe outsideof just the postcard? Like, does
direct mail just have to bethose big postcard flyers about,
(09:30):
like, the next all the homesthat are listed in our area for
sale or whatnot? Like, how canwe get creative with direct mail
pieces?
Dr. Wilson Zehr (09:39):
Yeah, that's a that's a good question. I you
know, I want to, I want to touchon answer that specific question
in terms of creative pieces. Butalso want to come back to your
point, this idea of a marketingmix, right? You know? So it's
not just, it's just not all ornothing. It's all direct mail or
all social media or all.Something else. You know, we can
(10:01):
have a mixture, and those toolsare determined by what we're
trying to accomplish. You know,we had a, we worked on a
campaign earlier, you know, lastyear there was a school bond
measure. And the way schoolbonds work, and in Eastern
Oregon, where we did thisprogram, was that it becomes,
(10:21):
you know, property taxfinancing. So you pay an extra,
you know, so many cents per$1,000 of assessed value. And so
what we did with that campaign,as we started out thinking
about, you know, how do wetarget the audience? And so, you
know, the the audience itself.You know, there's some people
that are our homeowners that payproperty taxes and some that are
(10:42):
renters who don't. Some peoplehave kids in school and some
people don't. So we were able topull a list of registered
voters, we were able to breakthat into homeowners versus non
homeowners, and then those withschool aged children and those
who didn't, and then designmessaging for each of those
audiences. And then we were ableto, you know, like with a lot of
(11:04):
cameras, we built a website. Weput video campaigns, you know,
with kids that went to school,or the grandparents, or, you
know, people who who benefitedfrom the old building and would
benefit from the new one. Wewent through the Parent Teachers
Association and social media andinformation in schools. We went
to coffee meetings, but we werealso able to, you know, we did
(11:29):
yard signs and door hangers andstuff. But we also, you know, we
were able to pull a voter file,you know, divide into those
demographics. We were able to doa direct mail postcard right at
the beginning, telling peopleabout the positives and
negatives, you know, based onthe audience, right? If you
have, you know, if you have,you're a homeowner and you're
(11:50):
going to pay more. We want toexplain why that's a good deal.
If you're a homeowner and youdon't have kids in school. We
have to explain why that's acommunity benefit and why it
makes the community a betterplace to live. If you're not a
homeowner, we can tell you aboutthe benefits that you're going
to receive, and it's not goingto cost you anything extra, but
(12:10):
we can do a campaign right upfront in Oregon. By the way,
this was in Eastern Oregon andOregon. Everything's vote by
mail. It's been, has been thatway for 25 or 30 years, so we
know when, when, you know we canwe go out with a piece that
right away. We know when peopleare getting the voter pamphlet
in the mail. We hit them with apiece. Then we know when the
(12:31):
ballots are due. Because somepeople just, you know they get
that, you know, they get theballot in the mail. They vote
right away. And so we want, wewant to be there right in front
of them before they cast aballot, and then we know when
the deadline is, so we're goingto hit them again before the
deadline. So all of those thingstaken together allowed us to
(12:52):
get, you know, pass the bondwith an overwhelming majority.
And in previous years they, youknow, they just eked out a win,
and we got a very substantialresults based on all of those
mediums working together to getus to the right result. So I
think as marketers, I mean, itbehooves us to know what each of
(13:13):
these tools do and where we canuse, you know, understand, you
know, we talk about the customerjourney these days, where in the
journey it makes sense and whatkind of behavior we're trying to
motivate, and if we can do that,then we can generate very
positive results. But back toyou, back to your question about
formats. Well, I should pausefor a second see if you want to
(13:35):
add something there.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (13:36):
Now, I just wanted to say that that was such
a great example of right messageat the right time, which is what
the marketing Mo is right like,we want to send the right
message at the right time to theright customer to make the right
decision. And that was such abeautiful example of how to do
that in a campaign. So I just,that's all I wanted to add. I
(13:57):
think that was, that was abrilliant example in kind of how
that works, but yes, so carry onwith creative pieces.
Dr. Wilson Zehr (14:07):
No, thank you. I appreciate that. I mean, I
mean, you know, the the the ideaof a buyer's journey is one
that's, as you know, is reallyimportant in marketing, and so
we, we use the right tools atthe right place to motivate the
kind of behavior we're hopingfor in terms of formats, there
are lots of different formats wecan use for direct mail.
Postcard tends to be, I actuallyhave a visual I get, I can
(14:30):
share, I'll share with you afterthe session. But postcards tend
to be very popular these daysbecause they're they're
inexpensive. First of all,they're the least expensive
thing you can do in the mail.But they're also relatively
easy. You don't need a lot oftechnical skills in order to
execute a post a card, and it'san immediate impression in the
(14:53):
mail. So as long as you have ashort message that's easy to
grasp, that you can convey inone graphic. Or a limited number
of words, it tends to be verygood. On the other hand, if you
have a more complex message, oryou have something that's more
personal, the contents morepersonal, like take, for
example, of mortgage marketing,you know, you're trying to get
(15:14):
somebody to do a cash out refi,and in order to do that work, we
might lean on credit score data.So we've got, you know, we've
got the value of somebody'shome. We know what payments are
making today. We know what whatdeals we can offer them, and so
we can recalculate theirpayments and show them what
they're going to what their APRlooks like over the next 30
(15:34):
years. But that's all personalinformation. We wouldn't want to
expose that on a postcard,necessarily, and there's lots
more information than we'dprobably put on a postcard. So
in that case, we're taughtworking towards a, you know, a
letter or snap pack. Honestly,in this graphic, I talk about,
we talk about four formats weyou know, and there are many
(15:57):
more, but the four we see mostoften is a postcard, a self
mailer, a letter, or what we'recalling a snap back, a snap
pack. The technical term forthat is a pressure sealed
mailer. And basically, apressure sealed mailer is what
you would get, you know, whenyou the bank sends you a pin
number in the mail, or you get arebate. You know, you tear off
(16:19):
the edges and you open it up,and the information's inside. So
if you're looking for animmediate impression or the
least expensive option, usuallythat's a postcard. And with
postcards, we then we opens upthe discussion of a whether you
want a standard postcard or ajumbo postcard. These days,
(16:40):
jumbo postcards are a betterdeal, and that from a marketing
standpoint, I can explain why.But then, if you start talk as
self mailer is, of course, asheet of paper that's folded and
tabbed and it gives you moreinformation inside, but it's
still, you know, people couldhold it and they see in it, so,
you know, gives you more space,but it's still not completely
(17:01):
personal. A letter as of course,completely personal, a letter or
snap pack. The problem, thechallenge with a letter is, as
soon as you put a letter in anenvelope and send it to
somebody, then you have to getan open before you can get an
impression. And so the trick is,how do I make it interesting
enough to get an open? Do I do ateaser on the outside? Do I use
(17:23):
a personal stamp and ahandwritten font? Is it just or
do I make it look like a bill?You know, everybody's gonna open
a bill, and then, you know, thesnap pack is somewhere in
between, because peopleassociate it with a rebate or
PIN or something like that, theyusually get opened. But,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (17:41):
well, I can't, I mean, I struggle to
kind of think of how a nonprofitwould use that, because that
feels a little bit like, almost,kind of like, click baby on the
on the nonprofit side. But I, Ithink, like the postcards,
obviously the letters are reallypopular year end campaigns, tax
(18:03):
receipts, things like that. Butif we're thinking about like,
let's just, let's just focus on,like, the standard postcard,
because I think that's what alot of people are doing. Like,
what are things that you findpeople most commonly leave off
of those pieces that hurts theirability for conversion. Like,
what are we not putting inthere? That it's important?
(18:25):
Because I think we tend tostruggle with self editing. We
want to, just like, word vomit,everything that we're doing. And
so when we think about thesedirect mail pieces, these
postcards, like, what are thecritical things that we want to
make sure we include so that wecan get people to that next
step, to take that conversion.That's good
Dr. Wilson Zehr (18:43):
point. Yeah, we do have, I mean, back to your
point. We do have a number ofcustomers that use all of these
pieces in the nonprofit space.We've got a fire department in
the East Coast that doesfundraising every quarter, and
depending on our audience,they'll use a snap pack or a
postcard or a letter, dependingon what response best and what
audience they're trying toreach. You know, for a business
(19:05):
user, they're almost alwayshitting them with a letter, you
know, a business customer,whereas a consumer, the the, you
know, the postcards are morepopular, and somebody who's
donated year after year afteryear, they just hit them with a
snapdoc. So, I mean, it's, it's,it's kind of a mix, and, like a
lot of other marketing, the onlyway to really know is to test,
(19:26):
you know, try some some samples,and see what, what resonates
with your audience. But ifyou're going back to a postcard,
I mean, with the postcard today,you know, we are actually the
most common for us is threesizes. We do a standard
postcard, jumbo postcard, andwhat we're calling a sumo
postcard. Sumo postcards alittle bigger, a little longer,
(19:49):
we don't see them that often,the postage a little more
expensive. With a standardpostcard that does can usually
be there. Four and a quarter byfive and a half or or four by
six. And the other decision tomake with a postcard is whether
they're black and white, bothsides, black and white one side,
(20:12):
or color both sides. The limitthat is, you know, black and
white postcard is kind of theleast expensive thing you can
put in the mail. So if you'vegot a something like a reminder,
you know, just this is, youknow, you've got an appointment,
a dentist appointment in threedays, that's the right piece to
(20:33):
use, you know, to minimize yourexpense. But if you really want
to jump out and get people'sattention, then color book has a
role, important role to play inthat usually the standard the
jumbo postcard, is a step up.It's a little bigger. That's
that would be the limitation tothe standard postcard is that
the address takes up most of theaddress side, so you can put a
(20:55):
little bit of additionalverbiage or art, but there's not
that much room for it. On theback side, there's room for some
message and a picture you see,but it's limited. With the jumbo
postcard, which can be eitherfive and a half by eight and a
half or six by nine, we're goingto get more space to work with.
And because it's like a littlebillboard in the mail, you know
(21:18):
this the bigger image or thebigger message is really going
to pop a lot better with that.Said, you know that a lot of
times it's not, we don't see theincrease in return. Well, let me
add one more tidbit. So it usedto be that a jumbo postcard
mailed at the same rate as for afirst class letter. So postcards
(21:40):
always had have had a discountrate. So that's why the black
and white postcard is the mosteffective. The Postal Service in
recent years has been increasingrates at about twice a year, and
so I think two increases ago,one of the concessions they made
to the industry is they allowedpostcard rates to apply to the
(22:01):
jumbo postcard is what wells thestandard postcard. So that made
that they the jumbo postcardmore expensive, just slightly
more expensive than a standardpostcard. And I have a lot more
real estate to work with, bothon the address side and on the
on the image side or the messageside. And what we found is that
(22:23):
we could do color both sides,and we have lots of customers to
do, but the sweet spot tends tobe color one side on color on
the image side with a message,but black and white on the
address side allows us to getreally pop in the mail, but
still minimize our expense. Sowe sell more four over one jumbo
postcards than anything else youknow, in first class mail, and
(22:47):
it tends to be a very effectivetool, as long as our message is
crisp. Once again, it's a it's abillboard. So you're going to
get that immediate impression,but in that 30 seconds or
whatever, when you're trying tomake that right impression, it's
really going to pop.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (23:02):
Yeah, so what are you including on that
in order to make sure that itdoes encourage people to take
that next step? Because it'seasy to put it on the fridge and
be like, Yeah, I'll deal withthat later. But like, how do we
make it easy for people to takethat next step when they get the
piece of the mail right?
Dr. Wilson Zehr (23:22):
So that's the, that's the, you know, that's the
big question, is the importantquestion, and it really depends
on the audience. So let me, letme share a model first. I mean,
when we think about theeffectiveness of direct mail, we
tend to divide it into threecomponents. We know, one being
the audience, the second beingthe offer, and the third being
(23:47):
the advertising, or, you know,the creative or the artwork,
what we find is that if we putthe right offer in front of the
right people, good thingshappen. And so when we think
about that formula, it's about70% list, 20% offer, and
whatever's left is creative. Sothe first, the first, the first
(24:08):
challenge is to make sure we'retalking the right person, and
that's why, when the example Iused earlier, it was important
that we, first of all, wetargeted the voter file just
people are going to vote, andthen we broke them out based on,
you know, what message wouldappeal to them. So the same
thing applies here. You know,we're going to need to
understand who our audience is,what kind of audience of offer
(24:32):
is going to get them to react,and then find a graphic that
pops that communicates that veryquickly. So I we have a customer
who's selling insuranceproducts, you know. So when
you're out of work, it'll helpcompensate you. And what they do
is they show a graphic, a bargraph. They say, this is your
(24:53):
you know, this is what you maketoday. This is what it looked
like when you're out of work.This is what you look like with
insurance, you know. And it'svery. Very compelling for that
particular audience. Sometimesit's something that's thought
provoking, you know, you knowyour eco trust, and you show a
pile of trash, you know, andanimals trying to struggling to
(25:17):
survive in that environment,it's like, Oh, my God, you know.
So, so is what is going to whatis going to evoke the right kind
of reaction from your audience,what's going to get their
attention, and what's going tomotivate the kind of behavior
you want. And that's reallygoing to be different depending
on who we're trying to target,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (25:38):
but that's what that's I mean, I love this.
Oh, go ahead, sorry. I thinkoverall, as we kind of wrap this
up, I think the thing that Ilove that you're saying is it's
very similar to how you wouldcraft your email marketing
strategy. It's about segments,it's about targeting, it's about
right message for those people,and it's about creating imagery
(26:00):
and messaging that's going toconnect with them based off of
their values, because you'vetaken the time to segment that
group so you can have specificmessaging for those people, and
that's what's going to help youwith those conversions. So if
you were going to kind of leaveeverybody with maybe one last
tip for direct mail and why it'sa powerful tool in their
(26:22):
toolbox. What would you say?
Dr. Wilson Zehr (26:25):
Well, I think they, you know, well, that's a
hard one, because there's somuch, but this idea of
understanding segmenting andunderstanding your audience and
what's going to motivate thekind of behavior you want, and
as you pointed out earlier,looking at, you know, coming
back to this buyers journey, andwhere are you in that journey,
(26:48):
and what does it take to moveyour customer to the next step?
I think those are reallyimportant things. And as
marketers, I mean, that's that'san important part of our job, is
understanding the customer andwhat motivates them, and what
kinds of creative things we cando to motivate behavior. And
(27:08):
direct mail is no different. Andemail marketing, as you point
out, any of those mediums weuse, that process from a
marketing standpoint, looks verysimilar. But how do we execute
that within the context of adirect mail campaign. And I
think, I really think that, youknow, once, once you have your
handles around, that tools liketheir mail that we offer to
(27:29):
allow you to deliver direct mailfaster, easier, less expensive,
become very compelling. Youknow, because we can help you,
you can literally be insomebody's mailbox. You know, if
you thought about a messagetoday, you could be admit
somebody's mailbox tomorrow thenext day at a very affordable
price. So that's yeah, directmail. That's the other thing is,
a lot of people don't know howto get started, and with a tool
(27:53):
like Xero mail, what makes itreally easy? And if you have any
challenges, you just call us. Sowe tell you how what it takes
and what to do.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (28:01):
I love that. Well, we'll link that
resource up in the show notes atthefirstclick.net/299, but
Wilson, if people want toconnect with you more, learn
more about how you supportorganizations in direct mail.
How do they do that?
Dr. Wilson Zehr (28:17):
Well, they can reach out to me directly.
Wilson@zairmail.com that's likeair mail with a Z on the front.
So Z, a, I R, M, a, I l.com, orthey can call us toll free,
888980066, or the website workstoo, www.zairmail.com.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (28:38):
I love that. Well. Thank you so much
for being here and sharing yourwisdom. I know there's so much
more that we could talk aboutwith about with direct mail, so
we'll have to have you back. Butthanks for kind of giving people
this introduction, this, likebig overview on how this can be
helpful for their organizations.
Dr. Wilson Zehr (28:52):
Yeah, I'm not happy to do it once again. Thank
you for the opportunity. We'rehappy to talk with anybody who's
interested. We spent a lot oftime dealing with this medium
and trying to help people besuccessful.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (29:03):
So big. Thank you to Wilson for joining
me today. I hope that you gotsome great ideas for ways that
you can implement direct, directmail into your marketing
strategy. Again, you can findthe show notes, the resources
and all of the information thathe shared at
thefirstclick.net/299, I hopethat you'll subscribe wherever
(29:23):
you listen, leave us a review,if it feels great, and comment
below if you're watching this onYouTube, I'd love to hear what
it was that you loved most aboutthis episode, or any other
topics that you think might behelpful for us to cover, or
guests even that you think wouldbe great for other people to
learn from. Thank you so muchfor listening and taking time
(29:43):
with me each and every Tuesdayand for now, I'll see you in the
next one.
Who doesn't love to get mail in their
(00:02):
mailbox that isn't bills? I knowI do. I would love to get mail
that's fun, that's inspiring,that's impactful, and direct
mail is just that. And fornonprofit organizations, it's an
extremely powerful tool to helpyou generate brand awareness, to
target new people, to build newaudiences, to grow your base and
just to communicate the impactthat you're doing, but like
(00:24):
email and other social media andother marketing practices, we
want to make sure that ourdirect mail is not super spammy
and shares our story and doesn'tjust ask for what we need. Yes,
we want that ask to be there,but we want it to be part of a
story and an inspirationalpiece. So today, I've got Wilson
Zehr here today to talk to usabout some direct mail
(00:44):
strategies that we can utilizein our organizations to connect
more with our audience and withour potential donors. Dr. Wilson
Zehr has 20 plus yearsexperience in high technology
and telecom and over a decadeworking with internet related
products and services. Hestarted his career as a software
engineer, then expanded intofull life cycle product
(01:06):
marketing, program management,strategic alliances, executive
leadership, consulting andteaching at the university
level. Over the course of hiscareer, Wilson has created
numerous new products and brandsand successfully brought them to
market. Wilson has establishedand managed strategic alliances
with a number of the world'slargest technology and
communication firms, and he is aserial entrepreneur who has been
part of started or advised morethan a dozen technology
(01:29):
startups. He's also the cofounder and CEO of Zehr mail
sendex and Eastern Oregonventures. We have a great
conversation just around thedifferent types of direct mail
and ways that we can kind ofutilize them in our fundraising,
how we can use them to beimpactful, how we can connect
with donors, how we can makesure that they connect with us,
(01:50):
and that we know when we've sentsomething out that we have
information that we can, youknow, follow up on, that we can
engage with them. So I hope thatyou'll listen to this episode of
direct mail is something thatyou are thinking about
implementing or expanding on foryour organization. And I know we
typically think about directmail at your end, but there's so
many different ways that you canutilize it, and so I'm really
excited for you to maybe getsome exciting strategies in this
(02:13):
episode before we get to it.This episode is brought to you
by do good university. This is aunique membership just for
Nonprofit Professionals anddevelopment leaders to help you
with the resources that you needto take the next step to do the
dang thing and to raise moremoney. I'm so excited to be able
to be allowed inside thisplatform with founder, Patrick
(02:36):
Kirby, we go live every weekwith Q and A's where we answer
your burning questions. Sowhether you have a question
about your event that you've gotcoming up, or a capital campaign
or a marketing strategy, or howto make that ask, we are here to
answer all of them. And even ifyou don't have a question, come
hang out with like mindednonprofit professionals who are
going through the same thing youare that could use support, and
(02:59):
you can learn from them, just bythe questions they ask and the
feedback that they get. So ifyou want a free two week trial,
so you can check out two ofthose free live Q and A's and
see all the on demand coursesthat are available to you inside
the platform. You can do that atthe first click.net/dgu, there,
you'll find a bonus episode Idid with Patrick Kirby talking
about the power of communitywhen it comes to doing our jobs
(03:21):
better. And you'll also find thelink to that two week free trial
again. That'sthefirstclick.net/dgu the letter
U. Hope to see you inside at oneof our live Q A calls soon.
Let's get into the episode.
You're listening to the digitalmarketing therapy podcast. I'm
your host, Sami Bedell Mulhern,each month we dive deep into a
(03:41):
digital marketing or fundraisingstrategy that you can implement
in your organization. Each week,you'll hear from guest experts,
nonprofits and myself on bestpractices, tips and resources to
help you raise more money onlineand reach your organizational
goals.
Hey, friends, please join me inwelcoming Wilson Zehr, to the
podcast. Wilson, thanks forbeing here.
Dr. Wilson Zehr (04:03):
Thanks. Sami, thanks for having me. Appreciate
the opportunity.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (04:09):
So there's a lot of ways that we can
fundraise. Why is direct mailsomething that you are
passionate about and that youthink should be included in a
nonprofit's fundraisingstrategy.
Dr. Wilson Zehr (04:22):
You know, direct mail. Direct mail has a
lot of benefits as a marketingmedium. So, you know,
oftentimes, you know, in thecurrent times, we think about
digital marketing. We thinkabout, you know, SEO, we think
(04:44):
about AdWords. We think about alot of social media, of course,
a lot of tools that can reachout to people quickly and
inexpensively. But there anddirect mail, though, still
serves an important purposebased on. Characteristics of the
medium. There's certain thingsthat direct mail does that no
other medium can do. Inparticular, direct mail can
(05:07):
reach every household andbusiness in America six days a
week, and there's no mediumthick and reliably, no other
medium that could reliably dothat, certainly not, you know,
with the level of reliability.Secondly, it's proactive
communication. You know, if youwere thinking about search
engine marketing or somethinglike that, you have to wait for
(05:29):
people to find you, whereas withdirect mail, if I know who I
want to talk to, I can reach outand connect with them when I
want to have the conversation orwhen I think it's appropriate to
have the conversation. So wehave a special offer. It's the
right time of year, you know,right now we're talking about
income tax season. People aregetting refunds. If I want to
reach out to somebody and andsuggest ways they might want to
(05:53):
use that refund, this is a rightgreat time to get out in front
of them. Thirdly, is this ideaof precise art audience
targeting. You know, if I wantto reach Jewish dentists in New
Jersey that have purchased a carin the last six months, I can do
that with direct mail. Thoselists are very well developed.
If I'm doing that with, youknow, something like AdWords or
(06:14):
some kind of social media toollike Facebook, it becomes very
difficult to target thataudience at that level of
granularity. And then, you know,it's built into the American
psyche. You know, they trytelemarketing these days. You
know, you reach out and you callsomebody, you interrupt them
during their daily routine. Mostpeople, I think, of something
(06:35):
like only 30% of the population,US population, even use the
landline anymore. Everybody'susing their mobile phone. So you
call somebody in their mobilephone and you're trying to
explain to them why they should,you know, vote for candidate X
or candidate y. Office,oftentimes you don't meet with,
you know, very kind response. Imean, it's, it's a tough job
(06:58):
these days. Telesales, yeah. Butwith direct, with mail. I mean,
people are, you know, the PostalService talks about this mail
moment, right? They won'tromanticize it. They say, you
know, people come home and youknow there's, there's light from
the heavens, and you know,angels sing, and then when
people check their mailbox, andall the special stuff, and I'm
(07:20):
not sure to that extent, but,but me, personally, I come home,
I check my mail every day, Ilook through and there's some
things I want, some things Idon't want, and I'm done with
it. I move on to the next thing,some. Sometimes I'll find
something that's noteworthy. Iput it on the fridge to come
back to later, but it's all partof my daily routine. You know, I
don't think anything of it. Idon't think of it as being an
(07:41):
interruption as much mostadvertising is. So that all
works to our advantage. Andthat's why, on average, direct
mail, the Direct MarketingAssociation, tells us to direct
mail returns $12 for everydollar invested. And if you look
across the various range ofadvertising mediums that you
could work that's a very goodresult.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (08:06):
Yeah, well, there's two things. So two
things I want to touch on thatyou just said. The first one is
the beauty of when I seesomething, if it appeals to me,
I can put it on my fridge. And,I mean, I'm a digital marketer,
this is what we do. Like,staying top of mind is really
important, and that's why Ilove, like, this concept of of
direct mail being part of yourholistic marketing experience,
(08:27):
because it can very muchvalidate everything that you're
doing online. But I don't haveto, like, sort through all my
email to try to find that oneemail that I remember that I
want to take a look at. I cansee that direct mail piece that
I set aside, that I didn't throwin the trash because it's
something I wanted to addresslater. So I think that's one
really impactful thing. And thenthe second thing that you said
(08:48):
in that was the ROI piece inthat investing in marketing that
we know is going to bring backrevenue is valuable. I think we
tend to think that social mediais the place that we should go.
But what we know is direct mailhas good ROI, like you just
shared email marketing has goodROI. And so like, paying
(09:08):
attention to the strategies thatare going to bring in the
dollars for the organization issuper important. And and making
direct mail a part of ourholistic marketing strategy is
is really, really strong. Solike, how can we kind of think
about direct mail, maybe outsideof just the postcard? Like, does
direct mail just have to bethose big postcard flyers about,
(09:30):
like, the next all the homesthat are listed in our area for
sale or whatnot? Like, how canwe get creative with direct mail
pieces?
Dr. Wilson Zehr (09:39):
Yeah, that's a that's a good question. I you
know, I want to, I want to touchon answer that specific question
in terms of creative pieces. Butalso want to come back to your
point, this idea of a marketingmix, right? You know? So it's
not just, it's just not all ornothing. It's all direct mail or
all social media or all.Something else. You know, we can
(10:01):
have a mixture, and those toolsare determined by what we're
trying to accomplish. You know,we had a, we worked on a
campaign earlier, you know, lastyear there was a school bond
measure. And the way schoolbonds work, and in Eastern
Oregon, where we did thisprogram, was that it becomes,
(10:21):
you know, property taxfinancing. So you pay an extra,
you know, so many cents per$1,000 of assessed value. And so
what we did with that campaign,as we started out thinking
about, you know, how do wetarget the audience? And so, you
know, the the audience itself.You know, there's some people
that are our homeowners that payproperty taxes and some that are
(10:42):
renters who don't. Some peoplehave kids in school and some
people don't. So we were able topull a list of registered
voters, we were able to breakthat into homeowners versus non
homeowners, and then those withschool aged children and those
who didn't, and then designmessaging for each of those
audiences. And then we were ableto, you know, like with a lot of
(11:04):
cameras, we built a website. Weput video campaigns, you know,
with kids that went to school,or the grandparents, or, you
know, people who who benefitedfrom the old building and would
benefit from the new one. Wewent through the Parent Teachers
Association and social media andinformation in schools. We went
to coffee meetings, but we werealso able to, you know, we did
(11:29):
yard signs and door hangers andstuff. But we also, you know, we
were able to pull a voter file,you know, divide into those
demographics. We were able to doa direct mail postcard right at
the beginning, telling peopleabout the positives and
negatives, you know, based onthe audience, right? If you
have, you know, if you have,you're a homeowner and you're
(11:50):
going to pay more. We want toexplain why that's a good deal.
If you're a homeowner and youdon't have kids in school. We
have to explain why that's acommunity benefit and why it
makes the community a betterplace to live. If you're not a
homeowner, we can tell you aboutthe benefits that you're going
to receive, and it's not goingto cost you anything extra, but
(12:10):
we can do a campaign right upfront in Oregon. By the way,
this was in Eastern Oregon andOregon. Everything's vote by
mail. It's been, has been thatway for 25 or 30 years, so we
know when, when, you know we canwe go out with a piece that
right away. We know when peopleare getting the voter pamphlet
in the mail. We hit them with apiece. Then we know when the
(12:31):
ballots are due. Because somepeople just, you know they get
that, you know, they get theballot in the mail. They vote
right away. And so we want, wewant to be there right in front
of them before they cast aballot, and then we know when
the deadline is, so we're goingto hit them again before the
deadline. So all of those thingstaken together allowed us to
(12:52):
get, you know, pass the bondwith an overwhelming majority.
And in previous years they, youknow, they just eked out a win,
and we got a very substantialresults based on all of those
mediums working together to getus to the right result. So I
think as marketers, I mean, itbehooves us to know what each of
(13:13):
these tools do and where we canuse, you know, understand, you
know, we talk about the customerjourney these days, where in the
journey it makes sense and whatkind of behavior we're trying to
motivate, and if we can do that,then we can generate very
positive results. But back toyou, back to your question about
formats. Well, I should pausefor a second see if you want to
(13:35):
add something there.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (13:36):
Now, I just wanted to say that that was such
a great example of right messageat the right time, which is what
the marketing Mo is right like,we want to send the right
message at the right time to theright customer to make the right
decision. And that was such abeautiful example of how to do
that in a campaign. So I just,that's all I wanted to add. I
(13:57):
think that was, that was abrilliant example in kind of how
that works, but yes, so carry onwith creative pieces.
Dr. Wilson Zehr (14:07):
No, thank you. I appreciate that. I mean, I
mean, you know, the the the ideaof a buyer's journey is one
that's, as you know, is reallyimportant in marketing, and so
we, we use the right tools atthe right place to motivate the
kind of behavior we're hopingfor in terms of formats, there
are lots of different formats wecan use for direct mail.
Postcard tends to be, I actuallyhave a visual I get, I can
(14:30):
share, I'll share with you afterthe session. But postcards tend
to be very popular these daysbecause they're they're
inexpensive. First of all,they're the least expensive
thing you can do in the mail.But they're also relatively
easy. You don't need a lot oftechnical skills in order to
execute a post a card, and it'san immediate impression in the
(14:53):
mail. So as long as you have ashort message that's easy to
grasp, that you can convey inone graphic. Or a limited number
of words, it tends to be verygood. On the other hand, if you
have a more complex message, oryou have something that's more
personal, the contents morepersonal, like take, for
example, of mortgage marketing,you know, you're trying to get
(15:14):
somebody to do a cash out refi,and in order to do that work, we
might lean on credit score data.So we've got, you know, we've
got the value of somebody'shome. We know what payments are
making today. We know what whatdeals we can offer them, and so
we can recalculate theirpayments and show them what
they're going to what their APRlooks like over the next 30
(15:34):
years. But that's all personalinformation. We wouldn't want to
expose that on a postcard,necessarily, and there's lots
more information than we'dprobably put on a postcard. So
in that case, we're taughtworking towards a, you know, a
letter or snap pack. Honestly,in this graphic, I talk about,
we talk about four formats weyou know, and there are many
(15:57):
more, but the four we see mostoften is a postcard, a self
mailer, a letter, or what we'recalling a snap back, a snap
pack. The technical term forthat is a pressure sealed
mailer. And basically, apressure sealed mailer is what
you would get, you know, whenyou the bank sends you a pin
number in the mail, or you get arebate. You know, you tear off
(16:19):
the edges and you open it up,and the information's inside. So
if you're looking for animmediate impression or the
least expensive option, usuallythat's a postcard. And with
postcards, we then we opens upthe discussion of a whether you
want a standard postcard or ajumbo postcard. These days,
(16:40):
jumbo postcards are a betterdeal, and that from a marketing
standpoint, I can explain why.But then, if you start talk as
self mailer is, of course, asheet of paper that's folded and
tabbed and it gives you moreinformation inside, but it's
still, you know, people couldhold it and they see in it, so,
you know, gives you more space,but it's still not completely
(17:01):
personal. A letter as of course,completely personal, a letter or
snap pack. The problem, thechallenge with a letter is, as
soon as you put a letter in anenvelope and send it to
somebody, then you have to getan open before you can get an
impression. And so the trick is,how do I make it interesting
enough to get an open? Do I do ateaser on the outside? Do I use
(17:23):
a personal stamp and ahandwritten font? Is it just or
do I make it look like a bill?You know, everybody's gonna open
a bill, and then, you know, thesnap pack is somewhere in
between, because peopleassociate it with a rebate or
PIN or something like that, theyusually get opened. But,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (17:41):
well, I can't, I mean, I struggle to
kind of think of how a nonprofitwould use that, because that
feels a little bit like, almost,kind of like, click baby on the
on the nonprofit side. But I, Ithink, like the postcards,
obviously the letters are reallypopular year end campaigns, tax
(18:03):
receipts, things like that. Butif we're thinking about like,
let's just, let's just focus on,like, the standard postcard,
because I think that's what alot of people are doing. Like,
what are things that you findpeople most commonly leave off
of those pieces that hurts theirability for conversion. Like,
what are we not putting inthere? That it's important?
(18:25):
Because I think we tend tostruggle with self editing. We
want to, just like, word vomit,everything that we're doing. And
so when we think about thesedirect mail pieces, these
postcards, like, what are thecritical things that we want to
make sure we include so that wecan get people to that next
step, to take that conversion.That's good
Dr. Wilson Zehr (18:43):
point. Yeah, we do have, I mean, back to your
point. We do have a number ofcustomers that use all of these
pieces in the nonprofit space.We've got a fire department in
the East Coast that doesfundraising every quarter, and
depending on our audience,they'll use a snap pack or a
postcard or a letter, dependingon what response best and what
audience they're trying toreach. You know, for a business
(19:05):
user, they're almost alwayshitting them with a letter, you
know, a business customer,whereas a consumer, the the, you
know, the postcards are morepopular, and somebody who's
donated year after year afteryear, they just hit them with a
snapdoc. So, I mean, it's, it's,it's kind of a mix, and, like a
lot of other marketing, the onlyway to really know is to test,
(19:26):
you know, try some some samples,and see what, what resonates
with your audience. But ifyou're going back to a postcard,
I mean, with the postcard today,you know, we are actually the
most common for us is threesizes. We do a standard
postcard, jumbo postcard, andwhat we're calling a sumo
postcard. Sumo postcards alittle bigger, a little longer,
(19:49):
we don't see them that often,the postage a little more
expensive. With a standardpostcard that does can usually
be there. Four and a quarter byfive and a half or or four by
six. And the other decision tomake with a postcard is whether
they're black and white, bothsides, black and white one side,
(20:12):
or color both sides. The limitthat is, you know, black and
white postcard is kind of theleast expensive thing you can
put in the mail. So if you'vegot a something like a reminder,
you know, just this is, youknow, you've got an appointment,
a dentist appointment in threedays, that's the right piece to
(20:33):
use, you know, to minimize yourexpense. But if you really want
to jump out and get people'sattention, then color book has a
role, important role to play inthat usually the standard the
jumbo postcard, is a step up.It's a little bigger. That's
that would be the limitation tothe standard postcard is that
the address takes up most of theaddress side, so you can put a
(20:55):
little bit of additionalverbiage or art, but there's not
that much room for it. On theback side, there's room for some
message and a picture you see,but it's limited. With the jumbo
postcard, which can be eitherfive and a half by eight and a
half or six by nine, we're goingto get more space to work with.
And because it's like a littlebillboard in the mail, you know
(21:18):
this the bigger image or thebigger message is really going
to pop a lot better with that.Said, you know that a lot of
times it's not, we don't see theincrease in return. Well, let me
add one more tidbit. So it usedto be that a jumbo postcard
mailed at the same rate as for afirst class letter. So postcards
(21:40):
always had have had a discountrate. So that's why the black
and white postcard is the mosteffective. The Postal Service in
recent years has been increasingrates at about twice a year, and
so I think two increases ago,one of the concessions they made
to the industry is they allowedpostcard rates to apply to the
(22:01):
jumbo postcard is what wells thestandard postcard. So that made
that they the jumbo postcardmore expensive, just slightly
more expensive than a standardpostcard. And I have a lot more
real estate to work with, bothon the address side and on the
on the image side or the messageside. And what we found is that
(22:23):
we could do color both sides,and we have lots of customers to
do, but the sweet spot tends tobe color one side on color on
the image side with a message,but black and white on the
address side allows us to getreally pop in the mail, but
still minimize our expense. Sowe sell more four over one jumbo
postcards than anything else youknow, in first class mail, and
(22:47):
it tends to be a very effectivetool, as long as our message is
crisp. Once again, it's a it's abillboard. So you're going to
get that immediate impression,but in that 30 seconds or
whatever, when you're trying tomake that right impression, it's
really going to pop.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (23:02):
Yeah, so what are you including on that
in order to make sure that itdoes encourage people to take
that next step? Because it'seasy to put it on the fridge and
be like, Yeah, I'll deal withthat later. But like, how do we
make it easy for people to takethat next step when they get the
piece of the mail right?
Dr. Wilson Zehr (23:22):
So that's the, that's the, you know, that's the
big question, is the importantquestion, and it really depends
on the audience. So let me, letme share a model first. I mean,
when we think about theeffectiveness of direct mail, we
tend to divide it into threecomponents. We know, one being
the audience, the second beingthe offer, and the third being
(23:47):
the advertising, or, you know,the creative or the artwork,
what we find is that if we putthe right offer in front of the
right people, good thingshappen. And so when we think
about that formula, it's about70% list, 20% offer, and
whatever's left is creative. Sothe first, the first, the first
(24:08):
challenge is to make sure we'retalking the right person, and
that's why, when the example Iused earlier, it was important
that we, first of all, wetargeted the voter file just
people are going to vote, andthen we broke them out based on,
you know, what message wouldappeal to them. So the same
thing applies here. You know,we're going to need to
understand who our audience is,what kind of audience of offer
(24:32):
is going to get them to react,and then find a graphic that
pops that communicates that veryquickly. So I we have a customer
who's selling insuranceproducts, you know. So when
you're out of work, it'll helpcompensate you. And what they do
is they show a graphic, a bargraph. They say, this is your
(24:53):
you know, this is what you maketoday. This is what it looked
like when you're out of work.This is what you look like with
insurance, you know. And it'svery. Very compelling for that
particular audience. Sometimesit's something that's thought
provoking, you know, you knowyour eco trust, and you show a
pile of trash, you know, andanimals trying to struggling to
(25:17):
survive in that environment,it's like, Oh, my God, you know.
So, so is what is going to whatis going to evoke the right kind
of reaction from your audience,what's going to get their
attention, and what's going tomotivate the kind of behavior
you want. And that's reallygoing to be different depending
on who we're trying to target,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (25:38):
but that's what that's I mean, I love this.
Oh, go ahead, sorry. I thinkoverall, as we kind of wrap this
up, I think the thing that Ilove that you're saying is it's
very similar to how you wouldcraft your email marketing
strategy. It's about segments,it's about targeting, it's about
right message for those people,and it's about creating imagery
(26:00):
and messaging that's going toconnect with them based off of
their values, because you'vetaken the time to segment that
group so you can have specificmessaging for those people, and
that's what's going to help youwith those conversions. So if
you were going to kind of leaveeverybody with maybe one last
tip for direct mail and why it'sa powerful tool in their
(26:22):
toolbox. What would you say?
Dr. Wilson Zehr (26:25):
Well, I think they, you know, well, that's a
hard one, because there's somuch, but this idea of
understanding segmenting andunderstanding your audience and
what's going to motivate thekind of behavior you want, and
as you pointed out earlier,looking at, you know, coming
back to this buyers journey, andwhere are you in that journey,
(26:48):
and what does it take to moveyour customer to the next step?
I think those are reallyimportant things. And as
marketers, I mean, that's that'san important part of our job, is
understanding the customer andwhat motivates them, and what
kinds of creative things we cando to motivate behavior. And
(27:08):
direct mail is no different. Andemail marketing, as you point
out, any of those mediums weuse, that process from a
marketing standpoint, looks verysimilar. But how do we execute
that within the context of adirect mail campaign. And I
think, I really think that, youknow, once, once you have your
handles around, that tools liketheir mail that we offer to
(27:29):
allow you to deliver direct mailfaster, easier, less expensive,
become very compelling. Youknow, because we can help you,
you can literally be insomebody's mailbox. You know, if
you thought about a messagetoday, you could be admit
somebody's mailbox tomorrow thenext day at a very affordable
price. So that's yeah, directmail. That's the other thing is,
a lot of people don't know howto get started, and with a tool
(27:53):
like Xero mail, what makes itreally easy? And if you have any
challenges, you just call us. Sowe tell you how what it takes
and what to do.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (28:01):
I love that. Well, we'll link that
resource up in the show notes atthefirstclick.net/299, but
Wilson, if people want toconnect with you more, learn
more about how you supportorganizations in direct mail.
How do they do that?
Dr. Wilson Zehr (28:17):
Well, they can reach out to me directly.
Wilson@zairmail.com that's likeair mail with a Z on the front.
So Z, a, I R, M, a, I l.com, orthey can call us toll free,
888980066, or the website workstoo, www.zairmail.com.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (28:38):
I love that. Well. Thank you so much
for being here and sharing yourwisdom. I know there's so much
more that we could talk aboutwith about with direct mail, so
we'll have to have you back. Butthanks for kind of giving people
this introduction, this, likebig overview on how this can be
helpful for their organizations.
Dr. Wilson Zehr (28:52):
Yeah, I'm not happy to do it once again. Thank
you for the opportunity. We'rehappy to talk with anybody who's
interested. We spent a lot oftime dealing with this medium
and trying to help people besuccessful.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (29:03):
So big. Thank you to Wilson for joining
me today. I hope that you gotsome great ideas for ways that
you can implement direct, directmail into your marketing
strategy. Again, you can findthe show notes, the resources
and all of the information thathe shared at
thefirstclick.net/299, I hopethat you'll subscribe wherever
(29:23):
you listen, leave us a review,if it feels great, and comment
below if you're watching this onYouTube, I'd love to hear what
it was that you loved most aboutthis episode, or any other
topics that you think might behelpful for us to cover, or
guests even that you think wouldbe great for other people to
learn from. Thank you so muchfor listening and taking time
(29:43):
with me each and every Tuesdayand for now, I'll see you in the
next one.
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