If you are trying to cut through the noise of the marketplace and reach a targeted audience quickly, direct mail can be a powerful tool to do it.

In this episode of The Advisory Board Podcast, listen to direct marketing expert, Angie Bynum, who shares insights into B2B and B2C direct mail marketing strategies that actually work.

We cover:
How to build an effective direct mail strategy?
B2B vs B2C direct mail - what works best?
What are the best types of items to send?
How to balance budget and impact with direct mail?
How can you send your items to make them stand out?
What are some good/bad examples of direct mail campaigns?


Want the transcript? Here it is!

Dave Hansen (00:02):
Hey Angie, thanks everybody for joining this episode of the advisory board podcast. I am joined today by the lovely Angie Bynum who is the founder and CEO of Villager Magazine and an expert in direct marketing. Angie, I don't want to elaborate too much on it. Why don't you add a little bit of color to that? What else should everyone know as they listen to this about you?
Angie Bynum (00:24):
Just a quick introduction of where we started out about 11 years ago. We had another business and our biggest challenge was figuring out how to market our business in an affordable way, targeted way. It really was our biggest challenge in our company and so we ended up creating our own direct mail piece. And fast forward 11 years, it started out as just a really small community magazine and now we mail to about 200,000 homes and we've franchised and done some fun things with that. But then in addition to that, we've just added to our marketing toolkit, I guess. And, and we sent out all sorts of funds, direct mail pieces now and, and we just love marketing and everything to do with advertising but mainly direct mail. So. Right.
Dave Hansen (01:18):
Well I'm glad we've got you on the call and I think let's start off with something a little bit lighter and fun. Maybe a couple of examples, but tell me, tell me a little bit about maybe some of the coolest or most effective or even the funniest direct mail pieces that you've seen people use before that have been effective.
Angie Bynum (01:35):
So we'll, we've done, I mean it's been 11 year honestly. I mean sometimes we're pushing companies to be, you know, kind of fun and whimsical and do different things that stand out. One is funny and this is actually an interesting thing. We had a company do a split test, actually a local plastic surgeon office that offer a hair restoration treatment that is really unique. I think they're the only ones in Utah that offer it. And we did a funny split test ad campaign and they sent half of their ads without was very attractive young man with a super thick full and apparently other one was just this funny old guy that, you know, had the comb-over in the hole, you know, you know what some people are trying to avoid these days and did a split test and it was funny. The interesting thing is the young guy with the hopeful head of hair one, so the funny guy with the comb-over but, but yeah, we did that and we then were creative I think funny. It's hard to get companies to step out and do something funny and whimsical even though they're super effective campaign. You actually were telling me about a campaign you recently did that I think is super superb, so maybe you should tell that.
Dave Hansen (03:00):
Oh no. Well I in my bag, I've got a good buddy that I was an early friend of mine professionally who did direct mail. So I've always loved this concept. And I'll, I'll maybe I'll share a story too, cause I'll share one of his stories even though it's not yours. It's funny. But so we were going to a recent event. You're talking about the floppy disks, right? Okay. So we're going to an event now, you know, client ever. We're CRM with sales automation on online reputation, blah, blah blah, right? A technology platform designed for franchise. And so we're going to a franchising conference. So we, we hand picked about, about I think about 250 people that we wanted to send a direct mail piece to. And we got a floppiness like the three and a three and a half floppies and we put a label on them and then we put them in, you know, padded envelopes, handwritten addresses, and sent them out. And and the label, I can't remember what it said exactly, but something to the effect of, Hey, is your, is your franchise? You know, CRM software a little bit out of date. You know,
Angie Bynum (04:00):
When you told me that, I just thought that is brilliant. And first of all, like can you even find floppy disks anymore? So I don't know where you came up with 250 sloppy disks, but I think that's super fun secrets you can find anything on eBay. So the thing I loved about that, like it was whimsical and fun, but anything in direct mail and really any type of marketing, but especially if you're going to have the extensive postage and sending something off, you want to have something that really engages the recipient. And then the other thing that I think was so great about that campaign you spent sent out is a package like that is going to make it up to the decision maker. You know, even if it's just a funny little piece you know, it was going to make it to the hands that you want to get to, you know, it's not going to be, you know intercepted by a gatekeeper. So I thought that was a really fun idea.
Dave Hansen (04:58):
Yeah. I mean even during the recent days I would still have opened up any handwritten envelope sent to me cause I'm like, Oh, what's this? This is cool. Like no people are, and maybe, maybe I can share a funny, like a really interesting story. So a friend of mine, Chris Salway and I'll tell, I'll tag them when I post this cause he's, he worked for a direct marketing guru for years, but they did like really weird stuff. And he told me about his campaign. He actually sent me one in the mail while he was working for this guy who was a canoe paddle. So you know like like five feet long on the blade of the Knute paddle. They use that real estate to put like vinyl lettering that said something like I can't like are you, is your, is your sales automation technology for Creek?
Dave Hansen (05:39):
I can't remember what it was exactly, but to get to the CEOs of fortune 500 companies and so to these guys, I mean the cost to get involved with these guys, for this tech company they were working for was astronomical and just unlikely. And so they did this campaign and he, the funniest part about it was, you know, the ROI was like 12000% ROI. It was like a crazy high ROI. He said, but we would get phone calls about the campaign and people would be, so they would think it was so creative. They'd call him up and say, I had three people follow the package from the mail room to sit in my office while I opened your canoe paddle. That was G they'd have an entourage. Cause what was the last time you saw somebody ship a canoe paddle into a corporate American office?
Angie Bynum (06:24):
Right, right. Well it's really fun. There's a piece that I came out of an ad agency in Canada and I think a couple of agencies since then has duplicated it. And I did like anybody listening to this Google cardboard record player ad campaign. And they actually took a piece of cardboard that folded. You opened it and there was an actual 45 record inside and the cardboard could fold and you know, they had a pin and everything and you actually stuck in a pencil and rotated the record and it would place the messaging. And it was, I mean it actually wasn't a crazy expensive campaign. You know, probably the paddle was much, much more expensive, but it just, you know, it took off like wildfire and it's actually one of the most well known direct mail campaigns ever just because it was so unique. And then it also engaged the recipient. And so, you know, a piece like that probably was passed around the whole office shown to their colleagues, you know, just, you know, really made the rounds and that's, you know, that's the ultimate goal of every marketing campaign is to get as many eyeballs as possible. So, so fun. Yeah. Fun piece like that.
Dave Hansen (07:41):
Totally agree. You know, and I think we could almost spend the whole show just sharing creative and funny ideas of the whole episode. But it brings me to, to wonder, like, I've also seen really terrible direct marketing pieces where people say like they're trying to do it, but literally send me like a foam Chachi in the mail. I'm like, why? Why I should, I had somebody wants, they met and they sent me a, a poop emoji, a phone poop emoji in the mail. And I was like, I don't know yet. It had their name on it. And I was like, let me get this straight. You just sent me, there was some sales technology company at the time, I was VP of sales at a translation company and they're like, eh, but they're trying to get me to use their service. I'm like, you just sent me a foam poop emoji with your logo on it because you want me to use your cell service. Like there was no connection, no emotional connection. I was like, well that was a pretty crappy campaign, pun intended. And they wasted so much shipping cause it was in walks, you know?
Angie Bynum (08:36):
Yeah. Whatever I can say is that would probably a really, really expensive campaign. And I do think that sometimes in marketing we get, you know, we might fall in love with our own ideas and really, you know, thinks that we, you know, this is going to be so funny or this is going to be so, you know, get so much attention. And it might get, but you've got to know your audience and you also have to have the ability to kind of step outside yourself and say, okay, if I received this from a random company I've never heard of, is that something I want to get? And I'm like, well, I'm actually working with a couple of companies right now that we're sending a nice little care package that we'll have a little bottle of hand sanitizer that'