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Now we will begin today's webinar, why direct-mail marketing still works. Hello Karla, hello Jody , welcome and thank you for joining us today . I will turn this presentation on over to you. Thank you Alexa , we really appreciate you having us today. We really appreciate all of you online , after a three-day holiday. It's kind of hard to get kick started again for the week. We really appreciate it. My name is Karla , in Jody it I Tran 11 Jody . I will switch slides really quick . Here is our contact information that will be available in the slide deck. Feel free to reach out to either one of us with your questions. We have a lot of information to go over today. Both Jody and I are both admitted male nerds. We could talk for hours. I'd like to go over some critical highlights and changes happening in direct-mail marketing. We will go on the service end and look forward to the opportunity to talk with you individually later if you get the opportunity. First Jody, tell us about Why Direct Mail Marketing Still Works's -- Click2Mail . And affiliate of the United States Postal Service. Click2Mail is the industry's leading provider of accessible, on-demand solutions, for the outsource printing mailing and tracking of all documents through the mail. Using preinstalled productivity at and automation tools, users transmits Liles to the best files to Click2Mail overnight , mailing to any address in the world. There is no upfront cost no minimum volume, no subscription fee and no trips to the Postal Service. By offering open APIs and software service integration tools, Click2Mail enables organizations of all sizes to optimize the mailing processes and reduce in-house cost. We have been doing a long time. [laughter] Let's get started really quickly with a real simple polling question. Hang on. There we go. I've everyone in the room today, how many are currently using direct-mail marketing as part of your marketing mix? >> Good news, it looks like there's a good chunk of you that are. And many of you may not because you don't know how to use it . which is what we hope we can help with. >> I am not sure Alexa if I'm supposed to hit something to close the poll. Do I just move on? We can give it another few seconds . 30 seconds. When you start to see the numbers taper off then you can go ahead and skip to the results. And then proceed to the next slide. >> I think I will skip to the results. And let's see what we have. It looks like 32 percent of you, and growing, are already actively using direct-mail. For the rest of you we hope we can give you information you will want to include, for adding direct-mail marketing to your marketing. Let's be honest. There is a lot of information out there about direct-mail. Unfortunately a lot of it is negative. What you might be hearing it's old-fashioned, too expensive, too hard to use, doesn't integrate with digital. Those are some things we'd like to focus on. We consider these as the bad things or myths about direct-mail. Things are changing. Like I said, you have heard the bad news. Let's look at what is really happening. One of the things that's happened a lot is the online information overload. People are feeling overwhelmed with online messaging. There is more and more reports about concerns about privacy online , growing concern about how much information is being shared that you may not have wanted to be shared . So in general people just feel overwhelmed. This is the slide that I saw at the national postal forum a couple of weeks ago in San Antonio Texas. I loved it. I think the message is clear. As a customer how do you discern what is important to me . What makes your brand, services you offer, stand out from the others. I really think it's important to take a minute and say to yourself, Infobesity , a word I love, how does my customer know who I? >> In general in the world, trust is declining. What we have discovered is it is not declining with mail. Both the United States Postal Service , Canada Post and Royal Mail have all collaborated with neuroscientist and have shared the learnings from their research. They have carefully evaluated the interplay between digital marketing and physical marketing. In the top take away is people trust direct-mail if you want to read more about it, send us an email with the subject line neuroscience. We will send you the link to the studies. Basically you have a high level takeaways here in the percentages. Consumers trust mail and paper. Can you think of something you have gotten in the mail recently that you really appreciated getting? Direct-mail is easier to understand and more memorable. It takes a lot less thought to remember it. Karla tell us about your experience . Something I just recently received, and maybe many of you also received, is information from Google ad words. How do I use digital marketing and add words. What they used to reach out to me was a piece of mail . I think it's obvious a lot of sophisticated companies are now reaching out , using the value of integrated physical mail with their digital marketing campaigns and messaging. >> So how do we know this? It is all about the ROI. And marketers share their test results and tell us when they combine digital and direct-mail the results go from single digits to double digits. Wringing your brand off-line , is a game changer. It raises the authenticity and the image of the company. >> So I wanted to share with you a case study from one of our customers. Domain sales global is a company that sells domain names to companies all over the world. Who currently specific , specifically selling to the United States. In the past what we have done is use email marketing to reach out to companies to sell a domain name. The average email campaign was about 2500 people. He sought pretty good rate on his email so 25 percent. What he wasn't happy with was is only seen about one percent of actual sales. So the companies names cup present name is David Chandler. David reached out to us and said how about I use direct-mail. What he did was, on the right you will see he invested $408 for 330 letters. He mailed out the same kind of messaging but in an envelope, with the message would you like to buy this domain. The results were, he saw incredible ROI. The average sale was $981. He was seeing 2546 percent ROI. To say the least he's extremely happy with the combination of sending out direct-mail letters, and sending out email marketing messages to reinforce the message to them. >> So let's take a look again quickly at what happens when direct-mail delivers. The most common thing that we see, Jody I stepped on you . That's okay. [indiscernible] you know that from your own experience. Looking at the brand's website, exploring the products, these metrics give you some measure of what that looks like from the study that print is bid did. In our case we are encourage you to remember the importance of the exchange and the interconnectivity of mail and the Internet. >> The other thing that happens with direct-mail is it gets a little emotional. There is something about the physicality of a piece of mail, you touch the texture of it and does it make you remember something . For example I had a birthday recently. I cannot tell you about getting birthday cards. I also got coupons from brands that I like, Starbucks, LensCrafters, even my credit union sent a reminder for my birthday. And asked me to come in for my birthday to review my account. So the big thing is, it is an interaction between the physical and the value of what came to me in the mail. >> And the other thing that happens, it starts at the mailbox. The point is people really like to interact with mail. It may sound kind of strange , even the fact that they throw things away, helps them sort out what messaging you want to hear and what they like to learn about. These are some great statistics. I think one thing that is really interesting is there is a lot of women that interact with mail. Do they react differently because they are women , or because they like the tangibility and the carry behind value of what mail he is. A leave behind value. There's a lot to be said about that. The example of my postcards and information I received on my birthday, that was something I could stick in my backpack and share with a friend. I could share my offer with other people. >> So we have learned that most people sort through mail immediately. The most popular places in the kitchen. The leave behind value of mail is not something you see with an email. Postal mail ends up on a refrigerator, you share it with your neighbor or friend. All kinds of crazy places. Let's review some of the basics. We will talk about what makes a good campaign and we will talk about it both for B2C and B2B . Let's dive in. >> The main message, basically for easy pieces or four steps. The list, the offer, and the creator . What thing we hear often from small business we work with, it is my services are good for everybody. If you do a little homework you will find out by looking at these three simple rules, you can help define exactly what your mail should look like. >> Now we will start with the house file because of the Addams family. Old business before new business. The house file is those that visited your company are purchased from your company in the past. The most valuable lesson -- asset you have got. I know you also want to do prospecting. We will also talk about rented list. With rented list , one of the first tips I want you to consider is that you are renting it. You do not own it. The terms of how you use it are specific to the list and the list owner. The traditional up approach for list rental has evolved with technology . More recently you can clone your list, or what you might be more familiar with is the term look-alike prospects, that are based on your actual customers did so pay attention [indiscernible] list rental as well as look-alike or a cloned capability. >> The other important part of your direct mail pieces the offer. You really need to have a strong call to action to get the customer to respond. It is really important, seriously to take some time to do some homework. As I mentioned earlier we do hear from small companies. They will say what is your offer. Everyone will like my offer. That may not be true. Sit down and ask what the offer is. The other important piece of this to tell your customer how to respond. Are they supposed to go online, should they pick up the phone and give you a call. Is there a unique URL they should go to to fill out more information. Again it is about the homework. These are couple of bonus tips that we see that are really affect of on direct-mail marketing pieces. Emphasize the guarantee. I'm sure you have seen that before we -- where you will see testimonials , super effective. It can be information relatable to your target audience. An offer of free gifts, free shipping, free trials , always helpful. One other comment on creating a mail piece if you're asking the customer to fill it out, take a foreman printed out , fill it out yourself. Make sure you have given the individual enough's face so they can provide the information. Can you write enough text in their to get the information they need. I recently received a mail piece from marketing , for a magazine. The form I was supposed to complete was so tiny I could barely get my information in. Take a real simple step, print it out and try it yourself. And the other piece that is important but not quite as important as the offer in the list, is the creative. Creative doesn't necessarily mean you will get higher responses. It is super important. I'm not trying to waylay it. But it's important it's not too clever. It makes the message so clever you can't get the message across. Or does it offend or even exclude. Maybe it seems a little too highbrow for the individual and they don't know what you are asking them to do. You really need to answer the question, does it cause a problem, doesn't answer a question, or does it fill the customers need. This is an example of a piece that we think is just clever and helpful. It's happy, it's fun getting the mail. It gives you exactly the information you need. Do you need help, yes. On the back it tells you what you need to do to make the help happen. >> >> With the United States Postal Service there are several delivery options. First class, a little faster, definitely personalized as you wish. Marketing mail however, a less money. It's a little slower. And there are specific rates for nonprofits doing marketing. Regardless of any of those classes of mail, the technology now lets us see where the mail pieces are in the postal network. The Postal Service is working someday in the future to predict delivery time. >> The latest five-year-old product the service introduced is called every door direct-mail. It's really popular with small businesses because you don't need a address list to sell the mail. But you do need in matters of geography. If geography is a common denominator for your business, you may not want to try every door direct-mail. The perfect example is when you're opening a new restaurant. You want to let everyone in the neighborhood no there is a new pizza parlor in town. That sort of thing. >> Here is another success story I wanted to share. We worked with the Cherry Dell volunteer fire department, and in the past they hadn't used direct-mail at all. They had approached us to learn more about does EDDM make sense for them. After we worked with them we discovered they had done donation letters, haven't done thank you notes, anything to follow up with the customer. What they chose to do was a combination of several different formats of direct-mail. What they used was they did a saturation mailing to the entire area they serve service for their volunteer fire department. They also did donation letters to their mailing list, like we talked before, the in-house list. The best customers that made a donation in the past. And then they mailed out to them and said thank you for your donation. We really appreciate it. And would you like to give again . And lastly they sent a thank you to customers separately, to their top donations. And said thank you, we really appreciate your support. What they found was because they qualified for the nonprofit rate, they were able to save more money. They increase their donations by 15 percent. One of the key things that they told us and shared with us, was they really build community awareness of who they are and what they did. They also said they were saying that more people were coming to participate to other events down the road, because they were a little more rare of who and where they were. -- More aware of who and where they were. So whether your Google, selling ad words are the local fire department, hopefully what you have learned so far is mail is really effective and can make a difference for you. The next challenge is to integrate mail with the cloud tools. Karla . One of the most fascinating and interesting things that have happened that I think it direct-mail is the ability for a user or a company to integrate the service of what mail is. The direct-mail application, into another application. The first set are for the developers . APIs , application interface protocol . It is really an opportunity for developers to allow from within an app to send mail out. Rather than the old-fashioned way , you had to downloaded and printed and then send it to someone else. Now because of the API technology, there are ways for developers to include direct-mail into their application flow. But the other thing that is really amazing, some of these new tools that are happening , for the non-developer. I pointed out zap your. -- Zapier . A daisy chain, one application to another. With zapier you can use mail chimp and connected to your Facebook to make one integration, or automation work within others. Zapier is not the only one out there but probably one of the most recognized names. You can sign up for free. It is amazing. A lot of other stuff out there now to. Microsoft flow, a whole bunch of them coming up in the space , that allows the average user to take their app and connected with other apps so it triggers a response and automatically creates an email or postcard, no card the best note card, in one setting. If you haven't taken a look, check it out, a new innovation. The other thing happening more and more online, mail is becoming available through an app. Add-ins from Google, add-ons from Microsoft. Now there are some new add-ins and add-ons that you can add to either Google or Microsoft, so you can create mail right from within Microsoft Word, or right within Google docs, and send it through the app. You don't have to leave the Apco you are right there. You just go to the store and add the add-ins or add-ons. The other thing, email to mail. You can send an attachment in your email and create a physical mail. So again, you don't leave the Internet service provider, your email service provider to send out a piece of mail right through sending an email. A newer innovation right now I think, really great . There are still a lot of applications out there that create a PDF file when you print so you are stuck with a PDF file . What that means in the past, is you had to download it, print it locally, folded up and stick it in an envelope to mail out. But now there are PDF tools that will take the PDF and you just uploaded into the online app and it will create a piece of mail for you. You don't have to worry about do I have enough paper, do I have enough printer ink , do I have stamps. Now there are tools online that help you create a mail right from the desktop. >> And the Postal Service is getting into this automation and interaction as well. Advancements in printing are making things a lot more interactive, you can send out mail and get digital results. Whether augmented reality , NFC or stuff we don't even know yet. The Postal Service has a new program called informed delivery. You go to inform and sign up. Then you will start getting emails giving you a preview of the physical mail you are going to receive. As a marketer keep in mind what the mail piece will look like . You can reinforce the call to action, or create a unique URL, just for the phone view. And get an immediate reaction from the email preview, to reinforce your connection with the customer. >> The other thing quickly, advancement and printing has made some changes in what mail can do with the physical , printed mail piece. QR codes are quick response codes , Inc. more and more in the mail . We are saying that more and more Americans are using QR codes . Just to give you an example, if you go online you can find some information, you can find QR codes with your Google analytics if you sent a postcard with a QR code, you can click and see people responding to it did augmented reality. If you are a Starbucks drinker like I, they have on their Christmas cups, they have a nap so you can look on the phone to see I think a penguin sliding down for Christmas . We are seeing more and more of that showing up in printing, so you can bring the off-line physical mail piece, that might be in the mailbox, integrating with an application on your phone. Near field is another interesting thing. A little more complicated. It will allow you to hover over a mail piece and like a pretty thing pops up . Like an animation that may happen. It's all through an app on the user's cell phone. Printing is really changing. It is making mail, the physicality of what printing materials are even more interactive. I think this is one of my most favorite quotes. I think it speaks for itself, but the point of it is marketing is not one of the other, it is a combination of all of the methods going to your customer. Most importantly it's a strategy, not a one time campaign. It is a strategy, how do we make this work. How do I make my message get across to my customer. >> The top take away here, trust. That is why direct-mail steel matters. No matter where you are in the development of your business, whether the beginning or you have a mature business you are growing, we don't have the secret step one, two, three. What you have to do is test all of the elements of direct-mail, to get the results you are after. Both the interplay with digital and the physical. But every single case, no matter how old you are, no matter what your age, you trust postal mail. >> So we have pulled both millennial's and everybody else. They really do prefer to have a combination of the physical mail, as well as email. Males physicality is powerful. That is why remember, mail matters. It triggers memories. >> Well thank you. That is our overview of what direct-mail is. What it can do with some of the great new statistics and results we are seeing in the direct marketing world. We would love to open up to some questions from the group. Okay. Karla, Jody, thank you so much. We will go ahead and start the Q&A portion of the call , where I will be reading the chat questions that the participants have been sending in. And ladies and gentlemen if you will continue submitting your questions by using the chat function on the lower left-hand side of your screen, in the time remaining we are going to address as many as we can. Please note that if we are unable to address your question during this particular segment, I encourage you to connect with a SCORE mentor after today's webinar . Who can assist with applying the strategies. Also as a reminder we will be sending out this presentation slide deck and a link to the recording later today in a postevent email in which you will have access to the email contact information and can address questions there. As well. With that let's go ahead and jump into these questions. >> Karla, Jody, the first question is from Mike who would like to know how often should we send direct-mail? That is a great question Mike. One of the things we have seen though hearing more and more across the marketing world, is that the more contact you have with the customer the better had one of the things, we are used to maybe 3 to 4 touches per customer . Now we are hearing as many as seven and eight times to a customer to really get there eyes on your information. So one thing that we see that seems to be very popular and useful with our customers is kind of a combination of two emails with one postcard per se. And then look and see how do they respond. Did they like it? Look at your results . Really tracking the results of what's happening is very important. Did they respond better to a simple postcard? Did you find the time of the year definitely plays in this. At the end of the year it's really common to think your best customers with a card. So change the format. It's a sit and look at the results to have a better idea of how many touches. To mix direct-mail with the digital message is always effective and increases the ROI. All right. The next question. This comes from several participants today. Regarding how do you get your target mailing list? >> There is a whole market out there, believe it or not. Click2Mail offers list rentals, business-to-business , and specific to address. Real estate folks are more concerned about the address than the person for example. And then there are list brokers in the industry that you can identify who have a lot of experience helping you figure out which list might be right for your business. So first figure out if you want to do your own research or if you want to partner with a list broker, and then consider the different kinds of list that are available for rental. For example the traditional list rental was a subscription file. If you use to subscribe to Sports Illustrated, that will highly value as a list rental as opposed to a compiled list from the phone book. One other thing that you mentioned earlier, if you have an in-house look, see if you can pick out the characteristics of your best customers, I can't think of the word. Look-alike or clone , those capabilities you might be familiar with from Facebook and LinkedIn. All of this stuff started off-line in the mailing world. It all still exist to support the promotion of your business or the communication with your customers. Through postal mail. Definitely. Thanks. The next question is from Melissa. Are any special permissions needed to send direct-mail to customers? Since GDP are just went and there is a carveout for postal mail. That is important to recognize. It is not considered as disruptive or intrusive, and so no , you don't necessarily need a special permission to mail something through the post. >> All right. The next question is from Dean. Is direct-mail specifically related to need to see or be to be or be to see companies only? All of the above keep it simple. Any business will benefit from direct mail. The challenge is doing the testing necessary to figure out where that interplay works for your business. So whether you send direct our email first, or you do the phone call or the TV ad think about your experience with publishers clearinghouse for example. You figure out how to do the balancing act but mail is for everybody. >> Our next question comes from [indiscernible] who would like to know if there are specific types of business that focus heavily on direct mail? Does it apply to all companies? What we see in our customer mix, kind of across-the-board, our legal , insurance, real estate for sure, service companies , the follow-up piece is really popular. Real estate, I cannot say enough, real estate, real estate, real estate. But legal as well, insurance, people that want to reinforce the value of who and what they are, are using direct-mail. Even air B&B uses direct-mail. Okay. Next question. If your business is online is it still wise to use direct-mail? Absolutely. The example of Google again, when Microsoft came out with their Microsoft places , what they did was they were capturing addresses online and sending out a postcard to make it was a legitimate address. Then they followed up with the Microsoft, I don't know what they call it but their version of add words through Microsoft. People were getting offers . Microsoft for sure and Google ad words for sure, using a combination of messaging to their customers with a physical postcard and the online messaging. The other thing I would like to mention, we have seen some testing I should say where people are using QR codes on postcards, keeping it simple. You can capture the QR code data with Google analytics . Again if you go online there is information about this. It is really simple . You can add a QR code to your mail piece but the person will click the QR code on their phone and you can track the interaction through Google analytics with that information. It shows you again while you may totally be 100 percent online, that piece of mail has driven them online to see you at All right. The next question, from Karen . She asked if it's better to write a personal letter addressed to a CEO for example. Or is it better to stick to a flyer quick It is best to test. We don't know. And we won't know until you actually put a letter and a flyer in the mail, and see which one pools best. Does that make sense? All right. The next question comes from Cheryl. She says perhaps this was addressed earlier but could you explain what type of follow-up you recommend after direct mailing. >> That is a great question. A whole lot of things can happen, for example if the direct mail piece requires them to come online or give you a phone call, are you tracking that information . did they say, call centers will ask often how did you hear about us. Was it a direct mail piece ? Online? How did they hear about it. I was recently in a restaurant and I had gotten an EBD mail piece for Mexican restaurant did when I got there, what I thought was great as they asked what ZIP Code are you in? They wanted to see if it was affect. The best affective. I volunteered my address and said you can send me something. I am hoping the next year for my birthday I will get a coupon to come in on my birthday and have a margarita at the same restaurant did it really again, you have to know if your mail piece is successful, capturing the information when people do respond. And using that information to get back in front of that customer. All right, next question from Laura . She wants to know how to apply for a nonprofit status with the USPS. >> It can be a challenge, because the Postal Service has a lot of forms that have to be filled out. Click2Mail is now offering a service to help you with that process. There are basically two forms you need to fill out. If you want to give us a ring we will talk you through it. If not, those two links are on the website. You can click down the forms and fill it out and give it a whirl on your own. You can go to your local post office and they will provide you with the same forms. The biggest thing for nonprofit status, is you need to have your documentation together. Just because you think you are a nonprofit doesn't necessarily mean you are with the Postal Service. It doesn't hurt , I would suggest you might go in to your post office itself. Just to find out what you need. The other thing you might find also, if you go to . In the search bar look up nonprofit and it should point you to the information to help you get started . I will not deny, it is a little overwhelming. I don't want you to get turned off with it. The biggest thing is have your documentation together, so when you do request that permit, it helps you get started right away . I will add, basically what you have is Click2Mail as a resource that you have your local postal representative, and I will also point out there is an entity called the alliance of nonprofit mailers. If you go to nonprofit they have laid out the forms just like Click2Mail has laid them out, in a straightforward way . There are three resources for that. Thank you that is great. The next question comes from Shannon. Shannon just started a consulting business. She wants to know does direct-mail apply to her ? Sure. Of course it matters what it is you are consulting. And what you are offering. A number of consultants that are sending out prospect letters, whether targeted to the CEO level, management level, or even the mail center level, what you need to do as we articulated in the webinar, is identified what list are aligned with your prospects, what offer you want to put in front of them for them to consider, and how do you want to present your self from a creative point of view. Because they will not know about you if you don't tell them. So we would recommend from an integrated marketing perspective that you test both the usage of mail and digital messaging, in combination . So you can figure out which one to do first, and how you will get the best results. Karla did you want to add quick I think those are all great points. Again, depending on what the services are, kind of a high-end service like [indiscernible] law services. We do, the law offices send out very professional looking letters. Maybe even a brochure that goes into more depth to explain what their services are. So definitely, as opposed to a blind email about your services, a direct mail piece is really again, it enforces the trust of who you are and what your messages. -- Message is. >> The next question is from Robert. Is there a recommended sequence for using mail and email? Great question. That all kind of goes back to testing again. I will tell you what I have seen with some of my midsize customers. What they are doing, they have done email and they have sent several email messages. And feel like nothing happened or maybe they had gotten little back. What have, what they have done as sent out to males, emails , and then sent a postcard out. Ring the brand off-line -- bring the brand off-line so they can stick it on their desk perhaps. It's really about testing. There is no magic formula per se. It is about testing, did you see that your customers responded more when your offer was a free item, or was it better when you get 20 percent off? It is all about the test. One thing with testing, you need to make sure when you are testing, I will send a red postcard and then I will change the whole message and send a yellow postcard. Test one thing at a time. That is true with direct-mail marketing as well as with email. Keep track of what your changes are and what you are really testing. Okay. The next question comes to us from Gordon. What are the postal rates for doing marketing mail? It ranges quite a bit. Postal rates currently, for marketing mail you can mail both first-class as well as at the marketing mail rates and the third option is the nonprofit rate which is even lower . That we covered in the presentation. One item we didn't cover in the presentation that affects the cost of postage, is the shape and the size of the mail piece. Think logically. Postcard is the least expensive, postage cost, 35 percent's -- $.35 is the cheapest rate. That is specific to letter. If it is a flat, a nine by 12 in an envelope, then it will be even more money. So it depends a lot on the format. And it also depends on the mail volume. And how it is prepared for the Postal Service in order to share the worksharing savings related to this. One really critical element that we didn't cover, kind of obvious, is the address quality. If you don't have the address correct, you probably won't get the pizza delivered. Mail is very much like pizza in that regard. We need to validate the addresses we are mailing to. And Click2Mail, and nearly everyone else in the industry does that with you. If you validated the address, then there is a different rate , generally speaking , a benefit to you for having valid addresses that the Postal Service can use. Those are the variables I can think of. If you want to go on to more specifics, we might want to have a one-on-one conversation of what it would cost for you and your business, depending on the size and the volume you want to mail. Okay, great, the next question. How can a business find a good writer if they don't have those skills in house? That is an excellent question. One thing that I use a lot. I use up works . There are some others out there that used to be, they were called , another name . I also have gone to some local community colleges , and some colleges, and posted some things on bulletin boards about job offers for copywriters. The other thing I have seen that is pretty good, is there is a website , hang on I think Karla has it , Jody has it been Let's try LinkedIn, do a direct search for mail copywriters. I have met a number of them in New York. If you don't live in New York, you might not meet them in person. But use that as an COP. Direct-mail copywriters. Individuals that have extensive experience in direct-mail. The other thing worth a mention, PCC postal customer counsel. There are chapters in every state in the union. They are a group of mailers that meet about once a month and talk about male. They are great about sharing information. If they have a writer they are happy with, they are more than happy to share the information with you more than likely. They give a lot of talk about the industry and they are working with the Postal Service to address issues and common concerns. Changes in requirements for Postal Service . It is a free organization and you can go on the Internet and look for PCC. You'll probably find a local chapter in your own area. All right . The next question is from Craig. -- Greg . Is mailing better as a flat postcard, a document or an envelope? My first question, what is the offer and what is your list . Postcards are super popular right now. One of the things I like about a large postcard, it takes up a lot of real estate in the mailbox. It is colorful, you can have information on both sides. You can even perhaps co-share , co-market on the piece with the neighboring business if it makes sense. It gives you a lot of real estate. In the mailbox they will see a big postcard that is colorful and has information. The other thing, depending on what the offer is again, something a little more private. Do you want information that may be private to the recipient, you would want that in an envelope that I will use an example, I got something not to be morbid but something about death benefits , how to plan my funeral. That is not something I want in a great big postcard in my mailbox. A closed letter with a private message is more effective. >> Okay. The next question is from Brenda. She would like to know based off your experience, with full color cards versus a color card with black text . Have you found any colors that are better received by customers ? We know color matters. Starting their by saying, thank you for asking that question about color versus black and white. The Postal Service did introduce in the, and incentive for folks to test for color . Utility tech companies, what they have done is added color advertising to their monthly statements and bills. That is one of the ways that we now know , color can create a bigger response for sales. Because folks may not be paying attention. On the other hand I would encourage you to test and not necessarily take our experience as relevant to your experience . If you test black and white versus color, maybe all of the folks getting stuff from you are getting a lot of colorful material. Black and white will then look different. The differentiating factor is not only the visual, that in the case of male it is the physical touch. The paper and the color, versus the black and white, could really matter. We encourage you to test that. The next question is from Bill . Can you offer any suggestions for using direct-mail to elicit referrals of new customers come from existing customers? One thing you might do is you may send a questionnaire or survey, asking them for the referral. Ask them can I contact you, a little more personal . You have to be careful I would say. You don't necessarily want to pay them for a review or a testimonial . You can definitely send out something that I would say more of a high-end peace like a folded card. Make them feel special. Asking them , we really appreciate your business. Can I use you to refer a friend. There's actually a new product called share mail. What it is is you get the piece of mail, you send me a piece of mail in the mail has my offer on it, but also to other postcards that a recipient could potentially address that mail as incentive to someone that may have the same interest as you. It's called share mail, relatively new. The neat thing about it is the recipient is prequalifying who will get that mail for you. It makes sense to the recipient, Karla sent this to me because we have similar interest or may have interest in the same offer . There are some ways you can do it. Again defining what you are trying to do, something I recommend. Take a look at some of the new share mail concepts that are out there right now. An example might be you go away for the weekend and stay at a fabulous place and they give you free postcards and you tell your friends. Just an example. Our next question comes from Amy who would like to know, do you fill direct-mail, hasn't shown direct-mail is better for different types of mailings. Or is it effective for regular correspondence like quarterly newsletters. Think about the first, going back in history , catalogs were the first thing to spur on commerce interstate. While the world is focused on digital, we strongly believe regular mailings do matter. For maintaining customer relationships and the strength of those relationships. One of mailings might be useful as it relates to an event. Because that is not a regular, available thing. So as always it depends on what you are trying to communicate. We are big proponents that mail will make a difference when you mix it in with any one of your campaigns. Okay. It looks like we have time for one last question. This comes from Nancy who would like to know if you can recommend a few tips for how direct-mail can be used by startup . >> In my neighborhood there were some startup food delivery services. They put a coupon in the mail, to let us know it was available. A postcard, EDDM to the neighborhood, ZIP Code level. It depends on what the startup is doing. In the case of air B&B, they had a competitor startup one time stay that you mail to encourage folks to sign up to the service. So yes, I think it depends , what the startup service is and how mail can be useful to you. The other thing I have seen, we keep saying EDDM covets every door direct-mail by the way . In my neighborhood, Jodi is in New York and I am in Colorado. It's kind of the same thing. One of the things I saw was really neat, a new company locally doing creative online. They sent me a postcard and here I go again, with a QR code. I clicked , using my phone to take a look. It had me fill out more information. Now I am getting a series of emails, nurturing emails. And the other day I got a postcard. So it's we see you are following us and we like that, thank you and we wanted to give you a thank you. And the postcard was sending me back online to take 20 percent off my next order. So a lot of ways startup can use direct-mail to get them started. All right, those are all the questions we have time for today. If we did not have a chance to address your question, we encourage you to direct with the SCORE mentor today. They can be found online or in a local chapter near you. I will post the link in just a moment for you to access information about that . Also if you are interested in becoming a SCORE mentor, you can get information and apply online . I will paste this into the chat box for you. There we go. >> As a reminder, a link to the recording of this session and the presentation slide deck will be sent and a post email. We will send that out in a couple of short hours . On behalf of SCORE I would like to thank you all for taking the time out of your day to attend this session. I would like to give a very big thank you to Karla Humphrey and Jody Berenblatt for sharing with us today. Thank you so much . Thank you. That is it everyone . Have a great rest of your day. Take care. >>[Event concluded] ................
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