Ep 267 | The Role of Direct Mail in Fundraising with Robert Lee

In today's digital age, it's easy to overlook the power of a tangible message in your hand. That's why we're diving into the world of direct mail with Robert Lee, a seasoned digital marketing guru who knows how to make an impact beyond the screen. In this episode, we explore the often-untapped potential of direct mail in fundraising efforts. Robert brings his wealth of experience to the table, discussing the ins and outs of crafting a successful campaign that resonates with donors.

We'll delve into the creative side of direct mail, where Robert reveals some of the most engaging and memorable strategies he's employed. From eye-catching postcards that pop in your mailbox to oversized mailers that stand out from the stack, he shares insights on how to grab attention and connect with people in a meaningful way. Whether you're a nonprofit looking to boost donations or a business seeking to build lasting relationships with customers, this conversation is packed with actionable tips to enhance your outreach. Join us as we uncover the secrets to making direct mail a fun and effective tool for your fundraising arsenal.

What you'll learn:

→ Different types of direct mail and how to get started
→ Ways to track direct mail campaigns digitally
→ Integrating direct mail into the customer journey
→ Using data to personalize direct mail nurturing
→ Examples of effective political and nonprofit direct mail

Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:

[06:02] The power of direct mail in building personal connections. Unlike emails or texts, receiving a physical letter or package can make someone feel special and valued. We discuss strategies for making your mail stand out and why this traditional form of communication still has a significant impact today.

[10:56] Using QR codes on mail pieces to capture opt-in data. By including these on your mail pieces, you can bridge the gap between physical mail and digital convenience. Listeners will learn how QR codes can encourage recipients to opt-in for more information, allowing you to capture valuable data and grow your contact list effectively.

[18:57] Analyzing donor data to insert timely thank you mailings. We talk about how tracking donations and responding quickly with a personalized thank you note can make donors feel appreciated and more likely to contribute again in the future.

[25:32] The importance of emotionally engaging audiences. Whether it's through storytelling or appealing to shared values, we discuss how emotionally charged content can resonate more deeply with recipients, fostering a stronger connection and increasing the likelihood of them taking action.

[36:36] Connecting with Robert Lee for direct mail consultation. For those interested in taking their direct mail campaigns to the next level, we talk about how connecting with Robert for a consultation can provide personalized advice tailored to your specific goals and needs.

Resources

Free Consultation to discuss marketing frameworks with Lesix Agency
Eight Essential Exchanges by Kevin Scott freebie when you schedule a consultation

Full Transcript

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
We all know that direct mail is a great way to connect with our audiences new and existing, it's a great thing that can just pop up in their mailbox that you can be fun and creative with, and have a good time kind of showcasing who you are, what you do, and how your organization is somebody that they should be connected to. Now, we often think of direct mail pieces over the holidays in our urine giving campaigns, but there's something that can be a part of our entire fundraising experience with our donors. So today, we're going to talk about different and fun, creative, direct mail ideas that you can use to stay engaged with your donors. Remember, we want to meet them where they are, and we want to meet them in multiple different places, so that you can connect with them. stay top of mind and encourage them to participate in your organization. So to talk to us about this today is my guest Robert Lee.

Robert is the founder of the Lesix Agency, a full marketing agency with the vision to put your company on the path to doubling your sales in 90 days. As a digital marketer Certified Partner he brings in over 15 years of marketing experience. His mission is to help business owners unlock their potential. Robert and his team are dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs by providing expert guidance, building a strong foundation, and providing them with marketing strategy that will propel their success. Robert truly believed you deserve a marketing partner that invest energy and helping you grow your business. He's got a lot of great ideas and fun things to share with us in this episode, so I know you're gonna really like it. Before we get into this episode, I apologize for my background, we are in the middle of a move. And so this isn't quite done yet. But that's okay, because the content here is going to be fantastic. This episode is brought to you by our July freebie, I've got nine really fun ideas for how you can steward your donors ways you can stay engaged with them connected with them, and building a deeper relationship and also helping them build community within your donor base as well so that they can be even more connected to your organization. So you can grab that at thefirstclick.net/resources I hope that you snag it, I know that you'll love all of the ideas that are in there. And make sure you grab one of the other freebies while you're there. We have lots of fun things to help you with your fundraising needs. For now, let's get into the episode.

Intro
You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. Each month we dive deep into a digital marketing or fundraising strategy that you can implement in your organization. Each week, you'll hear from guest experts, nonprofits, and myself on best practices, tips and resources to help you raise more money online and reach your organizational goals.

Robert Lee
Hey, I appreciate, appreciate you all having me on.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Yeah, so we're talking kind of direct mail and how to pull it into the digital space. So why direct mail? Why is that something that you get excited about and that you kind of love integrating into our marketing plans.

Robert Lee
I personally love it because it's, it's ironically enough for as old school as it is. It offers a real unique selling point for any marketer that incorporates it into advertising strategies. Because there's a lot of folks out there that just say it's a digital world. So analog technologies don't have a place and that's just absolutely not true. So it makes you a little untraditional to use traditional piece of advertising and so it gives you some mystique, I guess for lack of a better way of saying it. Again, it's it's completely ironic, because mail has been around for you know, for seemingly forever, at least, you know, forever in our lifetimes and our grandparents lifetimes and all of that. So it's just one of those things that that allows me to, to stand out a little bit and offer some expertise and and make my advertising consulting that much more dynamic. Then go spend 1000s of dollars on Facebook ads. And we'll figure it out in the course of that. So,

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
yeah, so what is the power behind behind direct mail?

Robert Lee
Well, if generationally speaking for older generations, Gen X baby boomers, it offers some of that nostalgia, right. They still like opening their mailbox, getting something with a stamp on it, getting something addressed to them. They like seeing their name on a piece of paper, because that is how they grew up communicating with people you wrote pen pals, you, you look for that JC Penney catalog or the Montgomery Ward cat, Montgomery Ward a catalog in the mail and so it's a reminder of those experiences. They grew up. Grew up, you know, living their life with. And anytime you can evoke that emotional attachment in some sort of way, it helps build a relationship with them. Now for younger generations, believe it or not, they like receiving direct mail, because it sparks creativity, when you have this really dynamic piece that looks and feels engaging it, it stands out from that digital experience that they've grown up with. And, and there's just some power behind being able to connect with their emotions at a much different way. But something they can feel in touch and be inspired by. So direct mail, it allows you to continue developing relationships with potential customers with existing customers in very unique ways, but in very personal ways. And that should be the goal of any advertising campaign is to reduce the noise in having a conversation with one person that you're trying to communicate with.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Yeah, I love that. Because it's great when you can get the mail and it's not a bill or, you know, just kind of junk. But before we kind of jump into, you know, if we how do we know if it's working? And how do we kind of incorporate into our digital marketing strategies? Could you share, because I think direct mail can look like a lot of different types of pieces, right? So what kind of what are maybe some of your favorite kinds of direct mail pieces, but you know, even if you just rattle off for some people kind of different types of direct mail, what that can look like, because we might all have a different image in our minds of what a direct mail quote unquote, campaign might.

Robert Lee
Well, and that's the great thing about it, just generally speaking, direct mail is anything that goes into a mailbox. So it can be a package, it can be a postcard, it can be a letter that that you hand write one at a time. Now, having said that, the personal ones that I love, depending on the campaign is one I love oversized pieces. I mean, we're talking 12 by 15, obnoxiously large posters, and and they're not useful for everything. But I can tell you, the one thing that helps them stand out is not necessarily the copy. But just the pure size mean, just by virtue of the fact that people can fold those things up and carry the rest of their mail into the house with them. Gives it a utility that gets them to actually stop and look at it. It's it's useful for them. And, you know, when you make it useful, people pay attention to it. So, and I love handwritten postcards. I mean, I just I love them. And I love it when you're it's your own handwriting, even if your handwriting is bad, because that again, it shows a personal side too. And a personal connection. You only need a few words to be legible and readable. And those are the words in the copy that help you build that personal relationship with somebody. But everybody's familiar with with chicken scratch, right? Everybody knows that when you go to the doctor, you can't read your prescription. But pharmacy can in some sort of way. Right? Well,

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
and I want to interrupt you there because my kids go to a summer camp every year, an overnight camp and over the holidays, they send handwritten postcards to the kids. So they get a postcard from their old cabin counselor or from that summer. So like my son went for two weeks. So he got two postcards, you know. And I guarantee you that, because most of the counselors are international, they're writing those postcards at the end of the week for all of those kids, right? They're not sitting down and writing like 70 postcards. So they're writing them ahead of time when everything is fresh, but still holding them and sending them out during the holidays. It's kind of like a way to surprise and delight. So I agree with you. It's super fun. The kids get to get those postcards, and it's just that reminder, kind of at year end for us parents like hey, you know, they're not necessarily asking for a donation. But they're staying top of mind during the holiday giving season

Robert Lee 
100% and use a I mean, at the end of the day, you're a paying customer for that camp, right? So are you more likely to continue to trust sending your kids to that camp that cares enough about you and your kids to send that handwritten postcard whenever it was sent. So those are just two examples of what I really like, because they offer some level of either emotional attachment or utility that gets somebody to stop and look at it. And if you ever read Gary Halbert letters to his son, right, I mean, he talks about using direct mail in chapter 11 in very unique ways, if I remember correctly, he talked about attaching a bag of dirt to a postcard and how much that would get somebody to just stop and Look at it. So, it there's just a ton of ton of different types of mail. But if I was telling you if it's your first foray, use one of those two, and and test out those two is part of your advertising campaign to really connect with those.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Yeah. And I love that you're calling this an advertising campaign? Because I think a lot of times, we don't realize that some of the marketing pieces that we're creating, whether they have a specific direct ask or not, I mean, it costs money to push out direct mail. And so it should be part of an intention of something right, trying to get people to do something, take action, whatever that might be. And as is with all things in marketing, you know, we get these questions all the time. Well, how do I know if it's working? If I'm sending out direct mail, and it's going to somebody's inbox, it's so hard to track? How do I even know if I want to keep spending money on these types of things.

Robert Lee
So one of the ways that you can do that is with a QR code and using a dynamic QR code with a P URL, which is something that we use a tremendous amount with our clients. We were evangelists are high level. So if you use high level as a CRM, it is lead management software, it's easy for you to create forms that capture all that data from the P URL that's embedded in the QR code. And then just through the ink jetting process, you obviously have to inkjet their name, their address, the barcode to get the postal discounts. But at the same time, you can inkjet that dynamic QR code. So if you have your clear call to action that says scan this code, fill out this form, get your free ebook, or, you know, your free bumper sticker, whatever it is, you can track all that information. So you get opt in rates, you get opt in data, like zip codes, which ID codes are responding the best, which neighborhoods are responding the best, whatever sort of information, you want to code into that into that that QR code that that dynamic URL, you're able to do it, it gives you a tremendous amount of data. And then don't

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
have if you don't want to use like, if you want to use a standard QR code, you could do that. I mean, if you're just getting started, right, if you're correct, getting like, I'm not going to do this, this too much, you could use a standard QR code and direct them to a form on your website or something of that nature. Correct.

Robert Lee
And obviously, the data won't be as deep. But you could absolutely do that number of scans, number of opt ins to that dedicated landing page gives you at least enough simple data that you can make educated decisions about what it is that you're doing. Now, in terms of suppose your brick and mortar store or even an E commerce brand, you can use dynamic coupon coupon codes for somebody that wants to buy something and say 15% off for this using this coupon code, and you can track it back to the individual mail piece that you sent, we did that over the summer for a client. And just from on or in store shopping, we saw a conversion rate of about 4%. And they easily easily quite believe it was about five or six times ROI. And that was just in store shopping. That didn't even include their e commerce numbers, which we didn't have any access to that particular data without them giving it to us, which they didn't in this particular case, but they basically said the numbers were a little bit better for the E commerce side of it. So when you consider that we did, you know, five 6% in store. I mean, we're talking an ROI of 10 to 12%. And this was a simple little postcard during a summer sale. And I mean, all of that data was tracked at that point. So they're able to make better decisions about where to target their direct mail, what type of messaging to use, and, and rock and roll from there. Yeah,

Sami Bedell-Mulhern 
and I think, you know, the starting point of that, like when you get those conversions, you know, how important is it that people? You know, it's not just about testing kind of that initial conversion, but how important is it for people to have that follow up customer care plan or donor care plan already ready to go and lined out afterwards so that you don't put all that effort into the front end? I got these new customers or I got these customers, and then we never have them coming back. Like do you find sometimes people miss that mark? I know we're kind of drifting away from direct mail. But I think it's an important element like do you kind of make sure that people are putting that whole thought process through? I mean, how separate is direct mail from the rest of your marketing?

Robert Lee
It shouldn't be separate at all. I mean, you should and this is something that we strive with all of our direct mail customers to talk about. Before we even send A mail piece is what is your customer value journey? Why do you want to use direct mail in your campaign versus Facebook ads or meta ads or, you know, local SEO or whatever it is, if you don't understand what that CBJ looks like, if you don't understand what your ideal client needs, if you don't understand the emotional attachments you have, that direct mail is meaningless. Just like meta ads, and everything else is meaningless. The end of the day mail is just a form of media, the most important thing that you want to develop with somebody is a deep relationship. You want to date a little bit before you start asking for the big marriage proposal. And if you're using direct mail to make a big marriage proposal, and they've never heard from you before, it's guaranteed to be a waste of money. But so is every other form of advertising. So it's critically important that we understand those assets that you have, like the CV j, the client profile you have, what sort of emotional attachments you want to develop, before we ever start talking about how to put a mail piece together? Yeah,

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
nope, that's such a good reminder. Okay, so you already talked about kind of one way that we can bring direct mail into the digital space with the form of QR codes, but kind of how else can we use direct mail pieces to drive that online traffic or that website traffic or to social media to kind of continue that journey, like you said, so we can keep dating them before they're ready to kind of complete that, that purchase or make that donation?

Robert Lee
Well, everything that I've talked about beforehand is obviously cold. It's the beginning of that customer value journey, right? It's developing awareness and engagement with your audience. But you can also use your digital space to help execute your direct mail plan as well. And one of the greatest things I mean, I mentioned handwriting, handwriting, a postcard, one of the greatest things is that there's technology out there. And you can buy a machine for very low cost compared to some other machines that allow you to hand write postcards or letters as you need them. So you can use your digital assets to feed into companies or even your own system that allows you to create an automation, a hand written a letter or a postcard, at the time it calls for it in the process of building that relationship. So a great example of this would be you have this email nurture campaign, and you're tracking clicks, and you're putting people in it, you're segmenting your list. Well, based on how deep they go through that process of engaging and filling out forms, you can actually a week after somebody, say joins an online community that you have, you can automate the process of sending them a handwritten letter that says, hey, just want to make sure you know how much I appreciate you joining our online community mean that the power of reminding them of that relationship, it's kind of like that thinking of you card, you send somebody at a random time during the year. And in that's also part of your direct mail plan. So just like anything else, it where it fits in with your customer value journey will determine how you use it. But you can use your digital digital assets to make your direct mail more useful. And like I said, you can use your direct mail to make your digital assets more useful as well. But I mean, there's there's endless ways that you can put this together, you just have to kind of be creative, not kind of be creative, just be creative. Take some chances, test out an idea. And if it works, lean into it, if it doesn't change it up and use it a different way. So Well, I

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
think one you know, speaking of that example, that you just said, like one really interesting thing to test would be taking a look at like your monthly giving program and at what at what time or if you have a subscription of any kind, right, a membership, whatever At what time do you start to see that? Maybe it's like at six months or 10 months, you see the biggest drop off of when people stop giving right? Then, you know, adding that in to say, Okay, well, at month eight, then we're going to start sending handwritten cards just to let people know the impact and how much we appreciate them. Because we know that a month or two later is when they tend to fall off. Or maybe you notice it during a certain time of the calendar year. Right? So that's a good way to kind of take a look at your data and insert some of those pieces, which is really easy to do.

Robert Lee
100% 100% And I'll even go one step further. How do you turn small dollar donors into major major donors just because somebody gives $25 That doesn't mean they can't give to 150 And the question becomes and your CV Jay will help you answer this. How do you ascend them from that small dollar occasional donor into somebody that you cultivate a relationship with to the point where they say, emotionally, it feels so good to give $250? I mean, there are a number of ways. I mean, we, your example, talks about making sure they don't fall off, very important. But you can also ask yourself, How do I not only keep them giving, but a send them through the program, so that that they are now so critically joined with us that it becomes easier to ask for more inquiry and increase the lifetime value of of what they give to our organization? Yeah,

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
well, and so I think about direct mail, it's kind of like two pieces, right? Like, there's the stuff that you kind of blast out that you might, you know, purchase a list from, or you might have specific demographics, you send out kind of a standard piece could be a postcard could be a letter, annual appeal, whatever. So there's kind of like that cold outreach, where you're trying to pull people in, and then there's the direct mail pieces that are the nurture that are trying to kind of keep people around. If we're just getting started with this or trying to figure out how to begin, is there one side of the coin that you would recommend people start with? Or how do we kind of say, Okay, where do I begin? So?

Robert Lee
That's, that's a tough question. It's a tough question. Because obviously, every organization is different. The first thing and I keep going back to this, and I will harp on this over and over, again, is understand the type of donors that you want to start with pick one, and then answer say, All right, what does this donor need from us to be able to be able to engage in in generally speaking, when you're talking about that starts, you're probably going to be using a lot of cold mail methods to start that relationship building process. So that's where I would go back to those oversized postcards, or the handwritten postcards or something along those lines. And understand that you're going to need more than one piece, or at the very least, you need to be able to use that piece to engage your digital assets, so that you can collect email addresses, phone numbers, and, and everything along the way. Because otherwise, if you just send out one piece and say I'm banking, everything on this, yeah, I mean, that's a very expensive basket to put all of your eggs in. And more often than not, it doesn't work to the degree that you want it to. However, if you choose that donor profile, from a list of past donors, I would start with the digital campaigns first, because you at least have some data. And you can use those lower cost methods, lower cost per piece methods to send out some communications. And then as they reengage with your organization, use your direct mail to ascend them to a higher lifetime value. So somebody if you send out a digital ad that says, hey, donate your donate $25 You've been passed on or before we'd love you for that. Can you can you do 25 To get us over this hump? Well, at that point, once they donate, you can kick off those automations. Again, to send the follow up postcards that just say thank you, we love you. Here's a little gift we wanted to make sure you got and it could be something as simple as a bumper sticker, right? Something as simple as a little fridge, magnet, whatever it is. And then you can start to say, by the way, you know, we know you did 25, can you maybe consider a $10 monthly donation for the year, right? If they gave 25, but do $10 a month, you've instantly five times their contribution over the course of the year. And then you can use direct mail for that. And then incorporate other advertising methods as well. So again, it comes back down to knowing what value journey you're investing in knowing that ideal client profile and what you have to do to build a deeper relationship with them. And then deciding how to use your direct mail in that process. So again, very general question. But but just like anything else, there's probably a million answers. And they either all stained or they all are fantastic. But

Sami Bedell-Mulhern 
I love what you said with regards to like start testing digitally because it is less expensive. Especially to get that messaging down to make sure your messaging is resonating because you know you can you can put out eight different ads online very quickly and see kind of what people are engaging with the most you can't send In eight, what you could but you're not gonna send out eight direct mail pieces with different messaging to see which one resonates. Like that's not the right use of time. So I think that's really smart. That's really smart advice. And I do also like what you're saying is like, layer in what like just keep layering different elements, like get really good at one thing. Direct Mail should be something that's layered into a campaign, not as a standalone kind of thing. And then how are we doing it on the front end and the back end? Just looking at it big picture. So I agree with I agree with everything you said. So Well, I

Robert Lee 
appreciate that. Thank you.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
I love that. Okay, I know you've already shared a couple examples. But are there any other kind of fun, direct mail examples that you can share to maybe inspire some of our listeners? Yeah,

Robert Lee
so we I mean, you mentioned a lot of nonprofit, right? So I consider it nonprofit, but we do a lot of political campaigns in which are leaving. Yeah, yeah. And apologize to everybody listening. But we do a lot in politics and the people we work with, we we just, I mean, we love working with them, because they look at what we do and say, I don't understand it seems a little bit like, like witchcraft, but it's good witchcraft. So let's go ahead and rock and roll with it. So one thing that we did during the last cycle was a candidate that was new to office, she had been involved for a while, but had never been a candidate before. So we'd said, well, let's, let's use that dynamic QR code, because all of these people that you're reaching out to, I mean, they don't know who you are, they don't have a reason that care. So let's just offer them a bumper sticker, if they fill out a survey, let's figure out what is important to people and what really worries them at the end of the night. Or when they're putting their kids to bed. What is it that they fret about the next morning, and I can guarantee you it's not these red and blue issues that everybody else tells you you have to bite into. They simply want to know who is going to make sure they can feel a little bit more comfortable when they put their kids to bed. So we use those dynamic QR codes on every single one of her mailpieces to collect valuable information, collect address and phone number information willingly from these particular voters. And we just sent them a little bumper card that says I'm an American, and I love to vote. And the number of people that just wanted that bumper sticker was fantastic. And we actually ended up over performing our models by about three or four points in a 5050 district, which is, in this day and age when you can convince people that are in the middle and on the other side to look beyond, you know the letter by your name and start looking to use a person because they feel like you care about them as a person. Her donations increased her performance in the ballot box increased. And we felt like we didn't have to play these stupid partisan games that we could have real conversations with. That's Manning and again, to me, that made me feel good as a consultant. And just as an American, right? Because, you know, we're sharing our communities with people that are diverse come from all backgrounds a life, and it's never going to work if we don't learn how to care about one another. So that's just one example of

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
something really, there's something really interesting that you said there, though, because I think it's like the opportunity, I think we tend to feel like we have to like bomb it, everything that we do in some of these pieces, and that everything has to be a marketing piece for us. And so I think it's interesting, you probably wouldn't have had the same engagement if the bumper sticker was just her name or her campaign slogan, right? But because it was a generic, like, I'm American, and I like to vote kind of situation. It's like, well, yeah, I can get behind that. And now I'm now I'm giving you my information. So you can feed me with the stuff that I need, right versus like, when I'm talking about the issues, and I think a lot of nonprofits could, or just businesses in general kind of live by that and say, you know, what's the most important thing that I actually need? I don't need to tell them everything that I'm doing. Is it a resource? Is it something that's more generic, that's just going to get people in the door, right? Because our attention spans are so short 100%

Robert Lee
And they're not? They're not short? Because we're unintelligent, right? They're short, because we have 9 million more things to do than our parents and our grandparents had to do in their life. And it's just by virtue of the digital age that we live in. We are so bombarded with making sure our kids are ready in the morning, driving further to work that we just just want to make sure that we can wake up happy and fruitful. And we don't have to be so exhausted at the end of the day that we're depressed. I mean, at the end of the day marketing is nothing more than emotionally connecting with another human creature. And we're all weird. We're all a little idiosyncratic in our own ways. We're all a bit goofy mean, it's like, Neverland, everyone's mad. So why not just create a relationship that reaffirms the weird little things that make us who we are. And mail gives you an opportunity to do that, when you look at it as a method to connect with another human being. Because it's tangible, and it's real. And it's personal, just by virtue of the fact that their name is on that piece. So, I mean, I can go on and stand on the soapbox about it all day. But regardless of whatever method, and again, I believe direct mail reinforces this, you're connecting with another human being, who is a weirdo. And if you're a marketer, you're definitely a weirdo. Yeah, lean into it. Just lean into it. And, and really just embrace that opportunity to connect with somebody on a real personal level. And from a business perspective, it will pay off in the long run, you will make more money, connecting with the emotional reasons why people make decisions,

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
especially as the millennial and Gen Z or generations start to become the bigger consumer, consumers product, right, it becomes even more important, but I want to just make sure to highlight too, because you talked about, like, create that big piece. I can't remember the size, whatever, like the giant postcard, right? But don't be like, I mean, we don't want to, like fill that up with words, right? It's not like you're gonna write an article on that. It's, you know, maybe could you give kind of based on what you just said, that emotional connection? How do we connect people to our, you know, to learn more about us online? Like, what types of things would you put on that so that it is engaging? And people would click on it? Because we would tend to want to fill the space with all the words? Sure.

Robert Lee
Sure. Yeah. And and what I try to attend to what I tell folks to try to attend towards, is using the same amount of words, you you would on a smaller piece, just make the font bigger, make it easier to read, right? Because otherwise, yeah, you're right, you'll you'll tend to want to write a novel on there. What I always tell folks is that on the address side of the postcard where they somebody sees their name, and their address, and the things that personally identify them, in that very clear call to action. Connect with those pain points. Explain the problem, that that you're trying to connect with? Because that oftentimes is the motivator, right? Are you trying to lose weight, right? You you wake up, and you feel sluggish and tired and you nail and you throw back four cups of coffee, we have a solution for helping you put down the coffee. This is all bad, very, very bad copywriting I'm not telling you to take this copy. But but connect with that problem. Because it because of the fact that they see their name. And just psychologically, you can connect that problem to them personally. Especially if they're like, Yeah, my name is Robert Lee and I, I do throw that way too much coffee that I just crashed in the afternoon. And then on the other side, you can provide the copy that reinforces the solution. And the end benefits of this, right? Our anti coffee drink will make you alert for the entire day. Stop hunger cravings, make you feel alive and give you more energy with your children. Again, very bad copy, totally acknowledge that but but the idea being use that address side to state the problem that you want to solve and connect with them on those emotional triggers. And then on the other side, prevent that or present that solution that prevents those problems or solves those problems. Again, with that clear call to action. And again, you don't have to use a lot of words for that. But when the pieces big using the right words, and very big copy of clip was great imagery. Well, we'll make that piece very, very fruitful for what you're trying to accomplish.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern 
Yeah, that's great stuff. That's great stuff right there. So that's awesome. Well, Robert, I think I know I'm convinced to continue to use direct mail. If there's anybody else that's listening. That's kind of still on the fence. What would kind of be your last words of wisdom or your kind of last tip to share with with listeners

Robert Lee 
So if if what is preventing you from using direct mail is the fact that you don't know about it, I actually celebrate you because it means that you are being thoughtful that your advertising methods, if what you're doing is not using direct mail because you think it's outdated? Well, you're setting yourself up for failure. You're just because you're just closing yourself off without investigating what the opportunity here is, mail, digital ads, email, television commercials, they're all just a form of media. So just treat it that way. And you should be fine. So don't hold yourself back. But definitely question whether or not male fits within, within your process and with within the customer value journey for that client, that ideal client you're trying to connect with. And if it does, reach out to people that do this stuff every day, and just ask questions to say, hey, I have this idea, what's your thought? Any email provider that you work with, should have the capabilities to offer you honest feedback, and at least allow you to test your ideas out with somebody that that has a different perspective than you. So never hesitate to ask those questions. But don't limit yourself, just never limit yourself. You should constantly be testing and you should include direct mail in that process. Love

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
that? Well, Robert, if people want to connect with you and ask you questions about direct mail, or just learn about kind of some of the services you offer? How can they connect with you? Yeah,

Robert Lee
so if you visit our website, Lesix.agency, that's Lesix.agency, you'll see a little button that says schedule your your cons, a free consultation, and where we will actually start with you not talking about direct mail or digital, but we'll talk with you about the frameworks, you need to make those decisions about your direct mail as wisely and intelligently as possible. And for anybody that schedules that consultation with us, we actually have this wonderful book called eight exchanges, eight essential exchanges, it's written by a friend of ours here in Atlanta named Kevin Scott, that we give you about how you decide between the things that will make your life good versus the things that will make your life great. Again, that's that's the essence of advertising, right? Choosing the methods that are best and not simply better. And this is about doing it on a very emotional level for yourself so that you can interact with the world in a much better way. It's our gift to you, because you give us the gift of sharing 60 to 90 minutes of your time with us, and you make our life richer in the process too. So we'd love to have that consultation with you, we'd love to be another voice for you to determine whether or not direct mail works for you. Or if your advertising methods now are something that you should lean into. Again, visit lesix.agency, click that little button in the upper right corner. And we'd love to chat with you about it.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Awesome. And we'll link up all of the websites and resources and things at thefirstclick.net/267. Robert, thank you so much for being here with us today. This was fantastic. Absolutely.

Robert Lee
I appreciate the time. And like I said, you make my life richer, but by giving me the opportunity to do this. So I'm definitely indebted to you for that.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Oh, you're amazing. So how excited are you about inter integrating direct mail more into your organization? I'm so grateful to Robert in the ideas that he shared. If you have questions, or if you want to connect with Robert or find out more information about what we talked about today, you can do that at thefirstclick.net/267. That's where the show notes are for you. So you can grab all the fun, all the goodness and get rockin and rollin. So for now, make sure you hit that subscribe button wherever you listen or on YouTube so you don't miss out on a single episode. They're out every Tuesday. And I'd love it if you'd leave me a review and share this episode with somebody else that you know could use some support and direct mail in their online fundraising activities. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it. And I'll see you in the next one.