How To Do Direct Marketing Right With Nick Runyon of PFL

Wes Schaeffer: Nick Runyon CMO PFS TMA not TMI. What was that was one more ABM all the way from Bozeman.
Wes Schaeffer: Montana, you're gonna explain all these acronyms and more on the sales podcast, man. How the heck are you
Nick Runyon: Doing well. Thanks for having me, Wes.
Wes Schaeffer: So, you made me do some research, man. So I know account based marketing that's growing but y'all have invented a couple of things tactile marketing automation that I thought like up in Montana just like skin and Buffalo and
Wes Schaeffer: Driving for buys off the cliffs and I hold my beer. But I mean, you know, more than that up there.
Nick Runyon: There's plenty of that. So come out sometime and we'll get in the truck.
Nick Runyon: Yeah, I know that you know I love our company history. I mean really kind of was born out of the early days of e commerce, because you could do anything from anywhere and we have leverage that to the
Nick Runyon: To the max trying to build a great place to work and a great place to live. So yeah, we're happy to be in beautiful part of the country.
Wes Schaeffer: So, I mean, you started out years ago.
Wes Schaeffer: And printing right and like your website says 12,000 plus the world's best marketers are you using you LinkedIn Salesforce to
Wes Schaeffer: Integrate with Marquette. Oh, Oracle. Hey, what about what about HubSpot and Infusionsoft, can you integrate with them.
Nick Runyon: We've got some HubSpot integrations. Yeah, we gotta kind of dance around through some middleware, but we can make it work. And that's what I mean that's what we do. We're in the business of solving problems. So we'll figure it out.
Wes Schaeffer: There knows, but so I love the name right. So T ma so tile marketing. What I lost it where to go tech Telmo automation like
Wes Schaeffer: So, I mean, direct mail right print physical people going to actually touch stuff. Not just, you know, I mean, yeah, I can touch my paperweight here, but I can't. I'm not touching the book that's on it. So you're saying
Wes Schaeffer: There's still a need, there's still a positive ROI for sending physical stuff.
Nick Runyon: Oh yeah, absolutely. And that's been one of the things, it's the most surprising to me. So I mean, let me, I'll just step back a second. I mean you alluded to it. But we started
Nick Runyon: As a company called printing for less in the early days of e-commerce, we created a category. We were the first ones to figure out how to take any type of digital file.
Nick Runyon: And turn it into a commercial printing press ready PDF and that was pretty magical back in the day, so
Nick Runyon: YOU KNOW LATE 90s, early 2000s. We did a lot of work with Adobe Microsoft. A lot of the big publishing don't like desktop publishing software companies.
Nick Runyon: To help streamline kind of their PDF workflows and that was fun. I was actually the head of marketing back then.
Nick Runyon: And grew help to grow the company around digital marketing strategy straight e-commerce play and learned a lot, but then
Nick Runyon: I've been in marketing my entire career and we are at the point today where you say, marketing, and people are
Nick Runyon: There's not it's not digital marketing anymore. It's just all marketing is digital
Nick Runyon: What we found is that when you do put something physical that you can touch and feel and a box that you open and somebody's hands.
Nick Runyon: Especially in a post covert environment, which has been really crazy to see you maximize somebody's attention. And so I've, I've come back into PFS recently as the CMO
Nick Runyon: And the reason I did it was because I was so fascinated by this idea that you can orchestrate the online and the offline.
Nick Runyon: And when a physical piece shows up as part of my customer journey is my marketing journey.
Nick Runyon: That isn't is no longer siloed. But it's an orchestrated part of this entire process.
Nick Runyon: We see incredible ROI happen it's attention-grabbing can help move the sales process forward. You can help build relationships.
Nick Runyon: And we leverage data to do all of that. So that's where the software comes in PFS today is primarily a marketing technology software company that makes that orchestration of the online and offline happen.
Wes Schaeffer: Nice. Yeah, I've always told people, you need to have a multimedia multi-step sequential follow up, you know, nurture follow whatever phrase you want to use.
Wes Schaeffer: Campaign. You know, I talked to prospects all the time. And they're like, Oh man, I'm, I'm really good. Once I get in front of a qualified prospect.
Wes Schaeffer: Like well Jethro. What the hell do you think your job is, you know, it's to get in front of that qualified prospect and then stand out.
Wes Schaeffer: And because people ask, you know, my little red and white book back there. You know, I send that out and I get more kudos sending something physical.
Wes Schaeffer: People still push back on it, don't they
Nick Runyon: Yeah, and I think that
Nick Runyon: People have pushed back on sending something physical. As part of that process. Traditionally, because it's been really hard. I think I mean from a marketing standpoint. The other side of this is that I think we've become really lazy. You know, I mean, I can
Nick Runyon: You know, put in $1 into Google and I get cost per click and get all kinds of metrics back. I know what's working and what's not. So,
Nick Runyon: When I'm working with our sales team to qualify those prospects I'm leaning heavily on a lot of these these signals and these intense signals that we're able to gather but
Nick Runyon: You know, really, until P FL until we created tactile marketing automation that lived in a silo. It was this unassociated channel when you put that together.
Nick Runyon: Not only is the sending the physical easier, but we're starting to see that it's a great way to deliver value. It's tangible and there's something that happens when people engage with your brand.
Nick Runyon: Kind of beyond just the digital touch points, there's there's look and feel there's an association, there's, you know, it's tactile. That's why we call it tactile marketing automation. So you begin to
Nick Runyon: Get some brand affinity even, you know, you can create experiences and really pull people in so Jethro gets even more qualified prospect and
Wes Schaeffer: I can send him a sales whisper certified logo spittoons. Is that what you're telling me.
Nick Runyon: I don't think we've done a spoon yet.
Wes Schaeffer: I do time
Nick Runyon: Tracking down the antique SHOPPING WE GOT A NEW laser can engrave anything, I'll put your
Nick Runyon: logo on a spoon for you.
Wes Schaeffer: Oh, hell. It don't matter.
Wes Schaeffer: I got my Jim Beam bottle from my eighth grade graduation. I'll just fit into that one.
Wes Schaeffer: Man, you can take that you can take the redneck our country. Right.
Wes Schaeffer: Okay, so I literally own this trademark.
Wes Schaeffer: Or what so let's start shipping some stuff. All right. Can you HOOK A BROTHER up
Nick Runyon: Yeah, let's do it.
Nick Runyon: We, we sent. I'm serious about the laser. This thing is pretty cool. You can you can laser anything. So I'm always looking for stuff to stick in there and put a logo on it.
Wes Schaeffer: Oh hell no, we're talking about swords and knives and shotguns, I want to take this knife.
Wes Schaeffer: And I want you to carve it by hand. I want some I want some sweat in that thing, man.
Wes Schaeffer: So, so what should be sent though. I mean, can I just send a pin. Can I send a notepad with my logo on it, does it have to be a $5 coffee because I know you know my boss is going to say, we can't send a $5 coffee mug 10,000 people
Wes Schaeffer: Right, it's too damn much money.
Wes Schaeffer: What do you say to him.
Nick Runyon: Yeah, I think, you know, this is where we're seeing some really sophisticated teams put together journeys that make a whole lot of sense. So we recently launched a an E gifting platform which
Nick Runyon: Sounds like I'm making a diversion here but like at the 10,000 prospect level. You don't want to send everybody you know something that's a
Nick Runyon: 510 $30 gift or some kind of expensive kit but there's ways to qualify people. And if you're using a marketing automation platform or you're capturing that data in your CRM.
Nick Runyon: That's where you start to leverage that data to inform the content and the timing or the piece and it starts to make a whole lot of sense because
Nick Runyon: You might not want to spend that coffee mug to that many people, but if you know that you can send the right thing to the right person at the right time. It's the basic
Nick Runyon: Foundation, that's four Ps of marketing, you know, person, place, price product that you match that up and you're going to win every time. And so the data that is existing in your systems already has the answer there. We just help you find it and coordinate that
Wes Schaeffer: So, you know, I've used these platforms for since at least 2007
Wes Schaeffer: Marketing automation right sequences funnels whatever means word they're using nowadays so
Wes Schaeffer: Am I, am I turning this data over to you or or am I building the workflows like inside of my HubSpot, and then it just triggers yours. Boom. Okay. The coffee mug is sets the contact records update it. Now the sequence just continues running inside of my own CRM.
Nick Runyon: Yeah, we want to we want to keep your data inside your system.
Nick Runyon: We do that for a number of reasons. I think the probably the most important is security. I mean, a lot of especially with GDPR there's another acronym for you.
Nick Runyon: But with all the like the privacy stuff we pass some of the most stringent stricter security reviews. So we're HIPAA certified where sock to compliance, you know, all of the things
Nick Runyon: One of the ways that we can do that and build software that maintains that level of security is that we're keeping your data inside your systems, but the advantage of that to you is that it's also references so now
Nick Runyon: If you see a contact a prospect that takes a certain action it's easier for me to build attribution inside your system. So, because it's all contained. I'm not passing stuff back and forth that
Nick Runyon: You know, introduces some data integrity problems. I can build reports inside of your CRM that show that this is having an impacting we're truly moving the needle for you. So we keep it inside your stuff.
Right.
Wes Schaeffer: Is there certain ranges that you found like if somebody they're too small right now for you.
Wes Schaeffer: And I mean they have like a smaller database, right, maybe it's a higher end product and they so
Wes Schaeffer: They can, they can
Wes Schaeffer: Fulfill at home or at their own office. I mean, is there.
Wes Schaeffer: The does it depend on like the the size of the sale if I'm selling a $50,000 software solution. Don't need to send a more expensive gift or can still send a $5 coffee mug and the mere fact that it's physical. It's tangible. It's still makes a good impact.
Nick Runyon: Yeah, I'm a big fan of value like I want to I want the content, the information that I'm sending to a prospect also. Well, what I'm saying to you right here today.
Nick Runyon: To be valuable. And I've run everything through that filter. I'm not going to spend 30,040 $50,000 on software. If I can do the same thing with an admin and a swag closet.
Nick Runyon: I mean, we at the in the early days with our e commerce business PFS we were sending literally coffee mugs. We've sent all kinds of gifts and Jackie's to two people customer appreciation type of sequences and stuff we did all that manually.
Nick Runyon: Where software comes into play is
Nick Runyon: pulling data from your CRM and from a marketing automation platform so intense signals. We're looking for
Nick Runyon: The opportunity to stitch all of that together. So say you have like your website, analytics, you've got named accounts in your CRM.
Nick Runyon: Maybe somebody has downloaded a white paper and you're built an email list and you're starting to sequence them and you see somebody taking the action that you want them to take and you can use a piece of direct mail.
Nick Runyon: Or a dimensional mail touch in order to accelerate that process or to maybe help enable that person to bring a buying decision to the CEO or something, whatever the case may be and that's some of the fun thing you can dream up anything about it.
Nick Runyon: At the point where you're unable to maintain that process and to scale it along with your business. That's when the software becomes important.
Wes Schaeffer: Well,
Wes Schaeffer: Sure, yeah. I think I just muddled. The question.
Wes Schaeffer: What what I was saying with what, let's say I am I'm selling a high end solution. And I want to make an impression on my prospects.
Wes Schaeffer: Do I need to send an expensive gift or does almost any gift as long as it's not cheap. I mean, as
Wes Schaeffer: somewhat decent right that does the mere fact of of sending something physical. Does that lift me above the competition or or if I'm spending, if I'm, if I'm courting 50 hundred thousand dollar clients do I need to send some crystal, you know, candleholders
Nick Runyon: Got it.
Nick Runyon: Yeah, no, I don't think, I don't think people get bribed into taking sales calls. I mean, there's, there's a reciprocity.
Nick Runyon: That's here if you give me something I feel some obligation to reciprocate. You know, and maybe give you some time that's going to get you part of the way there. And that's not the whole thing I really think again with value.
Nick Runyon: The experience that you create whatever you send needs to be appropriately branded. I think it needs to be relevant needs to help provide value in some way. We have a
Nick Runyon: We have a tactile marketing idea book that we've put together people and we've published this year over year. And it's a, you know, it's a thin book it's
Nick Runyon: Probably 5060 pages, but there's really good content and we've been on customer calls months later and people have kind of kept this on their desk as a reference piece. Now that's still just printed content that we publish, but it's valuable just
Nick Runyon: So people hang on to and then they started collecting them like, hey, send me another one. You know, when it comes out in 2020 or whatever.
Nick Runyon: So something like that can be incredibly effective. I think people really need to think about, not so much what type of gift. Do I want to deliver. But what type of experience do I want to create. And so along that idea of people aren't going to be bribed into taking a sales meeting.
Nick Runyon: That moment in time when they're engaging with your direct mail piece you have their 100% maximized attention.
Nick Runyon: You deliver the right message and provide a relevant call to action and make sure that the gift, the printed collateral, the whole thing helps to move people towards where you want them to go.
Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, I've had this for years. My Infusionsoft cheat sheet. So I gave it away, you know, as a lead magnet.
Wes Schaeffer: It was a one pager and then it became too.
Wes Schaeffer: Many people order this and tell me the print is too small.
Wes Schaeffer: And I'm like, dude, it's a chichi chichi to supposed to be small. Right. I mean, but but a laminated cheat sheet. I'll sell it for a couple bucks you know the PDF is free. But if they want it laminated
Wes Schaeffer: And people have had this for years, and people, and because it's so and I think it's a Bach or so. I don't even know it didn't cost me much.
Wes Schaeffer: I can afford to send this out, you know, and I'll send it as a bonus, like a new customer I'll mail on my book and this. Oh, and I'll send several, you know, and they
Wes Schaeffer: So I guess it's the relevant side. I mean, it doesn't have to be on, you know, Egypt and parchment from King Tut.
Nick Runyon: I think that's a perfect example. I mean, that's a highly valuable piece of marketing collateral there. And I think every brand every team has an opportunity to build something like that and deliver it to the right person at the right time.
Wes Schaeffer: Yeah and you know where because I'm big on content. I still have CDs. I'll mail people. Now granted, it's because I bought a crap ton of them.
Wes Schaeffer: Eight, nine years ago and sit still haven't given them all away. So, but, you know, my book, you know, 200 and I don't know 3040 pages cost less than five bucks to print that thing, you know, so
Wes Schaeffer: How do I know when do I send a book versus a coffee mug, because the book. Yeah, people usually don't throw a book away, but they also usually don't read it, it will sit on their shelf. I mean, there is a little bit of Occupy in their brain but
Wes Schaeffer: There's no guarantee they're gonna keep my coffee mug. I might throw it in the in the company kitchen and and never see it either. So how
Wes Schaeffer: What are some rules of thumb there that you've seen that, you know, a pocket guide a wall. I was in high tech for many years, and you'd see all these schematics that, you know, Oracle or whatever Cisco would bill or
Wes Schaeffer: And so like I remember sonnet an ATM and all these you know telecom protocols. And so those are cool. If you're in that space, but
Wes Schaeffer: How do you know if you're giving them the right stuff.
Nick Runyon: Yeah, I think that's a great question. And we've published an article on our blog called what to send when because we got that question so much. I mean, so I think you're you're right on track and
Nick Runyon: I always encourage people to think about
Nick Runyon: Like a value ladder. You know, so there's an appropriate exchange. If I'm offering a piece of collateral on my website a white paper PDF or download
Nick Runyon: I'm asking for something in exchange, you might be asking for an email if I want your address your email your phone number. The name of your first child, you know, all this stuff like the value that I'm presenting has to be much higher. And so if I'm asking for
Nick Runyon: It's like dating. I mean, and I know people have worn out this analogy but in a sales process. If it's the first phone call.
Nick Runyon: I need to immediately communicate to you that's going to be worth some small amount of your time 1530 minutes whatever I'm asking for and you need to believe that it's going to be worth your time.
Nick Runyon: If I can put something together and send it to you that helps to communicate that idea, then
Nick Runyon: That's where we really start to see
Nick Runyon: Things pop for our customers. So at the awareness stage, you know, sometimes that the awareness stage it's not it's not reasonable or worth
Nick Runyon: The cost, you know, to send maybe a book or a coffee mug or something. Maybe you can get by with a postcard, you know, and we've got a great mailers a popcorn mailer that's like this.
Nick Runyon: It's paper that's folded. But then on the inside. It's got a bag of microwave popcorn. It's a self mailer so you save on mailing costs it males at the price of, you know, like a large postcard.
Nick Runyon: But it's really clever grabs people's attention. You got it fully branded your marketing messages there. And we see that the awareness stage help to move a lot of people
Nick Runyon: Forward in the sales process. Now fast forward to say you're selling you know an expensive software like your example before and onboarding is something that's really critical as part of your customer journey.
Nick Runyon: At that point, I might put together something that's nicer is I've got branded drink where you know you've got some customer appreciation stuff you've got maybe you include a book.
Nick Runyon: But then there's also material in there that helps people accelerate like helps them be successful with the product that they just purchased
Nick Runyon: It makes a lot more sense to spend more money at that point to provide a better experience you're helping build in retention metrics into your business. So really what we what we do as part of even the buying process at P FL is as marketers and sales teams are coming to us.
Nick Runyon: We're asking them, what are the problems that you're trying to solve. What are the business objectives that you want to move forward. And then let's strategize together really kind of there's an agency component where we say, let's build something that's price.
Nick Runyon: Effective you get massive ROI for what you're going to spend on it and it's helping accomplish your business objectives so
Nick Runyon: It really depends on what stage of the funnel that you're trying to drive, but
Nick Runyon: But thinking critically about each of those steps I think is really key. There's no magic bullet. There's no cough mode coffee mug at this stage is going to close the deal.
Nick Runyon: I think it's less about the gift. It's more about that experience and what you're trying to move as part of your business.
Wes Schaeffer: Would you consider this direct response marketing or is it just direct mail marketing.
Nick Runyon: Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, you kind of
Nick Runyon: I'm going to mirror what you said before about, you know, marketing automation funnels whatever people are calling it these days, I think, I think the definitions kind of changed with what's what's in vogue, a little bit. It's definitely direct mail marketing.
Nick Runyon: But I think the ability to solicit direct response because I think that also applies. I mean, we are
Nick Runyon: We're building in
Nick Runyon: Variable data pieces now. So imagine you know the URL or the QR code or whatever type of response mechanism that I'm building into this campaign, the one that you get is unique to you. So I've got the ability to attribute
Nick Runyon: Action to an individual direct mail piece and create a one to one experience, but then scale that across my entire sales organization so
Nick Runyon: That's where we get the ability to measure direct response and ROI on the back of these and I mean our target to start out with is 20 X ROI. That's an average that we see across our customer base.
Nick Runyon: And so that also conveniently makes it kind of a no brainer buying decision customers if if you're going to give me $1 and I give you 20 back. People are going to do that all day long. And that's a
Nick Runyon: Building that direct response in the ROI and there's
Nick Runyon: Well, a key to our success.
Wes Schaeffer: I get the problem, though. I mean, getting started, I don't, I don't know.
Wes Schaeffer: I don't know. That's going to be right, you're not, you can't guarantee that
Wes Schaeffer: Right.
Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, gotta start somewhere.
Wes Schaeffer: But I mean, is there a way to dip their toe in the water, or are they comment or people realize that you know I gotta do something different. And, you know, my, my Instagram channel just isn't moving the needle.
Wes Schaeffer: Right, because I don't look good in a bikini. So I need to do something else.
Nick Runyon: We've talked a little bit about always talked a lot about the orchestration is like the digital in the physical. One thing I haven't mentioned yet is when PFS software is integrated with your CRM.
Nick Runyon: Or your marketing automation platform, whatever, whatever path we go down.
Nick Runyon: We have delivery notifications. And so it's truly a multi channel experience because within 15 minutes of
Nick Runyon: Delivery. I can ping a sales rep and they make a timely phone call at the moment that that person is engaging with your piece. And so you're right. I don't guarantee it. I don't give those I don't ever use that word like we guarantee but
Nick Runyon: Across the thousands of customers that we're working with, we, we do know some things we've published a lot of this in the multi channel marketing report that we released recently but
Nick Runyon: I know that if you have a thoughtful email sequence that's adding value, you know, it makes sense. And you think you've seen enough of these to know like, which one's work and which ones don't.
Nick Runyon: But if you've got that and then you're triggering direct mail at some point in that sequence. And then you're calling to follow up, you are going to move that needle and it's just a matter of
Nick Runyon: How well can we orchestrate those things with your team. And so what I tell marketing and sales teams that are working with us is
Nick Runyon: It's two sides of the same coin here when your sales team engages in a timely way you're going to hear this all the time. People are gonna say, oh, it's amazing that you call. They just happened to be looking at your thing that just got delivered. Let's not
Nick Runyon: You know that's not an accident. We orchestrated that whole experience.
Nick Runyon: And that, that is where some of these incredible ROI is come in when you do that well and you put it all together.
Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, for sure.
Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, it's a user all these tools, right, and I've got little notifications and I can see somebody who returned and
Wes Schaeffer: They're on the pricing page or they're on the us versus them page and you know shoot me an email, give them a call and I'm on your page right now.
Wes Schaeffer: And it's
Wes Schaeffer: Funny how many people still don't realize that technologies out there think more and more than they are realizing that we're always being watched, but
Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, sending something people always can you write for me. Can you create these campaigns. And I'm like, look, I'm happy to write for you. It's a whole lot of money. But here's the
Wes Schaeffer: Deal. It's
Wes Schaeffer: It. I'm not writing warm piece I'm sending short emails, it's, it's the timing. It's the frequency
Wes Schaeffer: You know pique their curiosity link them back to the website somewhere referring back to page 12 or the report that they never got past page to, you know, I'm just doing a lot of that. And you're like, Oh really, you know, and everybody wants to make it harder than it needs to be.
Nick Runyon: Yeah, yeah, I think. Yeah. We all fall victim to that for sure. Do you find that
Nick Runyon: People are appreciative. I mean, is it, is it still creepy and 2020 if you're tracking my online movements and then giving me the value that if you're just making it easier for me to find what I'm looking for in the first place. Maybe people hey
Wes Schaeffer: I'm asking the questions here.
Wes Schaeffer: To edit this out. Yeah, I mean, some people do still think it's freaky.
Wes Schaeffer: I'm helping a friend of mine that has some software that for big Fortune 1000 companies and and he knows the founder, so he's
Wes Schaeffer: He's able to license this technology at the sub fortune 1000 companies and I'm talking to a couple of companies about it, people that I know. And they're like,
Wes Schaeffer: Oh man, that's like big brother. Oh, that's you know your spine on whatever I'm like, it's all 100% legal it's all behind the scenes, you know,
Wes Schaeffer: But I miss the guy running a major corporation right and he's all that spying a weird i was i was i just got that response from him last week and I was surprised. You know, I'm like dude.
Wes Schaeffer: Apples already changing things in their iOS, you know, Google changing things next year. You know, we've been able to spy on and follow everybody everywhere. It's all going away. But you know, it's not really going away.
Wes Schaeffer: People can find a way that
Wes Schaeffer: Because there's already a way it's existing it's legal. It's, it's just like deeper technology. I don't even know why it does exist.
Wes Schaeffer: It if Google is making all these changes. I don't know how their software can still exist, but it does. Oh, I'm like, Okay. I mean, as long as legal right. I'll help you sell it.
Wes Schaeffer: I mean that male describe all the intricacies of it but hell. I'll help you sell it.
Nick Runyon: One of the things we. One of the things we found really just along this line.
Nick Runyon: Whatever everybody everybody went work from home, you know, in March and we had to figure out very quickly.
Wes Schaeffer: Trying to copy me, man. I've been worked from home for 20 just saying I'm a leader, but you already knew that. Please go ahead.
Nick Runyon: We had to figure out a lot of my
Nick Runyon: You know, like zoom info data things and import into our CRM our corporate addresses, you know, so I know what office you work at. If you're not at the office anymore, we had to figure out what to do.
Nick Runyon: We created a preferred address capture product that we started. I mean, we used to use it ourselves because we had to figure out, you know, now what
Nick Runyon: And we had a long conversation one afternoon about like, are people going to like this or not, you know, are they going to want us to send them stuff at home.
Nick Runyon: Yeah, I think, I mean it's I pulled the numbers, the other day, it's less than 2% of all of our sins have been met with some kind of negative reaction. I was actually really surprised by how welcoming people were of receiving something at their home.
Nick Runyon: You know, because I think mindsets have shifted and it's like if you can help me be more effective in my current location.
Nick Runyon: Though they're welcoming that
Wes Schaeffer: Are they opting in for that because
Wes Schaeffer: I had this question come up
Wes Schaeffer: From one of my clients because I'm like, I've always been a big proponent proponent of direct mail.
Wes Schaeffer: Right. And he's like, what do I do, everybody's working from home. How do I send this this piece. And I mean, dude. I was stuck like that's a damn good question. I don't know if they're forwarding mail.
Nick Runyon: Yeah.
Wes Schaeffer: Most people, I mean like I haven't worked in an office in 20 years but most people, even those that have been sent home they're there in the St. If they've been sent home then they're in the same city.
Wes Schaeffer: Right. But for the last seven months of companies like once a week BEEN BOXING their stuff and send it to their people. Are they SWINGING BY THE OFFICE once a week to get their mail.
Nick Runyon: Well, most of them are in the same city we see a just a line of brand new hair streams that are rolling through Bozeman, Montana, because I think people are working from home, quote unquote, from the RV park which more power to them, but
Wes Schaeffer: They don't be diamond amount, man.
Nick Runyon: What we found was with first name, last name, and a city, to your point.
Nick Runyon: With a high degree of accuracy. I can find somebody home address, and I just kind of the same.
Nick Runyon: Kind of the same thing, you were saying about people realizing that you know bots and cookies and pixels are tracking them around the internet.
Nick Runyon: There's a lot of publicly available data about address information out there. And so we've used some of that on the consumer side like in our own prospecting
Nick Runyon: We proactively send. We also are asking people to opt in and on the opt in side. I'll tell you this. If they opt in if they confirm their address and engage with us by email prior to our first sales call we have a 22% chance of qualifying that lead and moving them into our sales process.
Nick Runyon: As compared to
Nick Runyon: About 1% when it's email only and 10% when it's email and direct mail without the confirmation. So I think that people should think about the opt in opportunity as a way to
Nick Runyon: Even accelerate their sales process what we're finding. I mean, it's an order of magnitude shifts. So just having direct mail shifted from one to 10% likelihood SQL and then whenever they confirm and engage they opt in, we move up to 22% so that's that's really strong.
Nick Runyon: Data around that. So in some ways this adverse condition has opened up new opportunities and we're happy to be taken advantage of.
Wes Schaeffer: Well, it always does done it. I mean, life is all what you make of it. I mean, it's what are the reactions. I mean, where oh it's oh it's snowing right oh no, I can't. I don't know how to drive a stick shift to the snow. Yeah, we get to go ski. I mean, it's all, it's all what you make of it.
Wes Schaeffer: Right, so
Wes Schaeffer: Like who's, who's ideal for you. Right, we're going to link to CFL calm.
Wes Schaeffer: Like what size company me. Can you help small small folks get started, or do they need to have like a minimum list size or, you know, who should we send your way.
Nick Runyon: And we're building software products for the enterprise first. So I will say that
Wes Schaeffer: The Star Trek Enterprise.
Wes Schaeffer: The euro right like you
Nick Runyon: Salesforce is a huge customer of ours. I mean we deal with
Nick Runyon: You know, a lot of the fortune 1000, however, we find that their software companies they're SAS companies. There's I you know we're primarily looking at companies that are over 1000 employees, but you've got some of these niche.
Nick Runyon: industries where you've got small employee accounts, but people are really trying to figure out how do I scale up
Nick Runyon: Direct mail as an integrated part of my marketing strategy. I mean, if that's the problem that you're trying to solve.
Nick Runyon: All through a company size and all those other demographics Firma graphics out the window because we might be able to find a solution for you.
Nick Runyon: That's going to help move your business forward. The other piece about that. I'll say is that you mentioned LinkedIn at the top of the episode.
Nick Runyon: They came in through our protein our protein helps to build a lot of these programs is kind of a proof of concept without the software integration as a way to get started. They've been very effective is showing how
Nick Runyon: Timely direct mail send
Nick Runyon: Can help move business objectives forward and then we talked about the software piece to scale that productivity. Once the concept has been proven within your organization. So we're happy to work that from both sides, depending on where people exist on that spectrum.
Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, okay.
Wes Schaeffer: And I mean you got a ton of resources been kind of
Wes Schaeffer: Skimming around the site. I mean, around the very bottom of your blog right five reasons to send direct mail to remote workers.
Wes Schaeffer: Enhance virtual experiences with the physical reality of your brand.
Wes Schaeffer: How to run a direct mail campaign with preferred shipping address
Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. Cuz if somebody ops in dude like yeah I mean I've always worked from home. I mean, my you look up the sales whisper and you're going to California. That's my home address. Right.
Wes Schaeffer: So, but I know I'm an oddball i don't i don't mind.
Wes Schaeffer: But some people they want to use a P. O. Box, whatever, but still if they opt in, because this new world, and they're missing stuff. Hey. Okay, give me your address. I'm gonna send you something.
Wes Schaeffer: That's fair.
Nick Runyon: I think it's I think it's a great way to to have a touch point that somebody can truly touch and move the conversation forward. So we found
Wes Schaeffer: Very cool. All right. Well, we will link to it p AMP l.com you've got your first snow. We're finally under 100 degrees. So, uh, you know,
Wes Schaeffer: So I'm good. I'm in a good mood. Now, you caught me on a good day. So
Wes Schaeffer: Good. Well done, well done.
Nick Runyon: I think we could probably work up some kind of exchange, you know you get tired of the warming come up and ski. We get tired of the cold, I'll come down, sit on the beach.
Wes Schaeffer: Yeah man, our winters are nice. I'm a little bit, England, so it's
Wes Schaeffer: We have more than a few hundred degree days off at night.
Nick Runyon: Very. I suppose that's true and it will either way.
Wes Schaeffer: My wife Oh good, man. Good Southern California by birth, so she's always about February.
Nick Runyon: We get kind of itchy.
Wes Schaeffer: My wife's from here is why we're here, but I'm
Wes Schaeffer: Just need to have enough money have property in both and just travel, it will you know I'm saying
Nick Runyon: He let me listen to more your podcast me back and figure out how to make that happen for
Wes Schaeffer: All right, you do that you do that. Alright man, Nick rod and all the way from Montana. Thanks, on the show, man. It's been great.
Nick Runyon: Thanks West