Craig Simpson — The Direct Mail Marketing Masterclass

This is an intro. Intro, intro, intro.

Hustle and Float, Shark with your boy.

My boy, Matt Wolf.

What's up, everyone?

It's that time again.

It is that time.

What time is it to record an intro for a podcast?

That's right. I already hit record.

I know.

Okay, so who we talking to today, Joe?

Mr. Craig Simpson. And this guy is direct mail expert extraordinaire. I was going to come with a better fancy name, but either way, this is the man to know, to listen to, to read his books, to just freaking study, if you're interested, and you will be interested after listening to this, of how to integrate direct mail. Yes. We're talking physical mail. Stuff you get in your inbox or inbox. Mailbox. The stuff that you probably have never tried before. Yeah, you'll probably want to try that or try this after listening to the episode.

Yeah, no, this is essentially a MA masterclass in direct mail. We've never had somebody on the show who specifically dove into, like, tactically, here's how you do direct mail in your business. And so we were really excited to dig in. Joe and I have both actually read his book, the Advertising Solution that he did with Brian Kurtz. He's got another book called the Direct.

Mail Solution, wrote with a guy named Dan Kennedy.

Dan Kennedy may have heard of him. So he knows his shit. When it comes to direct response, direct mail marketing. He is the sort of go to expert in that world to talk to. So we're just super pumped to be able to talk to them.

I was stoked that because direct mail, let's be honest, we're online marketers and obviously we're not just online marketers. We're just marketers and people.

The online space seems to be our primary channel.

That's just what we know best. We operate mainly in the online space. But the way that Craig was framing this is that this is an opportunity to really be seen in a place that most people are not even attempting, which is land in your mailbox. There's very efficient, effective ways. Literally just mailing the current people that are on your list. Obviously you need some data from them. But like Matt and I, we're definitely going to try some things out because we have dabbled in this space before. But you can use this almost as a form of retargeting in a way. Like he actually said that on here, where you can time out, give it too much. You can, you can. Yeah, yeah. It's just. It should be very strategic with this stuff. I know. I just want. Just go into it now, but that's. Can't do that. But just think about this. If you're using a traffic system like ours where you have this foundational system where you look like you're everywhere, well, guess what? You can actually look like you are definitely everywhere. Like literally landing out there in your mailbox. And there's all these modalities. It just helps you sell and further whatever you're trying to get out to the world. So it's really cool.

Speaking of traffic, if you want to grab a free copy of our traffic book, go to evergreenprofits.com trafficbook I believe is the URL I believe. If it's not, I'm going to make sure it is now, but evergreenprofits.com traffic book evergreenprofits.com traffic book.

Wait, I think you're supposed to say that one more time.

I've said it.

3. Is that the magic number?

I don't know. Evergreenprofits.com trafficbook you can go get a free copy of our book where we teach our, our cold targeting strategies, our retargeting strategies, all the way that we drive a bunch of traffic to our site. But plus ways that a bunch of our guests and past people we've talked to on our podcast also drive traffic. It's sort of like a traffic bible, let's be honest.

Yeah, that was the intention and it is. So, yeah, it's free. Go check it out.

So let's go talk to Craig Simpson.

Let's do it. Hey, Craig, thanks for joining us today.

I'm happy to be here talking with you guys.

Yeah. So you and I chatted and oh my God, we've read. Let's see, I've read the direct mail solution or the Advertising solution. Advertising solution book. That's right. And Matt has both of them over here and they're just amazing how much information is in there distilled from the greats, working with the greats. Dan Kennedy was one of them. Lots of cool stuff that you've done and put out there. So we're excited to talk to you. The direct mail stuff is pretty foreign to us, but we've dabbled in it a little bit in the past and it's been fun.

We're curious to hear how this came about. Where did you come from? I know it started rocks a long time ago.

I started direct mail in a really weird way. You know, I mean, here we got this. I started with rocks of all things, selling rocks to the mail. You kind of think that's what an odd thing. How does somebody sell rocks in the mail? So for me, I was an avid rock climber when I was younger and I had built this 20 foot high rock climbing wall in my backyard. And after I built it, I was, you know, like 18 years old, didn't have. It was in my parents backyard. I didn't even have any money to put the, buy the rock that you put on the wall. So I found a way to make these fake rocks and bolt them on there so I could practice rock climbing on my wall. And my buddies came over and climbed on. They said, hey, you should start selling these things. So I put an ad out and I got some response. And then I started, I thought, well, I'm do this thing called direct mail. And I did my first mailing to like 250 people. And I sat by the phone and waited for it to ring, and waited and waited and waited and not, not a single order came in. Nobody even called. It was. And when back on it, the piece was absolutely terrible. But I kept trying and I eventually found a system that worked and I ended up selling over 4,000 rocks through the rail, through the mail. So it was kind of amazing beginning. That got me hooked on it. And I realized that I absolutely loved the marketing, but I hated manufacturing. I didn't want to sit in my own sweatshop making these, these fake rocks out of resins and plastics and stuff. So. So I sold that business and went to work for a large financial publisher. And that's what kind of propelled me even further in the, in the direct mail world.

Interesting. So why did you pick direct mail as the first marketing channel for you?

Well, I don't think I knew any better at the time. I mean, it was, at the time there was no Internet. There was tv, radio, print and direct mail. You know, there wasn't a lot of options. And I knew that, you know, for rock climbing, TV and radio was too broad. I did do some print advertising and like some climbing magazines and newsletters and things like that. But I felt like, hey, if I knew I could get a list of climbers, I felt like they would buy my product. And so that just researching that and figuring that out, that's what gave me the idea to try and start. Because I could be targeted in who it was I was going after.

Yeah, it's smart to go after. I mean, you know, the audience, it sounds like you were deeply embedded in there, you know, the publications and who to target, you know, rather than just going cold into some random market there. So I'M sure that helped out. Has a lot changed since those days compared to now with direct mail?

Well, I think there has been some things that have changed, but not a lot. I mean, when it comes to writing copy and targeting a list and, and how to position the offer, a lot of those things have not changed. In fact, they haven't changed in like 100 years. You know, when you look back at the old school direct marketers, the way they targeted somebody wasn't much different. Now today we have more availability of how to narrow things down. We have more opportunities. There's over 100,000 mailing lists on the market. 100 years ago there probably wasn't more than a few thousand. So. So yeah, we can be a little bit more targeted. But a lot of the things that stayed the same when it comes to the overall direct response concepts.

Now, are there any sort of industries or products or anything like that that you think don't really work with direct mail, that this sort of industry should just avoid it altogether?

I think what it really comes down to is the price point of what you're selling. If you're selling a $29 book to Cold prospects, you're probably not going to recoup your cost using direct marketing, mail marketing. If you're selling something that's higher price, say over $100.

Then it's a very viable medium. Or on the flip side, we could sell books to the mail. If you've got a large back end, meaning the lifetime value of the customer is going to be high. So let's say you sell the book for $29. But you know, over time they're going to buy other products and services from you. And the lifetime value of the customer, say $300, well then it makes sense. So what it comes down to is the value of the clients that you bring in. Is it going to be high enough to offset that upfront cost of printing and postage and those kinds of things?

Is there like a magic number for that that you see that, like, okay, this is your minimum viable. This is the number you said. Obviously having a backend is helpful.

Sure. If I were to give a big broad number, I'd say, hey, look, the client value would be great if it was $300 or higher. That would be an across the board. But there's some niches like health and beauty where we're able to acquire customers that are much lower price because they're, they're hyper responsive buyers. So that wouldn't be true there. Maybe it's $150 or $130 for the health and beauty niche.

Got it.

And other spaces like B2B business to business, it might actually tend to be a little bit higher. So it kind of does depend niche by niche.

Yeah. I'm sure it's super related to just online advertising and just how you have to look at your budgets there and make sure that you have enough back end. Not probably going for the first touch as the sale, or at least there's some period of time where it takes time to close someone on that thing you're trying to go for.

True. Yeah, it definitely does. And it all depends, like you said, on the niche. The niche really plays a different. The way we attract somebody for an anti wrinkle cream product is totally different than the way we would market to a dentist. Right. Different groups. And so everyone. That's where the science becomes in direct mail marketing. There's a different way to approach each group, and you have to be very methodical about how you go about approaching each group.

Got it? Yeah. All right. So going back to the rock days again. So. Yeah, so you're. You're kind of testing that out, and it sounds like you kind of got a win there. What. What was the progression after that point?

Well, so the very first campaign was complete bomb. It was a loser. Then I started building momentum. I started chang things.

And, you know, it's just like when I look back, I didn't know what I was doing. I just guessed at writing a really bad letter and putting in a brochure, and it was a terrible piece. And so what made the change was testing different things, testing different sets of copy, testing different specials or price points.

And finding the right list. You know, I got to make sure that these were active people that were actively climbing. They weren't people who.

Had responded to something four years ago, but they had just purchased something recently that makes them an active buyer. So as I learned some of those things, that's what helped build the business and help create more sales.

Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

I think with my impression of direct mail. So we've done a little bit of direct mail, but it's been very minimal. We used to collect customer addresses when. When people check out on our page. And we just kind of had a database of these addresses, so we would actually mail that our past customers offers. We were never mailing to, like, thousands of people at a time. We're mailing to a few hundred people at a time. But my. My sort of thinking of direct mail is if you're going to go cold with it. You've got to be spending like, you know, $10,000 plus to get a direct mail campaign going. And a lot of small businesses probably don't think they can afford that. But, but that could be a totally limiting belief because I don't know this world at all.

Sure. It really depends on what business you're in and who you're going after. So I have a dental client who goes after people who have undone treatment and they mail 250 people. That's it, just 250 people. And they're mailing them an offer. Hey, look, if you come in for this undone treatment, we're going to buy you a steak dinner at Morton's or wherever, some fancy restaurant. And by enticing them to come in, they get a steak dinner. They know that they've got to have this crown put in, but they've been putting it off. You'd be shocked at how many come back because of their motivated. So we spend $100 on them, but the customer comes in and maybe spends thousands. So is mailing 250 pieces worth it? You bet. How much does it cost them? You know, a few hundred dollars, but yet they're able to bring back customers who need high dollar treatment and make it very much worth it. So you really have to look at your list and what your offer is to determine whether or not it's worth it's worth. Now if you're going to cold prospects, people who have not heard of you, that's a different animal. You may need to spend 2, $3,000 at a minimum for a small list and then up to $10,000, $15,000 for a bigger test. It also depends if you're regional or if you're national.

Got it. Okay, so it sounds like if you have a list, if you have some customers, or maybe folks who haven't taken action and for some reason figure out what the motivation is and send them some mail. Even if it's just a couple hundred people.

Yeah, I have chiropractors that do these reactivation campaigns. They do mailings back to people who haven't come in to see them for six months or more. And maybe we're only mailing a thousand people, but it gets such a high response rate and the client value is so high on those returning patients that it's worth it to just do spend a thousand bucks and get tens of thousands of dollars worth of work treatment back in the door because we're reaching out to them and many of them Sign up for long term treatment plans. So there's. If you've got, if you've got a customer list with physical addresses, you should be mailing them on a regular basis. There's always something you can offer them, whether it's to reactivate them, find another product or service to sell them. Joint venture with somebody else and sell somebody else's product or service to them. And if you're just letting those names sit there, you're completely wasting them. There's value and money and gold in those names and you need to go after them.

Craig, I think you're like kicking us right now. We're over here shaking our heads. We're like doing it.

I mean, it's been tough because we're very much in the digital marketing space and we're so used to instant feedback on our stuff. Direct response to us is like, I put something out there and 10 minutes later I know if it's starting to work or not. Which is why I think in my brain I've had such a struggle with the concept of direct mail because obviously you mail it, it takes a few days to get to them and then it would take a few more days to see if there's any sort of response rate. That's sort of always been the sort of mental block I think Joe and I have had around doing a ton of direct mail is it's really hard for us to gauge how effective it's being, especially on the sort of smaller scales that we've been doing it at.

Yeah, I mean, every campaign that you do, you've got to start out with the end result in mind and how are we going to track this and what kind of ROI can we get on it? But there's always, there's opportunities and tracking is really easy if we set it up right from the beginning. But there are plenty of opportunities to go out there and use it. It's just really thinking through, well, what's going to be best, what's going to bring us the most money in and help our clients out the most at the same time. And usually finding those two things, you'll be able to find, come up with a. That could be a winner for you.

Yeah. So I'm curious if you could walk us through kind of like a hypothetical situation for folks, you know, us being one of them, but also the listeners, you know, they have some customers, they have a product to sell, but they've never done direct mail. What would be the first step in kind of like a simple process to just get going and test this thing out.

Well, there's three key things to direct mail you have to keep in mind. One is the list. So if you got your house file, that's the easiest place to start. Either warm leads or existing customers or past customers. Those are all the best people to start with because they're already familiar with you. If they're customers, they've already spent money with you. So there's a level of trust that's already been established. So list is number one. You've got to have that to start with. Two, you need to have an offer. You need to have something that is going to answer or solve a problem or fill a need or a want that your customers are going to have. So you've got to identify what is that? You know, what is that going to be? And then the third thing is the copy. The creative. What do we have to say to them to get them to buy this product or service? If it's something that answers a serious problem in their life, then you're talking about the pain. And then the solution. If it's a want or a desire, you know, they want to make more money or they've got a desire to build something, then you've got to create some kind of mental image in their mind that shows that, hey, look, they can buy that car they've always wanted or pay off the debt they've been wanting to pay off. We've got to create mental pictures of things that would excite them and make them feel good to help motivate them to buy. So we've got to look at those three things carefully. List, copy and creative and offer in order to get a winning campaign.

Yeah, that's really good stuff. And I would assume the advertising solution in your book is probably a great resource. There's your copywriting right there. Go read that book.

Yeah, the advertising solution is phenomenal for that kind of thing. It's kind of got a list of checklists and things for copywriters. My other book, the Direct Mail Solution, gives you the details on how to set up a direct mail campaign from scratch.

Ah, cool. Okay, so, yeah, pick up both of those then. If you're thinking about doing this, you should.

Now, just to extrapolate on what Joe was asking, let's say we sent to some warm leads and it was a fairly effective thing. And we think, okay, let's test this to some colder audiences. What would the steps be there? Because obviously we've got to find a list. How would we find the list to mail to? And what Sort of variations. And how would you tack on to what just worked?

Yeah. Great. So how do we find a list of prospects that are going to be responsive? Well, the idea is to find prospects that look like your best customers. So customers that have already bought the product or service that you're selling. So you want to find out everything you can about them. What is their age, their income, their hobbies, their interests, their desires. What is it that makes them unique and different? You take that set of information and you go to a list broker. And a list broker is somebody who represents all the mailing lists on the market. And they can all get the same list and they're going to pay the same price. It's kind of like a real estate broker. Real estate broker can show you any property on the market, then they can facilitate you buying that property, and they get paid a commission from the seller of the house. That's the way the list business works. A broker will go out, research lists for you. If you rent that list, you're going to pay a fee, but they get their commission based off the person who's the owner of the list, who's the one renting it to you. So they're kind of their free service essentially to you. It's not costing you any extra to use them.

Interesting.

So find a list broker and then tell them who your clients are, what they look like, and you want to find prospects that look just like them. Now, some keys are you want the prospects to be recent buyers of similar products and services. So let's say you're selling golf clubs. Well, you're going to want to find people who have recently bought some kind of golf training video, golf apparel, golf shoes, something that's in the same category, and they've purchased it recently. And by finding those people, you've got active buyers of similar products and services. And those will be the best, the best chance, give you the best chance for success in your campaign. So finding those customers that look like those, prospects that look like your customers and our recent buyers, those are two big key things to find when finding a mailing list.

Got it. That's cool. I know there's resources out there and I'm totally blanking on the website.

Well, there's one called like SDRS or something like that.

Close. Very close. Srds.

Srds.

So you can subscribe to it and it costs a lot of money to do it. But if you're just looking for a couple lists, you're better off just going with a broker. Broker.

Okay.

Now there's some niches where you can't get buyers of specific products or services. Maybe you're in a weird niche and there's not people who actually buy similar products and services. In that case, you have to go with what's called a compiled list, which is made up of.

A group of people who have similar characteristics, all based on a certain category. So let's say you are going after somebody who gets migraines. Well, you could find a compiled list of people who have filled out surveys saying they get migraines.

It's tough to find buyer list of migraine products because there's not a lot of them out there. But you can find people who have that ailment or people who have heart conditions or people who have dentures, you know, those kinds of things.

Yeah, I know. There's a site that Matt, I have it written down at home, but where you can run your buyers through it and it essentially compares it.

Yeah, Tower Data.

Tower Data, that's it. I'm assuming. Have you ever used that for kind of discovering. Okay, what are these publications that these folks are interested in similar things, interests. It seems like it extracts a lot of data you can use for this specific thing here with the broker.

Yeah, I've used services just like them. I haven't used actually Tower data, but I've got a bunch of others that I have buil models with and modeled customers to find out the exact characteristics. So, yes, there's lots of different services like that out there.

Head on.

Cool. Okay. So don't fret if you don't know all the cool stuff that they're interested in. There's other resources for that.

That's right.

Yeah.

You can even pull demographic data just from Google Analytics and your Facebook insights. I mean, there's all sorts of places to pull good, like pretty decent data for free.

Yeah. That's interesting.

That's right. That's right.

So what is. So, okay, what is an obvious flop? Like if someone were to just go to direct mail and try this thing out and maybe they follow your directions. Have you seen a common mistake that people make? Or expensive, stupid.

Here's the most common one is people want to mail postcards because they're cheap, they're easy, and they think, oh, they're short. People read them. The problem is they get very little attention in the mailbox. Everyone knows a postcard's an ad. And so it just people. There's no way to engage the customer, there's no way to surprise and there's no way to entice them. It's a quick glance and it's into the recycle bin or trash.

I can't count the number of companies that I've talked to have called me up and say direct mail doesn't work. I tried mailing these postcards to 300,000 people and I didn't get any response. And it's like, it's the wrong format. Now. When do I like postcards? I like them for follow up mailings where we're reminding people we send out a sales letter and then we follow up with postcards saying, hey, Bob, I sent you this letter last week. I haven't heard back from you. I like them for that. The other time I like postcards is for every door. Direct mail, which is a special program from the post office and it works well for regional retail businesses. So if you're a pizza parlor, dry cleaner, those type of businesses where you're mailing to neighborhoods around your local shop, then I like them for that.

Is that like those are like zip codes and whatnot, right?

Yeah. You can basically drive down the street and you say, hey, I like this neighborhood. And you can write down the address, you can go to the post office and they will let you mail everyone in that neighborhood that's on that carrier route for like 17 cents apiece or 17 and a half cents per piece. So it's really inexpensive for postage and you got to pay for the printing on top of that. But printing is very inexpensive for this kind of a thing. Got it. So you could go pick the five most affluent neighborhoods in your area and mail to them using this. Every door, direct mail.

Got it. That's actually how I found this gym that I used to go to. But now basically we remit friends in this neighborhood. One of the very first pieces of mailings we got, we're like, hey, I know that person that went to my college. We should reconnect with them and go to their gym. What do you know? So, yeah, it does work for certain scenarios. I think we were the only person in their entire mailing that actually responded to it though, because they went cold with the postcards. They did what you said.

But as a follow up, that's interesting because I've never thought of, and it's obviously happening all the time. But follow up with direct mail, but using a lighter postcard, it's cheaper. Maybe they recognize your branding or name. Yeah, that just makes a lot of sense. It's kind of like retargeting in our sense. It's like, oh, well, here's our brand over here. That'll lure out there in the water.

And you can put a picture of what the letter looked like. So if you had the letter that step one, step two, put a picture of it in there, then refer to it. Your postcards not going to look like anyone else's because it's going to have more copy on, it's going to have an image of a letter, it's going to more likely grab their attention than the standard.

10% off my cleaning services call. Now.

That makes sense. Okay, cool.

So then as far as what letters people should send as like the first letter that's going out either to a customer or to cold, what should that look like? We have some notes here about what type of stamp and whether you should hand write versus print and things like that. What sort of advice do you have on getting that first piece out and what should it look like?

Yeah, so the niche of course plays into that. If we're going after people with health and beauty and diet, we've got put some images in there like before and afters. If it's a special anti wrinkle cream or if it's a special supplement, we need to put a picture of the doctor in there. But the images that you include in a letter need to only enhance the copy, not distract from it. So if it's a beauty based product or health based product, there's more images that will be needed to help enhance that copy. If you're selling more of a traditional product or service, financial advisor or chiropractic or some kind of healthcare thing, then the letter is going to be more of a traditional text heavy, not as many images, maybe a picture of who the letter is coming from. But it's going to be filled with copy. It's not a Madison Fifth Avenue ad where it's big images and very little copy. It's the reverse. It lots of copy with few images. And believe it or not, there's an old saying it's still true today and it was true 20 years ago and it was true 100 years ago. It's the more you tell, the more you sell. And people keep saying, well in today's age, you know, with Twitter and Facebook, we, you know, a short message is better than a long one. Well, it couldn't be further from the truth with direct mail marketing. Once you engage the prospect, if they're interested in what it is you're selling, they're going to spend plenty of time reading a sales letter. And the more they read, the more Excited they'll be about buying your product and service. Now it's going to certainly repel those who are not interested, but those who are will take the time to read it. I have a financial publishing company that I work with and we had, we. They came up with this new product for this, this thing called binary options. And it's a different type of option trading. The first letter that they sent out, we tested it was a six page letter and it worked okay. We got a decent response on it. We bumped that letter up to 20 pages, told the full story, gave the full explanation and we doubled the response rate. Doubled it by making it a 20 page letter instead of a six. It was the exact same audience. So they've already seen the offer once and we mailed it six months apart. So it wasn't like it was a multi step campaign. It was one went out in June, the other one just went out at the end of December this year and the response rate doubled by tripling the size of the sales letter. And I can't tell you how many times I've seen this happen in the 20 years I've been doing direct mail. The more you tell, the more you sell.

That makes sense.

Yeah. And now I will say this is for business to consumer. If we're talking B2B business to business, it is a little bit different. I'm not going to send a 20 page letter to a dentist or an attorney.

I'm probably going to keep it quite a bit shorter. So it's mainly true for the business to consumer market.

Now do you ever see just like a sales letter that's like a digital sales letter, long form written sales letter. Do those typically convert well to print or do you have to. Is there like different styles that you use between print and writing digital copy?

If it's good direct response copy online and you're generating sales, it very much can be converted to an offline piece and used in the mail. We do it often with a lot of financial publishers. We'll do that, they'll test online and then we'll put it into a direct mail piece. So certainly that's good.

Now going down that vein, just to go back really quick, when we did send a lot of direct mail, I remember that was. We did it in a different sense. That was the actual paid thing that they were getting. So we would send a paid newsletter every month, paid about 100 bucks for it. But people stuck for a very long time for that thing in the mail which was about 30, 40 pages long every single Month we'd send it to them. So we'd sent them a lot of stuff. And I just remember that we would get way more responses, way more consumption, just happy customers with that kind of model as compared to just a purely digital thing.

We learned that people still love getting stuff stuff like people love getting stuff in the mail, like.

Yeah. And we did end up expanding the copy in there even though it wasn't all sales copy. We would have sales messages in there. Like you were saying we'd drop affiliate promotions in there. Maybe a one sheeter slipped in and things like that worked. And it was just an interesting experiment. We had no clue what we were doing at the time. Right. Kind of what worked. Yeah, but how does it. I'm curious how this combines with your digital, you know, the stuff you're doing online, how direct mail ties in. So what, are there some principles or guidelines that you like to kind of use when doing that?

Yeah, you know, I think that all media working together is the best. Right. So if we can send out a direct mail piece and time it so that an email hits them the day the mail arrives in their mailbox and then retarget them on Facebook that same day, I mean, and then follow up with a phone call the next day, I mean the more media we can hit our prospects with, the better chance we're going to have for them to be successful in those campaigns. You know, for all the back end mailings and things that we do, we always time direct mail and email, always with the two together work best. Now we're going to cold prospects. It's a bit different because we can't always get the email addresses for the cold prospects. We get the physical addresses, but they're not just going to give us the list. Owners aren't just going to give us their email. So mainly it's for our existing customers, our list that we own. But it's extremely effective to use a combination of different media together for a certain campaign.

Now when the letter goes out in the mail.

My thinking is you want to try to make it look as much like you're getting sort of like a letter from a friend or something more so than some sort of business mailing. Is that kind of the case? And if so, how do you try to make it look more like something that they'll open?

Right. Two thoughts on this. So one is if you are going to a group and you know that they're struggling with something and you know what to say to them to get them to open that mail piece, then you want to put teaser copy on the outside because it's going to grab their attention more than anything else. If it's talking about a pain or a struggle they're having or something that they want or desire, that's when you use teaser copy. If you don't know what to say, then the best approach is the sneak up approach. It's the approach of let's make it look as personal as possible. Like your grandma, your aunt or your friend just sent you a letter. And that means make, you know, use the live stamp, make it a commemorative stamp, something unique. Don't use the flag or the Liberty Bell, use the muscle cars. If it's going to men, maybe use the Sally ride stamp. If it's going to women, maybe if it's to an older lady, maybe you're going to send the flower stamp. You know, whatever it is, try and make it connect with the group you're going after. I remember I was doing a project years ago with a financial advisor and I was testing stamps and the only test was a Ronald Reagan stamp versus a different stamp. And the Ronald Reagan stamp actually produced a higher response rate. Well, the seniors we were going after, they loved Reagan, he was their president. And so by picking the right stamp, it actually helped increase response. So believe it or not, little details like that make a big deal in the overall response.

Oh, that's so fascinating. It's all these little subtle almost like NLP persuasion things. It's like, hey, I know you.

It's also interesting because my wife just taught me this the other day. I think it's true. But whenever there's a stamp on there that says pre sorted or whatever the acronym is for it, she's like, yeah, trash, trash, trash. I'm like, and I'm over here like, no, we gotta open it. It looks like a check file.

Damn it, it's my swipe file.

Yeah, you are right on that. I mean it's pre sorted. Mean they're sending them in the thousands. It's, it's mail. And I use live. In some cases we do use live pre sorted standard or pre sorted first class stamps.

But I'll tell you when we use them, you know, so for example, if we're putting teaser copy on the outside of the envelope because we know what to say to them, we don't need to pay extra for a full price first class D stamp, we can pre sort that because when they get it, hopefully the outer envelope copy is going to appeal to them enough that they want to open it. So there's no point in spending extra money on the postage.

Yeah, that makes sense. And some of those stamps, like you were saying, you know, the flag, they look like a hand stamp, more or less, if someone's not looking too close. Yeah.

So we, you know, we used to be, we haven't gone in a while, but we used to be kind of students of the GKIC thing. You know, we used to go to super conference and Info Summit and all that. That and one of their big things that they talked about at pretty much every event that I ever went to was lumpy mail. Put. Put something in the mail to, to make it stand out among other stuff. And you know, being on their mailing list, you used to get like army men. And one time I got like a bullet. Yeah, I got like a big old, like bullet in the mail, like in a letter. And there was always kind of like stuff in it to make it lumpy. So you open it and figure out what the hell's in this envelope. Do you do stuff like that? Do you recommend stuff like that? I mean, when would that come into play?

Play?

Yeah, I definitely do stuff like that. I've done all sorts of things that are creative like that. And it really depends on the audience and the value of the product you're selling. So if you're selling a $200 widget, using lumpy mail is probably not going to be real cost effective. Because what it's going to come down to is your cost per acquisition. If you're putting an army man in there, it's going to cost more to mail. And so maybe it's going to increase your orders, but the extra cost may offset that significantly. So you've really got to weigh out. Is it worth spending more money? How many more orders do I have to get to make it worth paying for this extra postage, this extra piece that I've got to insert?

The best place I see using lumpy mail is in B2B, where usually the client values in business to business are significantly higher. So you can spend more money to acquire them. And it's worth doing some kind of lumpy object.

Or if you're going to your existing customers and you've got kind of a special offer for something that's a higher priced, you know, item, Maybe it's a $995 product, or maybe it's $5,000 or something that costs more and you really want to get their attention, then that's another good time to use lumpy mail. But I don't find it profitable for selling lower priced widgets and services. It just doesn't pay in those cases. Cases, yeah.

That makes sense. And it's interesting. You still don't see a lot of folks using it. And I know Dan Kennedy and I'm sure you've also said this stuff works in the right scenarios. But yeah, very rarely do you see it actually used or at least I don't personally. So it's probably a great opportunity out there still.

Yeah. And I just did a campaign just a little bit ago where we mailed out, I ordered 250 alarm clocks from Walmart. And it's the kind of alarm clocks that have the bells on the top, like the old school ones.

Yeah.

And I mailed it out with a letter for one of my clients. And the thing was, time is running out.

Right.

I mean, it got a great response rate. So being creative and doing lumpy stuff is super fun, but you got to have the right product to make it happen.

What's the, what's the most expensive lumpy mail that you've done before Item that.

You put in there actually probably is alarm clocks because they were like five bucks a piece. And then we sent them out priority meal. So it was expensive. I have done FedEx before. Dan Kennedy and I worked on a program for bankers and we're going to CEO bank, you know, CEOs of big banks. And so we had a FedEx them a letter and, and that was expensive because the price of FedEx wasn't cheap. So. But we got a huge response on it was phenomenal. So, yeah, yeah, it's. It all depends on who you're going to and what they're willing to spend.

And that makes sense with FedEx, I mean, because you're probably getting past the gatekeeper with a FedEx box or some kind of package because they're like, oh, this looks important.

Yeah, it's doesn't open a package when they get it. I mean, there's definitely envelopes that come that I don't open sometimes, but there's never been a package that comes and I'm like, yeah, I don't care what's in this and throw it away.

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah. And you know, Amazon's been great for lumpy mail because you can make it look just like you get like an Amazon box or an Amazon pack package that you get in the mail. People are getting stuff all the time, so when they get it, they assume it's something they ordered and they rip it open and there's your lumpy object in your letter. And it will grab their attention.

Interesting. I love it. Yeah, you could totally leverage Amazon. Never thought about that.

I want to duplicate their box and try something mailing one of the Amazon box. But I'm afraid I'd get caught and get in trouble. But I think that would work really well.

I was just going there. I was like, huh, I know they have their special tape. Maybe you can create like a tape something that looks similar, maybe just the colors. You can replicate it that way.

Yeah, yeah.

You can Send it from anazon.com.

Hey, you guys, try it out and tell me if it works.

You don't want to be associated with jail.

I'll know that it didn't work.

Well, only if you agree to bail us out. Then we're good. There you go.

Okay, I'll bail you out.

Deal. Oh, that's funny.

I need to spend my time in jail writing letters to my kids, though.

That's right.

Right now that's funny. I'm just wondering if there's a. There's because we're so. We're just not in this. Right. There's a lot here that we could just kind of use as an MVP process for us to start sending some direct mail.

Matt, did you have anything specific I kind of wanted to touch on those books?

Well, yeah, there's one last question on. So we have a bunch of bullets up on our screen here that from our like pre research. And one of the bullets here says how to increase lifetime customer value fivefold in 18 months. Is that something that you can go into and tell us?

Yeah. Here's the biggest mistake businesses make, and it's one we've already talked about. It's people do not follow up with their existing customers. There's this thing where they just want to keep attracting new ones over and over again. And what I try and get my clients to do is put all their customers on what I call a customer retention path. It's a way that once they buy a product or service from you, we have a plan in place to ascend them up to the next level. And we do it in a very scientific and organized way. So for example, one of my financial publishers, when someone would come in and buy a course from them over the next 17 weeks, we'd have a plan in place of the marketing that we're going to do to get them to buy other products and services. So not every week for 17 weeks are you going to get something from us. But 11 different touch points. You're going to get a mail piece and email from us. So what does that do? Well, we're keeping you engaged, we're keeping you front of mind, and we're constantly trying to provide something that you need. Now, that provide is in the way of selling you something, but it's something else that you need to succeed at what you're trying to do or to make you better. So a customer retention path is the quickest and best way to get people's customer lifetime values up significantly higher. Not a shotgun approach where every month we've got a different special. It's got to be organized, scientific, and it's got to be congruent. We're not going to go from one product to something that's totally different. We want the products to be congruent, but the second product enhances the first, the third product enhances the second. We don't want them to feel like they're missing something, like they didn't get the complete package, but it's just something else to help encourage them and make their process of what it is they're buying or doing help them succeed.

That is really cool. I'm just thinking of what we're doing currently in our business is we just started selling shirts. So now that's a new opportunity to collect physical addresses, and that's a prime opportunity to create a nice, simple campaign to indoctrinate and typically their podcast listeners. So if you're one of them, thank you.

Follow up with them with the next best, best thing to bring them a little closer to whatever the thing is they're looking for. And could be maybe a book offer of ours into our course affiliate offers. There's so many things you could sequence out, like you said, for the next 18 months or beyond. Yeah, very cool.

I mean, people do it with their email autoresponders. Why not with direct mail, too? It makes so much sense. I'm kind of like kicking myself here because we sell shirts. We've got got. We've got two different books that we sell that we collect addresses for. We've got our. Our newsletter that we used to sell that I think we passed about 800 people through, and we have all those addresses. So we're sitting on probably about a thousand direct mail addresses of people who have actually bought shit from us. And so I'm kind of kicking myself going, why the hell aren't we doing this right now?

Yeah. And that. Here's the thing, as everyone's doing autoresponder emails and that's. That's okay. Yes, we already know about the. That. But Throwing the direct mail element in. There is a world difference because nobody is doing that. You don't get 100 pieces of mail in your mailbox every day like you do with email.

Right.

And so, you know, mailboxes are empty. And, you know, Dan Kennedy and I talk about how we're glad the postage rates are going up because the dumb marketers are going to stop mark mailing. What does that do? It opens up the mailbox. If you're the only guy in there, you're going to get more attention.

Yeah, totally.

How do you feel about those, like, packets of mailers where you get like a stack of postcards that have like 50 postcards for 50 different companies? Or like the. What's the other one? The get one free. Is it get one Valpak? Yeah, there's Valpack and there's one called like get one Free or something like that. There's a handful that I can get.

Depends. I mean, if you're a regional business and you're competing on price. Dry cleaner, pizza parlor. Yes. You know, landscape services shop. Sure. But if you're a national mailer or financial advisor, some of those things, I would stay away from it. I just don't see a great response from them.

That makes sense. Yeah. Just because you're one of the 30 that are in this pack here. Maybe even more.

Yep. Well, I've even noticed competing on price. People are looking for discounts and they're a free piece of pizza, you know, 30% off a dental cleaning. They want the deal. And that's what you become. Is somebody competing on price then?

Yeah. And I mean, you're even competing with other businesses. A lot of times I've seen those stacks where. Where there's six pizza company cards in there. So you're even competing with other companies when you're in those stacks of things. So I was always kind of curious about how effective that sort of thing was.

Yeah. Now I'm curious about the book and everything. Or both the books that you've done. You've worked with some amazing people. Brian Kurtz being one of them with Advertise Solution and then the other one, direct mail solution with Dan Kennedy mentioned him already. How did these. How did these opportunities, how did that all shake out? I know probably different scenarios for each book.

Wow. Well, yeah, I mean, different for both. So, Brian, our paths have crossed a few times. Years ago when he was at Boardroom and I was at another financial publisher, the Ken Roberts Company. But we really got connected through a GKIC event. And what I Loved about Brian is he loved the legends like I do. Like, I studied all the old, you know, all the old guys that did this years ago, the Robert Colliers and David Ogilvies and John Cables, because that's the foundation for direct response marketing. So I knew he was passionate about it and talked about it. So when I had this idea for the book, I'd been writing articles about these guys and I thought I'd do this book. I felt like there was no better match than Brian for this. I mean, I felt like he was the perfect guy to partner with on it. So that's why I picked Brian for that one and then for the direct mail solution. You know, thankfully, I've been. I've been lucky with Dan that Kennedy sends anybody who he wants direct mail, manage for, needs help with lists. He comes to me. And so we had this relationship where I was working with him on a lot of different projects. And I told Dan, I said, hey, I want to write this book. Would you be willing to partner with me on it? And he said yes. So, you know, I was really fortunate that he was willing to jump in and write a few chapters in that book, too.

Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. The thing I love about the Advertising Solution is it's kind of. There's a whole bunch of amazing copywriters who have written a whole bunch of amazing publications on their philosophies and strategies that have worked for them over the years. And that book kind of wraps them all up for you. And some of those older books are a little bit dense, not the easiest books in the world to read. The Breakthrough Advertising is one of those that is a little bit tougher of a book to get through. But the book that you guys did, the Advertising Solution, makes a lot of it feel. Feel more manageable and accessible.

100%.

Yeah. I mean, really wanted to distill down the wisdom from all these guys, and I've only picked six, but I mean, I could have done, you know, 20, but at some point we had to cut it off. But there was so much great information from these guys that no one's going to go read the old Claude Hopkins books or the Robert Collier book. So I was like, this is good stuff that people need to know. It's what we're doing online today and offline today. It's the same premise. You're getting in the mind of the prospect and you're figuring out what you need to say to get them to buy your product or service. It was the same then as it is today.

The same General thought process and how we sell. And so that's why I really felt like we needed to get this book out.

Yeah. And it's. And it's great. Even if you don't think you're, you know, for the listeners, thinking it's copywriting book. No, it's persuasion. It's. It's how you should. It's just communication. Effective communication. And it's. Yeah, it's definitely a must have for any marketer out there. Entrepreneur. Now, I'm curious about what you're doing now that you've made this progression. You've had these books out. What's the exciting stuff that you're working on yourself?

Well, so my business is. I'm a direct mail consultant. And so we manage direct mail campaigns for a variety of clients and all sorts of different niches. And that's.

I love it.

I really. I don't know why, but I really enjoy doing this. I've been doing it for 20 years. But I like putting together the campaigns. I like coming up with the right lists and the creative and, you know, putting things together from A to Z. And we send out about 300 different direct mail campaigns every year. So that's 300 different sets of list orders, 300 different, you know, print jobs, 300 different mailings. And it's high volume. Some of it may be 250 pieces for a dentist, and others may be hundreds of thousands of pieces for a financial publisher. And it's everything in between. So I like the variety, and that's just really what I enjoy doing. I love it.

Now, are you writing copy for all of this too, or do you have like a team of copywriters? Because, I mean, 300 pieces of copy sounds pretty intense.

Yes. No. Yes. So I'm not. I'm not a copywriter. I'm really great at editing copy and giving feedback. I have a very distinct and clear direction. I know that we need to go just from doing the thousands of direct mail campaigns. I've got a gut instinct of what we need to do in the copy and where it needs to head. But I'm not the guy to put pen to paper. So I have a bunch of copywriters that I work with.

That. That are all different levels, you know, depending on the project. Maybe an A list copywriter, it may be a B or C level writer, depending on what the project is. So I coordinate that for my clients, but I'm not the guy putting pen to paper.

That's. Yeah, sounds. It's a perfect position to probably see what's hot and what's working best, you know, and just with experiencing all these different types of things you're doing, I think that's how we actually got connected. You're doing some work for Kelsey Bratcher and their team. Yeah, doing, I think it was in the stem cell space. So it's like filling up an event. And I was like, geez, if you could do it there, I mean, just imagine direct mail could be used everywhere.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've used. So working with chiropractors, we've put 50,000 people in a seminar. Right. Room in the last two years just through direct mail. And it's not like we have these massive doctors that have, you know, 400 clinics across the United States. These are individual docs, you know, who are hosting seminars on neuropathy or migraines or weight loss or stem cells. And it works, it's using direct mail. And we're going to the seniors. The people that have, they have a pain that they're struggling with, they wake up in the night thinking about it, and then we have a solution that can help heal them of that pain. So it's a great, great. It's a great match. Yeah.

No, I mean, I just love the concept, like fill a room with direct mail because, like, let's be honest, in the room, there's a lot of value in there and a lot of opportunity to sell high ticket stuff.

So that's right.

In that case, I know they're selling tens of thousands of dollars worth of stuff, so it's amazing.

So I have a really ridiculous question.

So is there any way that you can think of to grow a podcast via Direct Male?

Oh, wow.

That's not a selfish question at all.

No, not at all.

No, it's not. I didn't think it was.

I've never been asked that question, first of all. So that's a tough one.

I think. So. I think the way I would do it is you have to build the herd somewhere else. I don't know if I could sell a podcast through the mail, but maybe it's selling some other product or service to get them in the door. Door. Once they're on your list, they become part of your podcast. Yeah. But you've also got to have find a way to monetize it and make sure the lifetime value is high enough to warrant doing all those mailings.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And we can.

So I don't think I really answered your question. I think I gave you a 30,000 foot view of maybe an answer.

You totally answered the question. I think that the smart way is to figure out who our ideal audience for the podcast is, figure out what I can sell them. And then once they've sold them, they're now probably going to be on our email list and I can promote the podcast to them. I mean, I. That's, you know, that's.

We have stickers and cheap stuff we can put in there that just helps the branding of the podcast, follow ups, you know, things like that.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yep. I think you said it better than I did. I think that's exactly right.

Cool. We're learning something on this thing.

Awesome, man. Well, so we're actually. No, let's back up really quick. Just a couple wrap up questions. What are some books that you, you find yourself recommending to others or some that you just reference very often that we should check out?

Yeah. I'll tell you my two favorite books. David Ogilvy's Ogilvy on Advertising is a very introductory level book to direct marketing. You know, Ogilvy and Now were the largest. I think it's Ogilvy one now. But back when David Ogilvy was part of it, it was one of the largest advertising agencies in the the world. And he talks about the struggle of being brand advertisers versus direct response. And he gives a great transition explanation of direct response marketing in there. So anybody who's new to marketing should read that book, Ogilvy on Advertising because it talks about both styles of marketing and then it explains why. Why you need to do direct response marketing. Super important.

Cool. Okay.

Book number two. You know, a lot of people may hate this book, but it's the Robert Collier letters written by Robert Collier. It was written.

In the 40s or 50s. Robert Collier was the first guy to use a $1 bill on a mailer. He pinned it to an outer envelope and he got like an 80 or 90% response rate to it. And he was mailing it, requesting donations to a children's hospital. He did that in the 1920s. He mailed a dollar bill out in the 1920s. This guy. Even though his book, the Robert Collier Letters, is hard to read as far as its thick, it's 300 pages. It really teaches you about getting inside the mind of the prospect and how to have that conversation with him, how to get in the conversation and have it in their head. And it's just a powerful book. He gives tons of examples. He gets excited about writing about how to sell coal. I mean, coal is like, it's like selling Rocks. Right. But he finds a way to motivate people to buy coal. So he was a man ahead of his time. And I think that if you're into marketing and you really want to study the psychology behind it and how to become a better writer, too, the Robert Collier is my other big book I'd recommend.

Awesome. Matt ironically has both of the books here.

I just pulled them both off my bookshelf, as you said.

Good, man.

Well, the Ogilvy on advert I have read. The Robert Collier letter book is one of those books that I've bought and has been sitting on my bookshelf. So I look more important, but I actually haven't read it yet.

I was gonna say, like, the pages look pretty fresh. When he just showed me the book, I was like, man.

But yeah, Ogilvy and advertising. I'm just kind of looking at it now. It's so many examples of his ads.

Oh, no, it's very visual, too. There's examples and stuff. So it's very cool.

It's really nice.

And it has the famous Rolls Royce ad in there, which is one of the legendary ads that you have to go through and read and see for yourself. And it was. It's just. It's just a great book for. Even if you're an Internet marketer today, it gives you a different view of how to think about prospects and how to go from brand marketing to direct response marketing.

At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls Royce comes from the electric clock. That's so cool. That's the headline.

I like how you read it.

Yeah. Well, I found the page right as you were saying it. This is awesome. Craig. Where should folks go and learn more about you, hire you, read your books, all that stuff.

Yeah. So my website is simpson-direct.com simpson-direct.com. you can go on there. It's got a bunch of information about me. It's got a contact page if you want to contact me. Obviously, I'd love it if everyone went to Amazon and bought my books. The direct mail solution and the advertising solution. I also have tons of free resources for those who buy the book, so feel free to check those out. And you've got information on how to get the resources inside the book.

Yeah. We'll link everything up in the show notes. Definitely. Go get those books. Worth every cent.

Thank you.

Yeah, 100%. You're welcome. All right, man. Well, thank you very much for your time. It's been an honor.

My pleasure. I've totally enjoyed this conversation with you guys today.

All right, Have a great one.

Okay. You too.

All right. Thank you. And I hope you just enjoyed this episode you just listened to. Now, right now, before we sign off, I have a few things I would love for you to do. So the very first thing is to go find our guest on Facebook and tell them that you loved their episode with us. That's going to help them just feel good about themselves, but also it's going to spread the word a little bit more for us. So go find them on Facebook. Everybody's on the Facebook. And go say that you love their episode and maybe one cool thing that you learn there. The second thing is to go to itunes and subscribe to our podcast. Just look up Hustle and Flowchart and hit the subscribe button. And the very last thing, the third thing, is to leave us a review on itunes or wherever you're listening to this podcast and help us spread the word more. That's how more people are going to get this awesome knowledge, this, this cool podcast training and a whole bunch of other cool, free training that we give out@evergreen profits.com. so that's about it. Go find them on Facebook, go subscribe on itunes and leave us a review. You would be amazing if you did that, but you're always amazing. So thanks for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode.

You're awesome.