The marketing tactic everyone's sleeping on right now

Direct mail conversion rates outperform email by 3x despite rising postal costs. Ryan Ferrier is CEO of Lob, the direct mail automation platform serving over 12,000 businesses including L'Occitane and SimpliSafe. The discussion covers AI-powered routing algorithms that optimize speed versus cost trade-offs, API-triggered mail campaigns based on digital events like cart abandonment, and QR code attribution systems that deliver 5% average conversion rates with personalized landing pages. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iHereEverything.com.

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  From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55% to 65% open rate.

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  Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

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  Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.

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  If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  All right, last question for you. What's the marketing channel or tactic everyone's sleeping on right now that you think will explode in the next two years?

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  I was talking to an e-commerce retailer yesterday, and they're actually looking to move up-market. And so I think one thing that people are sleeping on, and they offer a B2C solution as well as a B2B solution, that folks are sleeping on is actually sending direct mail for B2B purposes. So what they've done is they've architected a campaign all around curated email touches. They have LinkedIn ads, but as well, they have a direct mail campaign going to their top 100 prospects across the US. And it goes to their, I think their CMO, their...

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  Their VP of CRM and one other person and they hit all of these businesses, not just end consumers with a direct mail piece.

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  Hmm, interesting. I, I have a friend who works in direct mail and he was developing some sort of a solution when everybody was talking about voice chat, which was when you get a piece of direct mail, you could say, hey, Google or Alexa or whichever voice chat app you want to use and then say a secret code word and it will tell you the, the, the offer that you get from your direct mail piece, which I thought was a really intelligent way. Then people kind of stopped using voice chat the way that we had expected. I think it's coming back now that we have artificial intelligence and now that everybody's going to be talking. Once Google integrates with Siri and then people can actually have a

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  coherent conversation with Siri, then I think we've got a better chance of actually being able to talk to our digital assistants.

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  It's really funny that you use that use case. So our VP of Solutions and you were talking, it's very similar time horizon about three years ago, created an app on Alexa where he actually used Alexa to, to send a mail piece. So he said, you know, hey Alexa, you know, I'd like to, you know, send a mail piece to XYZ and everything like literally never interacted, you know, with a keyboard and was able to, to send a mail piece.

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  I love it. Yeah. Hey, Alexa, send my mom some flowers. I think that's really the one that we all need. All right. Well, Ryan, I appreciate you coming on the podcast. Thank you for surviving the lightning round and telling us a little bit about why what's old is new again when it comes to direct mail.

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  I appreciate you having me on.

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  All right. That wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks to Ryan Ferrier, the CEO of Lob for joining us. If you'd like to contact Ryan, you could find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes or on martechpod.com or you can visit his company's website, which is lob, L O B, dot com. If you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or subscribe on YouTube and we'll be back in your feed next week. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the MarTech Podcast and I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit ihereverything.com.