Is Direct Mail Back? The 2026 Growth Strategy for Service Businesses

Is direct mail actually back in 2026 — or is it a dinosaur channel that should stay extinct?

In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson sits down with Sam Preston (CEO of Service Scalers) to break down how the best home service companies are using direct mail as direct response, why some operators get 14x ROI while others lose money mailing the same market, and the exact levers you can pull to make mailers perform (audience, offer, format, frequency, and iteration).

They also get into why “legacy media” still works when executed well, how to think about underserved markets, and why your offer + ticket size determines whether direct mail prints money… or burns it.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why “someone in your market is winning” with direct mail (even if you think it’s dead)
• The 4 audiences to mail (members → active customers → inactive customers → net-new)
• What formats work: postcards, letters, Valpak, door hangers, even “weird” creative mail

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Host: John Wilson — https://x.com/WilsonCompanies
Guest: Sam Preston (Service Scalers) https://www.linkedin.com/in/sampreston/ 

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John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC

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Transcript

OAO 286

[00:00:00] Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I am your host, John Wilson. During the day, I run a plumbing, HVAC and electric company in northeast Ohio and Indiana now. Uh, and for fun, I run a podcast where I talk about scaling our business with our friends. Today I'm joined on the show by my good friends, Sam Preston, the CEO of service Scalers.

Welcome to the show. 

Welcome everybody. I'm excited to be here, uh, and talk direct mail. 

Yeah. Yeah. This one should be fun. So we're, this is our continuation of the series, uh, clicks to calls, uh, which this is kind of funny because this has nothing to do with clicks at all, but it is direct response. Uh, and some people absolutely kill it with direct mail, which I think is so like, so cool.

Um, 

unless, yeah, we're gonna, you're using a QR code. On your mailer where they click it, go to your website, become there, it's we or directly to a phone there. It's like, yeah, I think, I think we can still click, 

click to call it. It can get there. It can get there. Yeah. Um, okay. Before we get too deep into the topic, I would be [00:01:00] remiss if I did not mention that you're hosting a workshop in a month.

In a month. Yeah. Um. And every day I find out more about it. But you're hosting it in Stowe, so you're hosting it at my facility. Yeah. Uh, so that should be fun. It'll be nice to see you. And, uh, did you 

even know we're coming? I, 

I, Kristen told me like last week, uh oh. Yes. 

Yes. I wish he'd never told you. You, and you 

just 

found out the day of 

I'm finding more, I'm finding out more about it, uh, almost every day.

Um, I'm honestly, I'm mainly just like glad that I'm in town, uh, for it, but. Um, so yeah, so, uh, you guys are hosting a workshop, uh, it's called Booked Solid. Mm-hmm. And I think it's just teaching folks how to really run with the ball on their marketing and home service. 

I'm really excited about it. We just built out the itinerary this morning.

Um, and so we first take a high level approach to understanding marketing. Um, and then we drill down. We're gonna teach you about all these [00:02:00] different channels. Uh, this is not a, uh, beginner's one-on-one course. Uh, but what we are going to do is try to help you understand what it, what it is each, each different channel, uh, the campaigns or the strategies that actually work in those channels.

How to understand what's working in your marketing, what's not working in your marketing. And then based on what you're doing, help you build out a 98 plan. To get more leads to fill your call board, uh, and to have an amazing 2026. So it's gonna be really good. We're gonna be bringing in experts in each one of these different channels.

Uh, we even brought in a different marketing agency to talk like traditional marketing and how to win, uh, on those. So, um. It's gonna be really good. I'm very excited. Yeah, that's sweet. And uh, if you haven't go get yourself a seat 'cause it's gonna be legit. 

Yeah, no, that sounds freaking awesome, dude. That sounds cool.

Alright, cool. Well, I look forward to, uh, watching. 

Yeah. You might even get to see John in the wild, just like 

Yeah, 

yeah, no, you, you probably will like put Yeah. Pulling [00:03:00] my hair out, uh, because so we did, um. I think we've said this on the show a little bit, but we, I, we bought a business on, uh, day one was the 1st of January.

Hmm. 

Uh, we're, we've been actively, like, we took control of the business early January, the same day actually. Uh, but we are actually gonna own it, um, this week. Uh, so that's pretty cool. And it's February 4th or third today. And then, um, we have three or four other active conversations. So like, we're gonna attempt.

To get one done in March. Uh, so we'll see. That could be like closing week, but we're gonna try to get, you know, we, we wanted to, the original plan was, Hey, I wanna buy two to four businesses, uh, this year. Uh, well two's done and it's, you know, we're 32 days into the year, uh, and we wanted to go from one location to three locations and have a new state under our belt.

So like, that's about to be done. So we're really excited about that. Uh, but what will probably [00:04:00] happen is, you know, the deal engine's working. Um, honestly, a lot of folks from the podcast, which has been really fun, like the two that we just did are from the show, like people that reached out and said like, Hey, I'm interested.

Um, and then two of the other conversations that we have going right now are also from the show. So that is really cool. Um, so one that's kind of fun, uh, two. Plug, uh, if you wanna partner with me, LMK, we're actively, uh, partnering. We're actively acquiring. If you're in the Midwest, uh, we're down to have a conversation, so lemme know.

Um, okay, let's dive in. Today we're talking direct mail. 

Direct mail. So what I understand, I, I know, I know some basic stuff about direct mail, mostly from like conversations I've had with clients. I did do a little Googling to see like what I can learn and common mistakes. Yeah. Uh, but take me through it.

If I'm a [00:05:00] beginner, I feel like direct mail is like this old dinosaur marketing activity that no one does anymore. Um. Or like from my clients who I, who absolutely love it. It's like the like secret thing that nobody knows about, but it still works. 

Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, I, I think that could be said about a lot of legacy media, so like tv.

Uh, Hey. Does TV still work well? Yeah, of course it is. It's the cheapest way to reach the most amount of people, like it's, it still is today. Um, does radio still work? I, I feel like there's a lot of, does that still works? And then when you do, and that's just because like, we're currently programmed to think that, oh, it's the digital age, like mail doesn't produce, um.

But when you double click or when you talk to a few other people, like, yeah, hey, it works. Someone out there is finding results with that medium. Um, and I, I don't remember what our topic, oh, it was with PPC, we talked about this [00:06:00] last week with PPC. Someone out there in your market is winning with this channel, like somebody's doing it.

And the example that we gave last week during PPC. Was direct mail, which was really funny. We had this, uh, little get together in Charleston in, uh, September, right? 

Yep. Yep. 

And we had, uh, two good friends of mine, so Matt from Call Dad and Brandon from Preferred. And, uh, they, they were both doing, they both are multi-location shops and they were both doing direct mail in the same market, same market.

Uh, and for one of them, they were getting a 14 times return on investment, which means that for every dollar that they spent on direct mail, they received $14 of revenue. So like 14 is humongous. Uh, in our, in our business, like we measure success at like six, right? Yeah. Uh, so 14 is like, holy smokes. Do that all day long.

Never change. Never stop [00:07:00] doing it. Uh, yeah, I, like, I don't have, you know, we've hit 14 occasionally, but like, never, like, you know, regularly, um. So, yeah, so 14 feels really good. Uh, and, and, um, my friend Brandon, he was like, dude, we're, we're getting like a one times, like, we're not getting anything. Like, we might even be negative some months and we're mailing the same people.

Yeah. 

So it, it was, it was the, it was the funniest version of someone in your market's doing it, and they just happen to be in the same room that day. Uh, but someone in your market is killing it on direct mail. So, um. Yeah, I've, we have tried direct mail over the years. Right now we're not doing any direct mail, so like, big caveat, uh, but we've done a lot of direct mail over the years.

We've spent a tremendous amount of money on it. We've had sometimes good results, sometimes bad results, sometimes great results, and sometimes negative. So like all over the freaking bored. Um, I think, uh, I can talk [00:08:00] about the wins. Um. And I think we can just spend a little bit of time on like, what is direct mail, how's it work?

Why is this maybe a good time? Uh, we actually just had Isaac Zimmerman on maybe two months ago, three months ago. We were out at his shop in October and we did a live show there. And a lot of what our conversation was about was about his success with direct mail. And he's spending, I think, a hundred thousand dollars a month right now as a plumbing business doing direct mail, just driving more and more leads.

And what was kind of funny about direct mail is it, it's direct response. And if we think about direct response, that's meta, that's TikTok, like it's all the same thing, right? Uh, arguably there's just much more competition on meta or TikTok or whatever for attention. But you're doing something to elicit an immediate response, direct response marketing.

So that's what mail is. So we're gonna send someone mail, we're gonna design it, we're gonna, [00:09:00] all the energy that we would put into designing a great Facebook ad, we're gonna put that into a mailer to try to get a response. Out of this person. Honestly, I think the conversion rates are supposed to be pretty similar.

Like one to 2% is gonna be good. I think one to 2% is probably good for, uh, meta ads. I, I don't know. Um, so yeah, it, it very similar to me. Just I think less competition. 

I love that my, um, I worked with the guy who built the, uh, potato direct response. Uh, campaign. Do you ever see this? 

Uh, which one 

It was, uh, it was the original one, so it's a, okay.

Okay. 

B2B, uh, outbound like mailer. Campaign where businesses would pay him to write notes on a potato, he would then send that, that potato to somebody's office and they would get it and read it and respond. He [00:10:00] built that and actually just sold it to somebody else who then, uh, made it really big. So, um, that's the idea is you want that moment, I guess.

Yeah. To have like, oh yeah, like this is unique. Maybe, maybe not a potato, but you could try that. Yeah. Uh, but like, you know, this is unique. I, I have a message and I want to get a response from it. 

Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of different ways to do that. So let's dive in. Alright. First, uh, what is direct mail?

I think we can define it pretty quick. Um, for those of you younger folks out there that have never heard of it, uh, so it's physical marketing that is delivered, uh, to your home. So. Postcards, flyers, letters, or like Valpak has these, uh, bundle, uh, things. And I think any of those are fair game. I think that, um, from what I've seen as I've, like, talked to people and experimented with our ourselves, uh, it just, it changes every couple of years as [00:11:00] far as like what's gonna work the best.

And I think the exper the, it's again very similar to Facebook ads. The way to succeed is like constant experimentation. Like, you find something that works really well and then you just, you experiment with like, tests and you just keep trying. Um, but letters are interesting. Postcards are interesting.

Flyers are interesting. ValPak's interesting. I think one of the fun things about mail is that, uh, like with, with uh, uh, Facebook ad, the goal is how do you get their attention? So like, uh, sound, uh, color movement, like all the things that's gonna, uh, capture someone's attention. With mail, it's the same thing.

Like how do you stand out inside the mailbox? How do you get someone's attention? Uh, and I think that's kind of a fun component where you get to spend a lot of time like, Hey, should I do a gigantic postcard or a small postcard? Should I make the postcard look like the utility company sent it? Should I send a letter and should it be a huge.

Uh, I had a friend and, uh, I had a friend send certified mail once and [00:12:00] like, it, it got a horrible customer reception because, uh, because it was like, they, people hated it so much, but I bet open rate was a hundred percent. 

Oh yeah, yeah, 

yeah. So, uh, it was kind of funny. So like you can really experiment from like, Hey, I'm gonna leave this flyer on your door to like, I can send you certified letter.

Or I can send you a box or, or whatever. So you have a lot of, like, creativity has no end. Yeah. Uh, with direct mail and I, I, I almost think you need to, the more creative probably the better because you can approach it differently. And if you approach it like Facebook or, Hey, how do I get someone's attention?

You're probably gonna do pretty well 

Now from what I've, when I was researching it, like mistakes people make is one of 'em is they, uh, do it one time. So they just like do a blast. Yes. And they're like, oh, it doesn't work. Okay. So I'm gonna move on. 

Yeah. 

So for you, do you know like what is the, like how many [00:13:00] times you need to send something out for a test?

Yeah. To know whether it worked or not before you, like start reading. 

I think, I think this is like, who are you mailing? So there's, uh, three different audiences that you could mail. There's, I'm gonna make it four. Four different audiences you could mail. 'cause customers has two segments, which I was gonna just make one.

Yeah. But we have members, so like we have a membership, so we could go direct mail our members and say, Hey, it's time for your whatever. Or I have a garbage disposal tune up, or, you know, whatever the hell, uh, they're more likely to do something than, um, like me sending a Valpak mailer to. A million people.

Mm-hmm. So I think when you are, when you're working on direct mail and when you're talking to people about direct mail, I'll go through the other three really quick, but who are they mailing to? Yeah. Because the ROI that somebody has for the fourth category versus the first are super [00:14:00] different and very different conversion rates.

So you just wanna be thoughtful about that. So the, the first one's members, they're the most likely to spend money with you because they already do. The second is active customers, which is probably gonna be like they've used you in the last two or three years. So they're an active customer, but they're not a member.

So again, they're more likely to spend money with you. They have seen you within the past 24 months. They, they're in your email system, whatever the third is inactive customers. So somebody that I did work for 10 years ago, they touched us once. We can remind 'em, Hey, we unclogged your toilet. You want to.

Unclog your toilet again, you know, just pitching ideas. I don't, I don't know. I'm out here. Being scrappy. Sounds solid to me. Yeah, that's really good, really good pitch. And uh, and then the fourth one is people who have never been customers. And I think that this is what people often think of with direct mail is like these mass mailing campaigns where I send a million letters at the same time and I cover my whole neighborhood or area business, [00:15:00] you know, whatever.

It's, so, uh, so those are the four different, um, groups that you could mail to and. You obviously will expect totally different results by who, whoever it is that you're gonna mail to, like, I'm going to, I should expect a different result if I spend, if I send a thousand letters to people who have never heard of me versus people who actively pay me a membership fee once a month, right?

Like I should expect very different results. So on, on the far end, you know, Hey, this guy's never heard of me. Maybe they're brand familiar, just 'cause we're a big company around here. Um, maybe that's a 1% conversion rate. So if I send a thousand letters, I will get 10. Calls. 

Yeah, 

maybe that's great. Um, on the other side, if I send a thousand letters to members, I'll probably get something like 60 calls.

Like I will get a lot out of that because they pay me money actively every month. Yeah. Uh, so there's a lot of trust already built up. Um, and I've already stood out to them and they've already made a buying decision to buy from me. [00:16:00] Mm-hmm. So, um. Yeah, I'd just be really cautious. One, when you're thinking about direct mail, who are we direct mailing?

And that's a really important first place to start. 

Mm-hmm. 

Uh, like if you're direct mailing members or active customers, you're gonna get a great result. Like they're actively using you. They liked you, they paid you some money. If you are mailing people who have never heard of you and they're an hour away, maybe not, um, that doesn't mean don't do it.

It's just like, that's clearly harder. Yeah. 

Okay. And so when you're thinking of it, um. You know, at your size, are you, like, let's say y'all wanted to run a direct mail campaign. Is that something your marketing manager's dealing with? Are you outsourcing that to an agency or are you doing that internally?

Something else? 

Yeah, we've done both. Um, so we've done agency, like someone has to do the design. Mm-hmm. So mail is like high design. It's high touch. So like you have to be iterating pretty frequently. Um. So, yeah, we've done it in-house. We've [00:17:00] sent it to agencies. We've used Valpak, they have like internal design tools.

Um, I think that the best, the folks that I know that do this the best, uh, fully insource it. Like they, they produce it internally 'cause you, because it, it is very similar to meta ads. Like you have to be able to. Iterate fast. Like you have to be able to go shoot the next video and do the next thing. And hey, we lost people right after the hook.

What do we do? It's the same thing with letters. The hook as they open the letter, did, did we, did, did they carry through to the, where we wanted them to? Did they read it? Did they call? Um, so I think it's a very, like, high touch marketing source, but I, I think it can be super, super productive. 

Yeah. No. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I have people, uh, I have quite a few clients actually that swear by direct mail.

Like it was a thing they, that their company's been built on for the last 20 years. Even the people that have bought the company, they're like, Hey, this is like one of our best lead sources. Um, yeah. And so like, I think it's a serious one. [00:18:00] Uh, and something like I've thought about bringing internally for the agency so that we could offer as a service have not need to find the right person to be able to do that.

Uh, but I also think it makes a lot of sense that. If you are gonna do this to internalize this and make sure that it's always 

Yeah. 

Being iterated on. 

Yeah. I think the iteration is probably the difference between like a six times and a 14. 

Mm-hmm. 

Like you can get a response if you want the greatest response in the industry.

Like it's gonna take the greatest amount of effort you have to give. Yeah. Like you don't just get to like delegate that. 

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Agreed. 

All right. Um, why mailers matter in 2026? 

I think, you know, um, one, because I don't think it's sexy. You know, I think I, I, you know, LSA right now, GBP, like, I think those are sexy people are going there.

I mean, it's [00:19:00] still like a lot to get out of those different, uh, channels, but everyone's going there. You know, not a lot of people aren't gonna list. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's definitely easy, um, 

with like, it, when I say easy, I mean it's like low friction. So if I, if we wanted, we could go do that and launch, uh, an LSA campaign fairly quickly.

Yes. Mail takes two weeks. Like there's a lot of friction between, um. Like, Hey, I want to do this mailer. And people got it in their mailbox, like there's a lot that goes on. You have to pick a vendor, you have to choose the homes, you have to identify how you're choosing the homes. You have to design it, you have to print it, you have to mail it, and then it has to get mailed, like delivered, and that takes a week.

So it's just a, there's a lot of moving parts with mail, so it's not that it's easier, there's just like way more friction with mail. Which I do think creates huge opportunities. It's the same as like canvassing or like [00:20:00] retail or events. Hey, this is hard. This is super high touch. Uh, the only way to do well here is to execute well.

Um, yeah. So that means you can win if you execute well, 

you know, I think as you've been talking about going into, um. Like areas that there aren't a lot of competition and buying businesses there, I think you're probably gonna find some of those same areas that don't have a lot of competition in mailers.

Oh yeah. And I think that's where the big opportunities are gonna be. Yes. Um, and figuring that out. Um. You know, I've been, I've been preparing for this, uh, conversation and like been like kinda excited to go out to my mailbox to see if there's any mailers in there. Just like, check it out. Nothing. I've got nothing right now.

Uh, so that's maybe, that's interesting. Maybe that's just the time of year. 

Alright, so if you're listening, we have to mail Sam's house. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. What was your 

buy? 

I'm trying buy. Yeah, 

yeah, yeah, 

yeah. 

Um, 

so yeah. That, that is in, that is interesting though. Yeah. That is interesting. [00:21:00] Oh, I, I do wonder, um, I'm, I'm really obsessed with this idea on, uh, like underserved markets.

I, I just think it sounds okay. So there's like, there's two different components to scaling a service business. I'm gonna dumb this down. Like obviously there's a lot more than this, but. You have to get leads and then you have to get the people to sell those leads and, and like execute on them. And like that, like, yes, there's a lot more, but like, yeah, I mean that's, you know, it starts there, right?

Like your core two problems that any business has. I don't have enough leads. I don't have enough people, right? Like it's, yeah, there's other stuff, but those are the big ones. Um, so I'm obsessed with like being able to solve the first one. By just going where nobody else is at. And I've always loved that idea.

I've always loved, Hey, nobody else is doing this thing. That means I should probably do it because like, if there's no other fish there, like, let's go fish. 

Yeah, 

yeah, yeah. Or be a fish. I don't know. I messed up my line. But like, [00:22:00] yeah, I, I think I, I think it's cool. So we're, um. Yeah, I think we we're looking at these, uh, businesses that are just growing really, like the fastest growing businesses that I know are in the middle of freaking nowhere right now, just because there's nobody competing with 'em.

Uh, and I, yeah, I'll kind of love it. Um, so yeah, maybe direct mail in a more rural, like, Hey, pick a city that's 45 minutes away from you that has 50 to a hundred thousand people in it. That is like, they only have two plumbers and just mail the shit out it for six months. You'll probably own the whole city.

Yeah. Like they'll make you the mayor. 

Yeah. 

Yeah, 

yeah, yeah. No, I, and you 

could do it for like five grand a month. Probably. You could do it for nothing. 

I think so. Um, I also think this, because it's such a branding type of marketing, like you get your logo in front of 'em, you get your colors, you have a chance to, uh, you know, be professional.

They're basically seeing an ad. Um, like this is the [00:23:00] moment where they do go to Google and they do search for you. Yes. Or search for like, your service and you pop up. They're like, oh yeah, I've seen that before. It's kinda like trucks, uh, where you, uh, when you brand them. Like, I, I think this helps your entire marketing at some point.

Um, specifically if you're trying to own an area. 

Yeah. No, I think so too. I think so too. Yeah, I think it could be good. And I think there are probably, I think there is a lot of opportunity just because, um, I, I'm always surprised when I get on Facebook marketplace, I'm surprised by the amount of HVAC and plumbing companies that I see in there.

And I'm like, looking for like a sofa, right? Yeah. I'm like looking for like nothing to do with HVAC or plumbing and um, and I'm just like, dude this com, like, what's this guy doing on here? Like, they've like have one person and this guy's got like 50 and. Uh, it's just always interesting and I think it's because you can do it.

Um, but it's where everybody else is. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. So I think that to me that's the why this matters in [00:24:00] 2026 is if everyone else is over here, maybe I should be looking over here. Yeah. And maybe there's some alpha to win. Uh, over here. And I, I honestly, I think that's over the past 10 years, that's been a big part of our growth story is continuing to find those pockets where people aren't.

And the pocket that I'm currently obsessed with is like geographic pockets. It's been ma mainly like lead driven. Like, oh yeah, I don't think people are driving leads here, let's go here or here. Uh, but now I'm like, Hey, geographically I can get $10 million over here and nobody else is trying for it. Yeah, I think we should just do it.

Like, I'm pretty sure I can win. Um, yeah. So that's why I think it matters in 2026, less competition. Um, it also, there's a, this is kind of funny, but there's a spark of legitimacy with direct mail. 

Mm-hmm. 

And I think, which, you know, I, I think like 20 years ago was probably like, not the case, but I think in, in, uh, in [00:25:00] 2026, like if someone's mailing me.

I'm like, okay. Like I know a couple things about this business. 

Yeah. 

One, they definitely are gonna serve my home. Like they, because they, they mailed me, right? Yeah. Like I'm not on Google, like, yeah, do you drive out this far? Like, no, you fucking mailed me. Like, yeah. Yeah. Uh, and this was a real thing. I actually chose my landscaping vendor.

F like for my home from direct mail. 'cause I couldn't find anybody and I kept calling all these freaking people and they're like, yeah, you're not on our route or whatever. So this was a real, like, part of my consideration was this, this motherfucker mailed me. I have to be on his route. And, and I was, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, so, so there's high trust. You assumed they're kind of a real business, which is kind of funny 'cause uh, you know, anyone can fake anything on the internet, but like, this guy mailed me. Yeah. You know, he's got, he's got some marketing budget. The, the design looks pretty [00:26:00] good. Yeah. Like, I think this is a legitimate business.

I'm gonna let him mow my lawn and, uh, take down my trees or whatever. Um, so yeah, I, I, I think there's like a spark of legitimacy and trust. That's gained just 'cause I've experienced it as a consumer. Like I have brought on services for my home from direct mail. 'cause it it, hey, it caught me at the right time.

Yeah, 

I just moved into the house three years ago. I didn't know how to find a landscaper. My old landscaper, I wast on his route. I tried calling others, other people, they, I was on their route. This guy happened to mail at the perfect freaky moment and I'm like, I know I'm on this dude's route 'cause he fucking mailed me.

And uh, and like yeah, four years later he, he's like still doing our landscaping, which I think is kind of sweet. 

I think he's got make, make a lot of sense for landscapers, like people that mow lawn. 

Oh yeah. 

Like you get one 

neighborhood pest control, landscaping pools. 

Yeah. 

Totally. Power washing. Very route driven.

[00:27:00] 'cause you could just hammer a neighborhood. Yeah. No, I'm sorry. I'm 

right. And then once you're in like one neighborhood, then you get the referrals on that neighborhood. And then when you're planning out your routes for your team, it's just like, all in this neighborhood. Like, yeah. I, I, I feel like that's gonna work really well.

Yeah. No, I think so too. I think so too. Okay. Um, let's hit how to actually get them to perform. 

John, 

I have a friend. Do 

you have a 

friend? I have a friend. I have a friend, one, his name's Isaac. He would, I have one friend, one single friend, and, uh, and he doesn't even think I'm a friend, so, you know, he doesn't like me that much.

He's not that into me. Uh, so I have one single friend and, uh, he's got, he's, he's like driving a ton of success through direct mail right now. He's loving it. And, um, it was funny, I went to his office in Chicago and we just, like, he opened it up and he, he's like, here's how we're doing it. He's using a service called Postmates and he is using a service called, um, [00:28:00] I don't remember what all, he had like a tech stack involved.

There was HubSpot involved in there at one point, and he's in Chicago, so like really big market, lots of people to mail like 11 million or 8 million or whatever people to mail. So a lot of people. Um, but he was really locking it in. So what he did was he found. A hey, this, this letter works. So he found his first one that works.

Like, I'm gonna send this letter and it's gonna consistently drive a nine to 11 times return on investment, which is humongous again, like, 

yeah. 

Uh, Digi for dig six times, five times. Like we have some below that. Uh, we have some, we do have some above that, but six times is sort of like, we'll accept it like.

11, 12 times. Like you can scale that thing to the moon. Like you just found your path to, you know, whatever million you want. 

Yeah. 

Um, so yeah, he found this letter and then he started just iterating and testing outside of that letter. So, okay, hey, this works [00:29:00] okay. Hey, this works. I'm gonna keep iterating, I'm gonna keep testing.

Um, and he now runs, I think he's running like 20 different campaigns a month to a bunch of different. I, I think it's 40,000 letters a week. It, it's some like absolutely outlandish number gets sent from his, uh, business a week to all these customers. Uh, but it's what he focused on was one offer that drove the response that he wanted and then he just came up with 19 other ways to word it, or 19 other ways to do the graphics or the photo.

Hey, does it work best? Black and white? Does it work really well? Fully colored and blue? How about red? And it's, it's very like, it's direct response marketing. It's meta ads, it's all these things that like, I'm gonna do this thing and I expect an immediate response. And here, or like how to build a landing page.

It really is like very reminiscent of that. Um, so you build one, you test it, you get the ROI you want, and then you just build more next to it and you just keep building and improving and tweaking. [00:30:00] Um, what we have found a lot of success with, it feels a lot like canvassing for us. Uh, HVAC tuneups work really well.

Water heater promos work well. Uh, the word in your neighborhood campaigns work really well. Um, and design is a really big part of it. So for like the HVAC tuneups, tons of people have done this. I'm not inventing this, uh, but people use it looks like the gas company data postcard. It's a bright yellow postcard.

It's time for your tuneup. It was due on X. The last one you did was x. Uh, it looks like the gas company or the power company, uh, sent you a postcard, so that elicits a pretty big response. Um, but yeah, I, I, I think the iteration in the finding the offer that works and then coming up with a way to deliver on that offer is probably the big way to handle direct mail and just continuing to iterate as many times as you can.

Does the shape of the letter matter? Does the length of the letter matter? Is it better at 50 words or 500 words? Is a [00:31:00] postcard better, like in every iteration, uh, of that. But based on my, my, um, my core, that produces a consistent result. 

Yeah. 

So it's like scientific method. So you're gonna find your baseline and then you're gonna test against that base.

Mm-hmm. We're science based baby. 

We're science. This is science. Yeah. This is an art and a science. Yeah. 

This science guy. Sorry about that. 

I think the other things that drive, uh, like high results, consistency. You said this like, do I do a one off? Do I do like consistent mail every week, every month, every whatever.

How often am I touching that inbox or that, uh, mailbox? Um, we were a big fan of twice a month. That seems good. Again, it depends a lot on who you're mailing. Are you mailing an active member, an active customer, inactive customer, like someone you've never talked to before? Uh, someone you've never talked to might take six months of receiving direct mail before you get a call.

[00:32:00] Um, 

how big do you, do you think you need the audience size to be, for it to make sense? 

Yeah. 

Like if I, 

I mean, I think it depends. Depends on the size of the business. 

Yeah. 

Well, a hundred people, if they're active members. Is a lot of people. 'cause you might get, I mean, you might get 20 or 30 leads off of that.

Yeah. 

But a hundred people, if you've never talked to 'em before, is probably, you'll only get one. 

Okay. 

You 

know, if it's, it's a one to 2% conversion rate for non, like, for net new, uh, contacts. 

Okay. So if you're needing a hundred leads a week, then you have to have at least a, you know, a thousand, 10,000.

10,000 people 

that's 10,000. Yeah. 

Yeah. Nope, that makes sense. 

Which like is not that much to me, 10,000 letters. So I would, I would say it's, it's not, uh, well, it could be 10,000, 10,000 people, which like, that's not that much. Um, but you could also mail the same people just like on repeat. Again, it takes a bunch of contacts, so you almost want to show up in the inbox [00:33:00] more and more and more, or mailbox more and more and more.

Okay. So if I'm wanting a hundred leads, is that a, uh, if I'm wanting a hundred leads a week. Four weeks in a month and you probably need 40,000, right? Or am I getting too much in the math? 

No, and I think you're right. 

Okay, so you need 40,000 people. If I want a hundred leads a week, and I'm just emailing those same people.

And obviously again, this is not the, the, you know, already members, already customer, brand new people. This is kind of where we're going to try to get net new people into the door. 

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something that should be kind of obvious, but I, I think that, uh, people mess this up a lot.

Um, what is the offer? 

Mm-hmm. 

It's an important part of the equation. If you're spending money on marketing and you're there to drive a return on your investment, what are you marketing? So, like, I've seen people do direct mail for like sum pumps. I'm like, yeah, you could do [00:34:00] that. That the, the ticket on a sump pump might be like 700 bucks.

Yeah. 

It's gonna be really hard to drive ROI on a $700 average. Average ticket. 

Yeah. 

It's gonna be hard to drive it on less than that. The people that I, I think this is the sort of the hidden secret sauce of direct mail is what are you selling? Like, what is the offer and what are you gonna do when you get out there?

Mm-hmm. So, again, Isaac, who, he's a great example of direct mail right now. Well, the thing he's selling is a sewer replacement and his sewer replacement might be like $15,000. Mm. Okay. Mm-hmm. If his ad campaign costs $45,000 and he's sending to a hundred thousand people a month, then he only needs three to break even.

Yeah. 

If you're, if you're mailing less, like you might only need one to break even. 

Yeah. 

So how big is the thing that you're selling, and is the offer that you're putting in front of this customer, like, is it going to get the behavior that you want on [00:35:00] the big thing that you want? If you're selling roofs, pop off.

Yeah, if you're selling like doggy backyard shit cleanup like at a hundred dollars a month or whatever, that might be hard ho honestly, it might just be hard to drive ROI off of that because the ticket is so small. 

Yeah. I mean, when, when we thought and think about like writing, um, writing like ad copy, we really generally like to focus on.

Job to be done. Mm-hmm. Uh, so what is the job that somebody's trying to do? Yeah. Uh, and then help them do it. Right. You, you want to take that pain away. Um, and so the example I always give is, you know, you got a dad who's. Just worked a 12 hour shift. He's going, he's driving home and he remembers on his way home, it's his turn to, uh, feed the family tonight.

So while he is driving, he sees a pizza joint on the left. Uh, that pizza joint could market and advertise in any way. He could talk about how hot the pizza is or how cheesy it is, or [00:36:00] how it's the best in all the kingdom. Uh, but right now. What, what I think is the best copy is to say, make it easy to feed your family tonight.

Yeah. 

Because I'm definitely pulling over, I'm grabbing a $15 pizza, $20 pizza. Yeah. And I'm going home. So that makes a ton of 

sense. 

I think that's what I would do when I'm focusing the copy here is, you know, I don't, I don't know if, and you tell me like, how often does somebody in a house just know they need a, to replace a sump pump or, or you know, something in that, like I would focus on like.

You know, what is the job that they're trying to do? And that that job might be like, cool, keep your house cool. Lower the energy bill. Like focus on the thing that they're trying to do, and then make it easy for them to have that problem solved. 

I think it's both. I think it's how do you take that? How do you like come up with an offer that solves someone's existing pain point, and how do you make sure you're not solving for too low value of a problem?

Mm. 

[00:37:00] Mm-hmm. 

Like, Hey, make sure your water bill doesn't go up. Well, that's a pain point. Yeah. Like maybe my water bill's super high or like my city's raising rates, but like maybe my solution is die testing a toilet, which is 150 bucks. 

Yeah. 

Like, that's just gonna be hard to drive ROI on versus the, you know, the, in that in Charleston, the two people that we were talking to, the one guy that was driving a 14 times ROI was selling HVAC systems.

His average ticket is probably like 16, $17,000. 

Yeah. 

One single system probably paid for the entire campaign every month. And then you're like in the positive. So it, the way that I like to think about it is one, one, but we, we dumb it down to how many of these things do I need to sell to pay for this campaign?

Yeah. Do I need to sell one and then the campaign's in the positive, or do I need to sell 50? And if I'm, if, if it's 50, then like I'm probably doing the wrong thing. 

Yeah. [00:38:00] Yep. Agreed. 

Yeah. I've sent a bunch of like wrong campaigns out where I just focus on too low of a value and I, and I was always doing it because I was like, oh, everyone advertises for systems.

I wanna be the guy that advertises for, I don't know, like this plumbing repair. 

Yeah, 

but it's like, yeah, well everyone does systems because that's the thing that's gonna freaking ROI like no shit. That, that makes sense. No shit to me. I'm talking to myself. Oh, John, John from five years ago. You were, you were young.

You were young. Um, 

only you could talk to yourself. 

Yeah, I, yeah, I, I have opinions on myself. 

Say, yeah. Um, no. Love that. 

Alright, 

con, go ahead. 

Yeah, go ahead. 

I was gonna say, the other thing that I've seen, um, when I was like looking up for like, hey, common mistakes people make Yeah. And I think this is true, is only putting their [00:39:00] main offer on one side.

Yeah. 

Of the, of, of the thing. So like people see your ad and they move on in they're mail. Yeah. Um, but if you, and if you get the wrong side, like you, you have one side that's just their address and the other side's your offer, like you're missing out. That address side is just as important. Uh, and so making sure that on both sides that you are, uh, getting your cha, your one second chance to hook them into making a decision.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I agree. I agree. Alright, so we, let's go over all the different things you can sort of experiment with. You can, you can pick who you're gonna mail. Mm-hmm. Members, customers, non-current customers, and like potential customers. Um, you can change what you're gonna mail, postcards, flyers, letters, boxes.

I get chocolate a lot from like B2B. Places. So if you wanna send chocolate, our office is, uh, accepting it. Um, that's always good. Uh, so you [00:40:00] can like, send goods, uh, which is kinda interesting. Um, so you can send a lot, uh, you can make it look roughly however you want. 'cause you can send almost whatever you want in your direct mail.

It could be long letters, short letters, postcards, flyers, door hangers, whatever. Um, so you can send all of that. You can change the zip codes. Uh, like you can do route based, you can do widespread, like we've done mailing campaigns from as small as 500 people to as big as a quarter million. Mm-hmm. Uh, and everything in between.

So like you can, you can mess around with a lot. Like what's the income we're looking for? What's the credit score we're looking for? What's the education levels? And you can really pick out, there's a lot of data. Out there for direct mail to pick from, like frankly way more than Facebook ads. 'cause I don't think Facebook lets you like pick that deep direct mail.

You can pick, you can get pretty specific. Um, and yeah, I think those are probably all the big ones. And obviously like what it looks and feels like. 

Yeah. 

So you have a ton to do. So when someone [00:41:00] says, Hey, mail doesn't work for me. Like, there's a lot going on in what we just said. Hey, you can change and control this if you're, if you're not approaching it like this high touch marketing activity, I can understand how it wouldn't work.

Like if I'm just like, I'll blast out a postcard to 10 people and see what clicks. Yeah, probably it's probably not gonna work. But if you're taking like a methodical approach to direct mail and you're being thoughtful and you're iterating and testing, uh. Someone in your market is killing it with direct mail right now, they're kicking your butt in it, so you should probably figure out how to do it.

When would you and a business, uh, implement a direct mail campaign, you know, 1 million, 2 million, 5 million, 10 million? Like at what point? Yeah. Would you bring this in and go, Hey, this is worth testing. 

I think when you have testable marketing budget, which I believe happens later on. Yeah. Uh, so probably like 10 million.

Uh, when do I [00:42:00] have enough money in the budget that I would not miss 10 grand a month in experimentation? 

Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

So that's unlikely to happen early on because if, you know, 10 grand a month in mail when you're really small, like that could bankrupt you. 

Yeah. 

If it doesn't work. Whereas like, you know, you can, you can test later on.

Yeah. 

We, uh, we, we test a lot. We're on like year three or four of just like constant iteration, whether it's mail or radio or meta or whatever. We're always testing something new. Um, and it, I mean, that's a, it's a blocked off portion of our budget. Like, we're going to experiment with this five to 10 grand a month and we're gonna iterate and try to find the next channel that drives success.

But, uh, early on it was really just like, Google. Google, Google. 

Yeah. And the caveat to all that is if you're, you know, bought into a business, you know, say 4 million and it already has direct campaign and direct mail campaigns that are 

[00:43:00] working. Yeah, I'd keep pushing. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Yep, I would. 

Yep. 

Awesome. 

Cool.

I love it. I'm about to go. We 

cover direct mail, send 

some direct mail. 

We cover direct mail. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Uh, I'd love to hear below in comments if you've had Delic Mail work or not work for you, like what you think you'd do differently next time. Make sure you like and sub uh, and otherwise we'll hit you up next time as we talk.

Clicks to calls. See you. 

Peace.