Episode 115
Expertise Schmexpertise: Why You Don’t Have to Have All The Answers with Dave Fink
Most people think you need to be an expert in our given field to be successful. But look at Airbnb, Uber, Square. What these hugely disruptive companies have in common is that they were all founded by industry outsiders. People who quite literally didn’t have all the answers.
So, do we really need to work at being an expert in our field if we want to achieve great things? Well, maybe not so fast.
Listen in as I talk with Dave Fink, the founder and CEO of Postie, a direct mail company that reinvented direct mail marketing for a digital world, to talk about expertise, schmexpertise and why you don’t have to have all the answers, as he explains to us why domain specific experience is overrated.
Drink of the week: Air Mail cocktail
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Julie Brown:
David Fink
Transcript
Hey friends, I wanted to let you know that if you are in the Sacramento
Speaker:area on October 27th, I will be the keynote speaker for the Women
Speaker:in Construction Conference at the Safe Credit Union Convention Center.
Speaker:It will be a great day of programming and networking with a thousand other women
Speaker:and men in the construction industry.
Speaker:I'm so super excited and I would love to see you there.
Speaker:I'll pop link to the conference in the show notes now onto today's topic.
Speaker:An expert is someone who achieves exceptionally high performance
Speaker:levels on a particular task or within a specific subject matter.
Speaker:They are also typically one of the most informed people in their
Speaker:field and their achievements go far beyond that of the average person.
Speaker:So if we want to achieve great things, we should work at
Speaker:being an expert in our field.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Maybe not so fast.
Speaker:Welcome to episode one 15 of This Shit Works, a podcast dedicated to
Speaker:all things networking, relationship building, and business development.
Speaker:I am your host, Julie Brown, and today I am joined by David Fink
Speaker:who says Expertise, SCH expertise.
Speaker:And he's here to tell us why domain specific expertise.
Speaker:An experience is overrated.
Speaker:Welcome to this shit Works Your Weekly No Nonsense Guide to Networking Your Way
Speaker:to More friends, more adventures, and way more success with your host, Julie Brown.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:Airbnb, Uber Square went to all of these hugely disruptive
Speaker:companies have in common.
Speaker:They were all founded by industry outsiders.
Speaker:People who quite literally didn't have all the answers.
Speaker:Maybe having all the answers would've slowed these founders down.
Speaker:Think about another disruptive company.
Speaker:Dollar Shabu.
Speaker:I mean, who gets their razors through the mail?
Speaker:Buy subscription.
Speaker:Seems normal now, but in 2011, this was a very curious idea.
Speaker:My guest today worked in the startup studio that helped take Dollar Shave
Speaker:Pub from an idea to a $1 billion buyout in five years, and he credits the
Speaker:success to the fact that his team built a uniquely human connection in their
Speaker:marketing that cracked open one of the most consolidated markets in the.
Speaker:We're gonna talk about that and so much more.
Speaker:So without further ado, Dave, welcome to the program.
Speaker:Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker:That was a great intro.
Speaker:Oh, thanks.
Speaker:Everybody always says the intros are good.
Speaker:So I I I thank you for saying that . Um, there's, yeah, that's the whole tone.
Speaker:It's fantastic.
Speaker:There's so much to talk about here.
Speaker:There's like a lot to talk about here.
Speaker:I'm almost not sure where to start, but I think I'm gonna start
Speaker:with a conversation on expertise.
Speaker:Maybe why industry, in your opinion, industry outsiders are able to solve
Speaker:problems that some of us who are industry experts can't solve or can't see?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Your timing is, uh, on that question is particularly interesting because
Speaker:we, we try and do a lot of that kind of educational sessions internally here,
Speaker:um, with our team at post deep and.
Speaker:More recently, I challenged the team with thinking about problem solving
Speaker:from completely unique approaches.
Speaker:Instead of continuously banging your head up against the wall, trying to,
Speaker:you know, to force us solve, maybe doing things the traditional way or
Speaker:the way that you've always done it and.
Speaker:I, I have this kind of fun of, I, I, I pay attention to like some of
Speaker:the little things and, and maybe nonsequitors in life and try and
Speaker:find, you know, and build connections.
Speaker:And my son takes guitar lessons and his guitar teachers are really
Speaker:thoughtful, intellectual kind of guy.
Speaker:And we showed up for a lesson last week.
Speaker:And he was working on solving these 3D Japanese puzzles.
Speaker:I think they're called Hama Yama puzzles.
Speaker:You can get 'em on Amazon.
Speaker:They're like 10 bucks and they have levels one through six.
Speaker:It's kind of in the same vein of solving like a Rubik's cube.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, they're, they're all different solves.
Speaker:And he handed me one and I was working on this puzzle, you know, I didn't have
Speaker:a ton of time, but I think it spent like five minutes and it's the type of
Speaker:thing that I, I genuinely am good at.
Speaker:And it just wasn't coming together.
Speaker:So I was about to hand it back to him and I, and I took a minute and
Speaker:I like pulled the puzzle blank.
Speaker:I'm like, Hold on one, one second.
Speaker:And I, I took the puzzle and I put it behind my back and within
Speaker:like five seconds I solved it.
Speaker:And, That was like, I think the analog for the idea of why sometimes the
Speaker:best businesses or most disruptive businesses are built by people who
Speaker:don't have deep domain expertise.
Speaker:They have the unique ability to not be stuck in doing things the way
Speaker:they've always been done because they had been trained over 15 or 20 years.
Speaker:They, they do things.
Speaker:Oftentimes, uniquely, they come at it from a completely different angle.
Speaker:The same way that I just couldn't solve this puzzle visually.
Speaker:The minute I started trying to solve it tactically, it came together.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, So almost like you can't see the forest for the trees kind of thing.
Speaker:Well, you, you certainly don't know all of like the challenges or hair
Speaker:on, you know, on a business, right?
Speaker:Like if, if you, you have spent 20 years working for, you know, four or
Speaker:five different, you know, businesses in the same industry, you know, you, you
Speaker:knew all the consumer challenges, all the manufacturing challenges, all the
Speaker:distribution challenges, all the reasons why I like this can or can't be done.
Speaker:Why it's always been done the same way and why, you know, this is the way that,
Speaker:each of the five companies you worked at kind of did things, very similarly.
Speaker:You have the ability to look and say, Hey, this is, how I think
Speaker:this product service, business workflow should be built or solved.
Speaker:Based on all the knowledge we have, all the technology we have,
Speaker:all the tools we have today.
Speaker:And I think a perfect example is posty , and not to go too far down
Speaker:the rabbit hole, but we're working every day in an industry that's
Speaker:been around for a hundred years.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Printing, manufacturing, direct mail, and there's no shortage of
Speaker:incumbent service providers that execute direct mail campaigns.
Speaker:Or, um, that are working in some part of the value stack.
Speaker:Our perspective was that kind of the way that direct mail is executed
Speaker:today is, is not far off from how it was executed 20, 30, 40 years ago.
Speaker:But yet there's been all this innovation in technology and machine learning and
Speaker:targeting and software and workflows.
Speaker:Why shouldn't a, a legacy industry also be able to benefit from all of that kind of,
Speaker:those modern workflows and capabilities.
Speaker:So I wanna get into Posty in a second.
Speaker:Before we get there, I wanna ask you a question about, uh,
Speaker:Dollar Shape Club, because.
Speaker:I am a subscriber to Dollar Shave Club, which I don't think I fall into the
Speaker:normal subscriber for Dollar Sha Club, but in 2000, I'm gonna call it 13.
Speaker:Um, I was 13 or 14.
Speaker:I worked in a company in a tech company, so it was all dudes and all
Speaker:of them would talk about Dollar Club and that they had this subscription
Speaker:and I was like, Hey, sometimes.
Speaker:I think I have a razor in the closet and I don't, so I want a subscription too.
Speaker:So I got a subscription to Dollar Shape Club, which I still have all of these
Speaker:years later now in 2022, I want you to talk about that story and how, how
Speaker:you made this sort of human centric connection with the consumer base that
Speaker:built Dollar Shape Club essentially.
Speaker:Well look, that was an extraordinary experience.
Speaker:An extraordinary company.
Speaker:An extraordinary journey.
Speaker:I got a front row seat to seeing it all come about because, Mike Dubin,
Speaker:who is the idea and an entrepreneur.
Speaker:He's also the face and the actor.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That, was on, all those, starting all those amazing, TV commercials, he showed
Speaker:up at science that the incubator and tech studio that, that I was one of the
Speaker:partners that, and had,, the framework for a rough idea, of this idea of selling.
Speaker:Razors direct consumer through a subscription model through the internet
Speaker:as a way to provide an alternative to you.
Speaker:You know, the 10,000 pound gorilla who had, been raising prices and creating
Speaker:a ton of pain for, the everyday consumer at the cash register.
Speaker:Yeah, I think we all had that experience where we check out
Speaker:it, Target or Walgreens or CVS or the grocery store it, and.
Speaker:We had a handful of things.
Speaker:We were like, that's like all of a sudden it's $150.
Speaker:You're like $150.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And all the razors are behind the thing.
Speaker:Then you have to ask somebody to open it up because there was such a high theft
Speaker:item cuz they were so fucking expensive.
Speaker:Look, that's a fact.
Speaker:And so the common theme.
Speaker:In this conversation that we're having is, holds true in Dollar Shape Club,
Speaker:where I think if, if Mike really knew how hard it was gonna be to compete with
Speaker:a 50 billion, giant in, in Gillette and, kind of knew the challenges of
Speaker:manufacturing a very, specific product and what it would be like to go up against,
Speaker:, that behemoth , in a nontraditional kind of, marketing approach.
Speaker:Maybe he would've tried a different business and that
Speaker:wouldn't have been the one.
Speaker:And so that's the beauty of, someone like Mike having, this really bright
Speaker:eyed, bushy-tailed idea, recognizing a pain point, having access, wherewithal
Speaker:to, manufacturing that he needed and being incredibly creative.
Speaker:But the business being born out of a very specific time and space where a
Speaker:Gillette was not right, like Gillette.
Speaker:If you watch a Gillette TV spot it, it's some of the most polished, scripted.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Think they were using like, like explosions and special effects
Speaker:and CGI and all this stuff, and in their, their advertising.
Speaker:And along comes, this little startup with, , a handful of people initially.
Speaker:, that kind of told a really authentic story through a series of media
Speaker:channels that were just emerging, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like we all take YouTube for granted right now, , but when Dollar Shape
Speaker:had launched in 2011, YouTube wasn't a huge marketing platform.
Speaker:Nobody, There was no there video at that point, right?
Speaker:Like she created it and that I think somewhat like
Speaker:naivete, passion, creativity.
Speaker:, inexperience led him to do something that you could have taken any
Speaker:number of a thousand, ex Gillette executives said, Go build a com
Speaker:competitive product to Gillette.
Speaker:And there's no way they, they would've, yeah, they wouldn't have got to put it
Speaker:in the mail and make it so affordable.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And made it fun.
Speaker:And, and he's totally fun.
Speaker:When you think about the, when I think about the commercials for Gillette versus
Speaker:Dollar Shave Club, I hate Gillette.
Speaker:I don't have a father, so I hate Gillette commercials cause it's so
Speaker:sappy and his commercials were funny and just they were, I, I implore the
Speaker:listeners, if you haven't like Googled Best Dollar Shave Club commercials to
Speaker:just do that because they're hilarious.
Speaker:You talked a little bit about in there, like the timing was good for that.
Speaker:And I know you've talked about previously the difference between a company found on
Speaker:like opportunism and a company founded on mission and a mission driven, um, company.
Speaker:What do you see as the differences, um, in the two?
Speaker:I think, I think there are, there a number of differences and it
Speaker:is something I really believe in.
Speaker:Um, and when I talk about it, like I don't mean to downplay one versus the other.
Speaker:There's tremendously successful businesses that were built opportunistically, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Um, and that, that kind of again, lend itself to that topic of.
Speaker:The entrepreneur who has a ton of deep domain experience.
Speaker:And he or she decides to take , that wherewithal knowledge of a vertical,
Speaker:a manufacturing process, a marketing angle, et cetera, a consumer base, and
Speaker:build a business around it because they believe, he or she believes that he or
Speaker:she can do it better well enough , and build a successful company around it.
Speaker:Nothing wrong with.
Speaker:Probably most companies are built that way, with mission, driven businesses
Speaker:and dollar SHA club's, one of them.
Speaker:Posty certainly is one of them.
Speaker:There, there's no shortage of 'em out there.
Speaker:Our businesses, it's not the term mission, like , they're saving
Speaker:the world and they're solving like the most needy problems.
Speaker:It's that they've recognized some challenge or problem, in the market,
Speaker:in a vertical, in an industry.
Speaker:And they believe that, that there's a better way to, to do something to enable,
Speaker:a business unit, a consumer, et cetera.
Speaker:And so, the core difference is that I think when you start with a mission,
Speaker:you're getting up every day thinking about how to solve that mission versus
Speaker:getting up every day thinking about.
Speaker:Just how you hit your p and l, how you get to market, how you, go through
Speaker:each of the steps required to, to build a, a successful business.
Speaker:It becomes a bit more authentic and, and where I think the power of that Eli is
Speaker:being an entrepreneur, building a company is very, is, it's a tremendous challenge.
Speaker:It's a very lonely place to be there, throughout, every day,
Speaker:every week, every month, every year you're on top of the world.
Speaker:And then you feel like you're., laying in a gut or somewhere mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And you have to be able to fight through those low moments.
Speaker:And it's a, a heck of a lot easier to fight through those low mo moments if
Speaker:you, if you have that reminder of why you started that business, why you launched
Speaker:that, that company, why you built that product or developed that service.
Speaker:And I just think that, that there's nothing more powerful than, again,
Speaker:getting up every day and having a purpose.
Speaker:And that, and that purpose again, doesn't have to be, Feeding the homeless
Speaker:or, putting, rockets in the space.
Speaker:It, it can be a very specific utilitarian pain point that you
Speaker:maybe you had or someone you know has that you're looking to solve.
Speaker:But you're getting up every day with that, that purpose, that mission,
Speaker:and that a big difference maker in the likelihood of, of a company
Speaker:succeeding or, or an entrepreneur group of entrepreneurs succeeding.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I've heard you say that we should have more questions than answers
Speaker:when we're starting our business.
Speaker:Some people might be listening to that and be like, Well, shouldn't I wait till I
Speaker:have all the answers to start a business?
Speaker:Like how am I gonna start a business if I don't have all the answers?
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, nobody has all the answers.
Speaker:She comes up all the time, . I'm still searching for the person that does,
Speaker:like, I can't wait to be here or her.
Speaker:Uh, yeah, no, I get, Look, I, I think anything in life, whether
Speaker:it's a, a hobby, , we talked about, our passion for outdoors and.
Speaker:Um, activities like wake surfing and mountain biking.
Speaker:You don't get into mountain biking by, , watching every
Speaker:single, , technical YouTube video.
Speaker:You can find them going out and being an expert mountain biker.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, you get out by saying, This is interesting and I'm gonna learn about
Speaker:the equipment, and learn about terrain and body position, strength training
Speaker:and endurance and, and nutrition and breathing and all those things.
Speaker:And at least for me, like that's always the fun of it.
Speaker:It's like, how do I.
Speaker:Continue down that, that path of, of information gain.
Speaker:And then usually I burn out in, in, in a hobby, um, once I like, feel like I've
Speaker:gotten 80% there and then the, and I have fewer questions to to, yeah, to ask.
Speaker:Yeah, same, same true business.
Speaker:It's, you need to know, what questions to ask.
Speaker:And then you also need to know who to surround yourself with
Speaker:in order to, to be successful.
Speaker:And that's hiring, , the absolute mm-hmm.
Speaker:, best at what they do, and always hiring people more capable than you and Yes.
Speaker:Um, in their roles.
Speaker:And, and that does, I, I do wanna make sure to touch on that, because while
Speaker:I think that it is true what we spoke about,, at the beginners show, that.
Speaker:Entrepreneurs who don't have an ingrained way of thinking about a
Speaker:specific, problem that they're tackling.
Speaker:Oftentimes make for more disruptive entrepreneurs or or companies, you also
Speaker:need to be surrounded by domain expertise.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And so in our company, There's a component that we wanna do very differently.
Speaker:The way we work with data, the way we work with prediction and
Speaker:measurement, the way we do execution.
Speaker:Like those are, those are, the way we leverage software.
Speaker:Those are all, we a very different approach to, to direct mail our industry.
Speaker:But we also are producing in manufacturing, tens of
Speaker:millions and hundreds of millions of pieces of drug mail.
Speaker:Daily, weekly, , annually.
Speaker:And that's a very robust, complicated process.
Speaker:And so our entire ops team is coming in with dozens of years of domain expertise.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because that's an area that we do have to understand how the equipment works
Speaker:and how the vendor set works and mm-hmm.
Speaker:, how the US Postal Service works.
Speaker:So there're always there.
Speaker:There, you can.
Speaker:Only hire people and surround yourself with people that, that don't have
Speaker:any domain expertise and think that you're gonna , be successful.
Speaker:But you can take this blend of let's not get caught up in the way
Speaker:that things have always been done.
Speaker:Let's tackle, our business processes from the way we think things should
Speaker:be done, but then they're gonna be components within each business that
Speaker:ha you know, that, that have to, you know, recognize, um, there's a
Speaker:level of knowledge and expertise and experience required to, to be successful.
Speaker:Yeah, so I wanna get into Posty a little bit.
Speaker:So for the listeners, you own a company called Posty, um, which
Speaker:is direct mail, like old fashioned mail, like gets delivered to your
Speaker:house, your business by a mailman.
Speaker:That company you say, allows you, allows direct mail to perform as dynamically as
Speaker:digital marketing channels and campaigns.
Speaker:And I'm thinking like people are gonna be like, Wait a minute, like,
Speaker:everything we do is digital now.
Speaker:We're always on our phones, we're always on our computers.
Speaker:When was the last time, like a piece of direct mail caught your
Speaker:eye, made you buy something?
Speaker:Like tell me.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Cause I think there's multiple questions here.
Speaker:It's like how are you creating di direct mail that is as is, as
Speaker:performs, as well as as digital?
Speaker:And also like, aren't we at a time when we're like, We don't even know what's
Speaker:happening with the postal service.
Speaker:Are we gonna have mail six days a week or are we gonna have mail three days a week?
Speaker:Like, is it gonna take forever to get there?
Speaker:Or what?
Speaker:So how are, there's multiple questions there, but first, how are you
Speaker:outperforming, and then two, what do you see happening with the mail service?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:I mean, the male service is really easy.
Speaker:Yeah, from time to time, usually politically charged.
Speaker:There's.
Speaker:Headlines that pop up every now and then, and, it's usually,
Speaker:weaponizing, one political party or the other and it greatly nonsense.
Speaker:Um, US post service is an incredibly well run organization, arguably one of the,
Speaker:the best run organizations in the world.
Speaker:Um, over 600,000 employees.
Speaker:And when you think about the volume of mal and parcels that they're delivering,
Speaker:All within kind of the confines of what's required to be a government agency.
Speaker:It's extraordinary.
Speaker:I, I've been nothing but impressed since being in the business.
Speaker:I, Yeah, look, there's risk in everything.
Speaker:Delivery of packages and mal required gas, Gas prices right now are an
Speaker:all time high come down again.
Speaker:Like there's cycles, like all that stuff factors in so many different businesses.
Speaker:But, that is not something that, that keep us, that keeps us up at night.
Speaker:The males delivered accurately, efficiently, at scale, every single day.
Speaker:So the other question becomes like, how do you leverage that to, to
Speaker:solve, , some challenges in, in the marketing stack these days?
Speaker:And, you're exactly right.
Speaker:I mean, for the past 20 years, we, as marketers and technologists have
Speaker:pushed, the commentary around why are you doing all this traditional old school
Speaker:marketing, you should be leveraging all this technology available in digital.
Speaker:And I remembered that talk track back as, as far as 1999 when I started in, in
Speaker:kinda the marketing technology industry.
Speaker:Fast forward to a decade ago, the behemoth of Facebook and Google became
Speaker:Facebook and Google and really powerful places to reach, huge addressable markets.
Speaker:Communicate with really dynamic advertising, leverage, data
Speaker:and mathematics and testing and optimization and measurement.
Speaker:All that is true.
Speaker:And then those, , those 10,000 pound gorillas became 20 and 40 and
Speaker:60,000 pound gorillas and sometimes did great things for consumers and
Speaker:advertisers, and sometimes did.
Speaker:Not so great things for consumers and advertisers and kind of the world we're
Speaker:in right now is one that's, where of your brand, you're kind of stuck and
Speaker:you have to work with the beast that is, you know, social and very rarely these
Speaker:days because of the co increased costs and the just amount of, competitive
Speaker:advertisers bidding on, those platforms.
Speaker:Um, it's become really hard to find profitability in your
Speaker:advertising on those platforms.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And so for us, The question is, advertising when done successfully is
Speaker:more about the right message to the right individual or group of individuals
Speaker:so that you're finding efficiency and you're spending your time, , telling
Speaker:your story to people that are interested.
Speaker:And direct mail has always offered that, that ability in theory, right?
Speaker:You're able to send an individual ad, a specific address, a
Speaker:specific, message, a specific ad.
Speaker:And that's no different than digital.
Speaker:The, the challenge has been like, there just hasn't been any software
Speaker:investment to bring all the tools together, required to execute direct
Speaker:mail campaigns, sophisticatedly dynamically, quickly, and integrate
Speaker:with the rest of your marketing stack.
Speaker:And so that was really , our belief was like, Hey, there's this huge, big channel.
Speaker:It's incredibly effective when done well.
Speaker:There's all this pain in all these channels that we spent the last decade or
Speaker:two, putting, so much attention into and maybe, building thoughtful software and
Speaker:technology to give advertisers the ability to, to interact with that channel more.
Speaker:Like our expectations would be in 2022.
Speaker:Maybe that all of a sudden provides a ton of value back to the brand,
Speaker:allows them to communicate with that their, their prospect consumers
Speaker:in a really meaningful way.
Speaker:And, six years into our journey, I think we've greatly proven that
Speaker:hypothe hypothesis was accurate.
Speaker:Advertisers want consumers enjoy the.
Speaker:Ability to engage with brands in a more, um, tactical way.
Speaker:And it's giving advertisers a channel that historically was a bit more analog
Speaker:and now fits into their entire marketing stack the way that they expect it to.
Speaker:Can you give us an example of a way that an organization is communicating
Speaker:with their consumer via direct mail?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:More brands have.
Speaker:Invest in building out their own digital properties and mobile apps and
Speaker:integrated if they're, uh, a brick and mortar, um, or an omnichannel retailer,
Speaker:integrated their oncom checkout systems, POS systems with their kind of backend
Speaker:databases, which means they understand the consumers that are engaging with
Speaker:them, spending with them, why they're buying, why they're engaging, what product
Speaker:and services are resonating with them.
Speaker:From there, the marketers that kind of have those, those backend pipes
Speaker:set up and are really listening to how consumers are engaging with them, are
Speaker:looking for meaningful ways to, to kind of leverage that knowledge and insights
Speaker:to do a better job communicating at the right time with their right customers.
Speaker:The kinda nuance in, in direct mail or any channel is, is probably too
Speaker:much for any, one conversation.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, but at a high level, advertisers are, are spending a lot of time thinking
Speaker:about what they call address addressable media, which is understanding the
Speaker:individuals that you're, you're reaching.
Speaker:And ca and then putting time into, into developing the right
Speaker:messaging, the right cadence thing.
Speaker:Um, yeah, the right talk tracks, the right images, and we've seen.
Speaker:A dramatic improvement and investment in the way that that advertisers
Speaker:are including direct mail into those addressable strategies.
Speaker:They can target someone on, on YouTube or on an Instagram feed ad or
Speaker:story, and they can also, um, reach that same individual with a follow
Speaker:up message through their mailbox.
Speaker:And, and it's not about any one specific tactic.
Speaker:It's about understanding who your, your potential audiences are, your best
Speaker:performing customers, the customers that are at risk of potentially
Speaker:churn, and going and shopping with different competitive brands and,
Speaker:um, and leveraging that knowledge and insight into your future communication.
Speaker:The thing with digital is there's a footprint we can analyze.
Speaker:We have click rates, we have open rates.
Speaker:We know what people are.
Speaker:Do we have ways of backing this and seeing exactly what people are
Speaker:doing with what they're sending.
Speaker:I'm assuming when you send something in the mail like that's, You don't know,
Speaker:number one, do you know if it got there?
Speaker:Do you know if they've looked at it?
Speaker:Do you know if they just threw it into the trash can?
Speaker:Like how are we quantifying the money, like the effort we're spending on
Speaker:direct mail, advertising, marketing, communications, if we don't have a way
Speaker:of easily accessing the data from it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well that's the thing we, we do know, right?
Speaker:So that's a big, are kind of three core, um, 10 poles that we focus on.
Speaker:One is targeting, um, that's how you leverage, insights and data
Speaker:to make better informed decisions on, on who to engage with.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Then it's, , simpler execution and so kind of all the automation
Speaker:so that you don't have to deal.
Speaker:Complex, procurement and manufacturing.
Speaker:It just happens automatically.
Speaker:And the third is measurement, right?
Speaker:You have to know what's working and what's not working.
Speaker:And in indirect mail there, there's a lot of different ways to measure.
Speaker:So, um, just like with packages, there are delivery scans.
Speaker:So the US post service, scans every piece of mouth tracks it
Speaker:all the way through delivery.
Speaker:And our, our software connects with the US Pulse service.
Speaker:Dans and so can, can notify, uh, advertisers when.
Speaker:Individuals within their audiences have been reached.
Speaker:And then with regards to, behaviors, at this point, most brands have ways to
Speaker:capture conversion, whether it's through a loyalty program or whether it's through a
Speaker:digital footprint, because someone's come online and their identity graphs that you
Speaker:can build within your, your data pipes.
Speaker:And because with direct mail, the individual and the address that you're
Speaker:sending a specific, piece of mail to.
Speaker:So if that person converts and you're shipping a product to them,
Speaker:well, you can actually do that match very accurately and cleanly.
Speaker:Arguably even, even more accurately than in digital with, with zero level
Speaker:fraud because you know that person was reached through a piece of direct amount.
Speaker:You know that person converted.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because you have a billing or a shipping address on them.
Speaker:It's a pretty direct match.
Speaker:And then you can then leverage that knowledge into making.
Speaker:More informed decisions on, future, ad budgets and just rinse and repeat.
Speaker:And, and that's what we've always done.
Speaker:Digital or in the more modern era of digital.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And, all those tools are enabling direct mail though.
Speaker:Do think as we kind of think about digital detoxes and trying to unplug a little
Speaker:bit and not be on social media so much and be ruled by our screens, like, do
Speaker:you think more companies are gonna start.
Speaker:Communicating with their potential client base through direct mail?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, well, it's a huge channel already.
Speaker:So 50 billion is spent in the US in direct mail.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. So it, it's not like this is a industry that's disappeared.
Speaker:I mean, it's a monster, monster channel.
Speaker:Um, we've seen gains over the last three years as well.
Speaker:So, so it is a growing channel.
Speaker:Look, I think that, We've already seen some of the risk of relying
Speaker:on, on big digital, right?
Speaker:Big tech.
Speaker:And so one of those big changes is the work between Apple and Facebook.
Speaker:And so, you know, Apple rolled out, iOS 14.
Speaker:That made, cross device tracking, impossible or certainly very difficult.
Speaker:Every advertiser felt pain in some cases, like tremendous pain and channels
Speaker:like Facebook and Instagram stopped performing in some cases completely.
Speaker:In other cases it started underperforming and they needed to
Speaker:work on rebuilding their strategies.
Speaker:If you are an advertiser, are not investing in channels outside of social in
Speaker:particular, and arguably search as well, and certainly programmatic and digital,
Speaker:you're walking a very dangerous line.
Speaker:Google's been threatening, ducting the cookie for years.
Speaker:They just push that out another year.
Speaker:But there's concerns, multiple states are rolling out refreshes on tumor privacy
Speaker:laws that are gonna potentially limit the way that, online tracking works.
Speaker:I don't believe this is a sky's following thing, but I do believe
Speaker:this is a, if you're not constantly investing in an omnichannel approach
Speaker:to marketing, A, you're not maximizing performance currently, but b, you're
Speaker:not preparing for changes in the future.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:So I hope that advertisers are listening.
Speaker:I hope they're making investment.
Speaker:It doesn't just have to be direct mail, but, um, it does need to be, it does
Speaker:need to be channels on site of the two or three that they're currently
Speaker:relying on is, are driven by big.
Speaker:So tell me how a company, if they're like, Hey, we don't do
Speaker:this direct mail route, like maybe it's something we should look at.
Speaker:Um, tell me how you work with companies, how they can get in touch with you.
Speaker:Um, if they wanna talk about is this a possibility for their company?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Our website, is a great place to start.
Speaker:We,, continuously work on publishing more and more content and case studies
Speaker:and thought leadership, um, content, and there's a very kinda easy content
Speaker:us forum right there on the website and that gets funneled to our marketing
Speaker:team and, and to our sales team.
Speaker:I would say that that's the best place to start because you
Speaker:can get a little bit of kind.
Speaker:Information on your own , and get a sense where, if we seem like
Speaker:the right fit for you to explore.
Speaker:And if so, we'd love to have, our team engage and do some discovery
Speaker:conversations and see if, your brand thinks, that we could be helpful.
Speaker:And that is www.posttpostie.com, is that correct?
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:She said that for right.
Speaker:That's ok.
Speaker:I'll put it in the show notes anyways, but I always like to
Speaker:spell it out cause sometimes people don't make it to the show notes.
Speaker:I, I appreciate that.
Speaker:This has been great.
Speaker:I'm so glad we talked.
Speaker:Thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker:Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker:The, , great questions.
Speaker:I think you're asking all the questions that, that advertisers should be
Speaker:asking, and we're constantly trying to get out there and help advertisers
Speaker:stay, ahead of the way because, we are in a really interesting, tenuous
Speaker:position with, with all things digital.
Speaker:It's not gonna go away, but it, what works and what doesn't work.
Speaker:And the level of scale is changing.
Speaker:One thing you said, I'm just saying, I'm just writing this down.
Speaker:One thing you said about the privacy laws and the online tracking, at
Speaker:least digital mail doesn't listen to you through your Alexa device.
Speaker:Look, I, I here turn turned off, um, on almost every device.
Speaker:We don't have Alexa.
Speaker:I'm not like a paranoid, individual, but it's not about being paranoid.
Speaker:, it's just, it's a fact.
Speaker:It isn't.
Speaker:They're listening.
Speaker:There's a reason why, and I don't have Facebook on my phone anymore, but
Speaker:there's a reason why, you say something or someone near you says something
Speaker:and you open up, you know your feed and next thing you know there's an ad
Speaker:promoting something that you're just like, I just was talking about that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, how coincidental.
Speaker:It's not, No, it's not coincidence.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So are they using that in honest ways or?
Speaker:, maybe un tart ways.
Speaker:Well, I think, Facebook in particular, I think it's proven
Speaker:that EL doesn't change its spots.
Speaker:Um, Yeah.
Speaker:They're not a company that believes in privacy.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Or believes in transparency that they've made that clear
Speaker:over and over again and Yeah.
Speaker:We have to, we, yeah.
Speaker:We should be thinking about that as consumers and advertisers.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That's how we're gonna end it.
Speaker:, thank you so much.
Speaker:You're welcome.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Have more questions than answers.
Speaker:That's one of the things that David suggests, and let me tell you, the
Speaker:bigger my company and therefore my brand gets, I certainly have more questions
Speaker:than answers, but this is a good thing.
Speaker:This means I'm pushing myself and this company into new
Speaker:unchartered places and yeah, it's.
Speaker:Now, let's go back into the way back machine.
Speaker:There was a time when every company sent their Christmas cards in the mail.
Speaker:If they sent Christmas cards about it.
Speaker:Eventually given the time and the cost to mail individual cards, most
Speaker:companies switch over to sending their holiday cards via email.
Speaker:In my humble opinion, it's just not the same.
Speaker:You wanna know why?
Speaker:Cuz I don't print out your company email and tack it to my board.
Speaker:Or a wall in my office like I do with all the other holiday cards
Speaker:I get that come through the mail.
Speaker:Your holiday card gets deleted almost as fast as it was delivered.
Speaker:Maybe that's why direct mail is having a resurgence.
Speaker:We are so sick of the constant bombardment of online instream advertising that we
Speaker:feel nostalgic about direct meal pieces.
Speaker:Maybe everything that was old is new again.
Speaker:I dunno.
Speaker:See, there's lots of things I don't.
Speaker:All right onto today's drink of the week, which comes with a
Speaker:little bit of a history lesson.
Speaker:Does anybody remember the old air mail envelopes with the blue and the
Speaker:red hatching all around the envelope?
Speaker:The US Postal Service started using air mail back in 1911.
Speaker:The first air mail trip was wicked short.
Speaker:The first fight was a short hop from Santa Rosa to Petaluma, California,
Speaker:and had only three letters on board.
Speaker:40 years later, it was the inspiration for the Air Mail cocktail, which was first
Speaker:published in Whitfield's Cocktail Guide in 1941, and then again in Esquire's 1949.
Speaker:Handbook for Hosts.
Speaker:Here's what you're gonna need.
Speaker:The juice of one line, one teaspoon of honey, one and
Speaker:a half ounces of rum, and c.
Speaker:For all ingredients except the champagne and a cocktail shaker.
Speaker:Add ice and shake vigorously until chilled.
Speaker:Strain into a highball glass filled with ice, and then top with champagne
Speaker:garnish with a postage stamp.
Speaker:If you feel like it, why would you do that?
Speaker:That like 50 cents.
Speaker:Now I want to thank Kitie cooking for the recipe in history on this.
Speaker:All right friends, that's all for this week.
Speaker:If you like what you heard today, please leave a review
Speaker:and subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker:Also, remember to share it with your friends.
Speaker:To help it, reach a larger audience.
Speaker:Until next week.
Speaker:Cheers guys.
Speaker:Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen.
Speaker:Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a tip.
Speaker:And remember, you can unapologetically be who you authentically are
Speaker:and still be wildly successful.
Speaker:That's a fact.
