EP. 96- [GUEST Episode] DIRECT MAIL? Offline Data for ONLINE? Erik Koenig PRES at SeQuel Response (Fastest Growing Direct Response Agency)

Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately.

You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins and pitfalls to avoid. Also dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's do this, not that.

Super excited for today's episode of do this, not that. We have a special guest. Let me tell you about who he is before I have him tell you himself. So Eric Koenig is the president of SQL Response.

If you don't know them, they are an award winning direct marketing, direct response agency out of Minnesota and they're also one of the fastest growing agencies nationally.

And the thing that gets me excited about that is usually when you hear about an agency and they're doing great, they're doing things, they're talking about brand agencies or agencies only focus on creative. But we're talking about direct response, we're talking about offline data, we're talking about direct mail, we're talking about measurable media.

And that's Eric's world. And I'm super excited to have him here today because we're going to talk about how to leverage offline data and really have an impact.

So Eric, welcome to do this, not that.

Thanks Jay. I'm very excited to be here. Love what you guys are doing.

I appreciate that. So before we get into some of the stuff that everybody's going to benefit from and really be able to learn from, give us the Eric story.

How did, what's the origin story of Eric?

I've been indirect response with a direct mail and digital tilt for my whole career, so about 15 years.

I've got a lot of experience really in all facets of direct response, whether it's creative or targeting, which is of course the focus of today's conversation all the way down through test development, design and production and analytics. And we work with clients and myriad industries really to try to help them grow and scale their customer acquisition.

So we're very focused on net new customer prospecting and it's been a fun ride and certainly mail is as healthy as it's ever been. The channel that everyone thinks will die that just keeps resurging.

So it's a fun space and challenges every day, but a lot of opportunity for brands to grow, and that's what keeps us going.

So I know we're going to talk about how to leverage offline data in different ways. When I say offline data, I literally mean like data that is. Could be your physical, home information, all sorts of stuff.

But before we do that, you touched on something and maybe you can just go into it a little bit. I think for a lot of listeners of the podcast, they hear direct mail and they're like, I don't get as many catalogs anymore.

I don't get as much mail as I used to. Direct mail's kind of dead except for the Valpak or something. Dispel that myth. How is direct mail doing? Is it a viable marketing channel?

What is going on in the world of direct mail?

Yeah, great question. I think you'll see in all the industry reports, it always is hailed as having a better ROI than a lot of other channels.

And I don't know where that math comes from, but what I can say is that it doesn't work for everybody.

But if you're in the right spaces, which is generally a company or a brand that has some kind of annuity to their product, whether it's an insurance or financial or a subscription or even E commerce, that has a healthy repurchase cycle that ultimately throws off a CPA or cost per acquisition tolerance that isn't $20, then mail can really be a mechanism for growth. And it's maybe less so in the mailboxes today because you've really weeded out the fat. Now it's those that really understand the channel.

They understand targeting, they've got a good grasp of KPIs, and they're really leaning on it for a lot of different purposes, from CRM to retargeting with leads, to reactivating former customers, and again, to grow the business. And it's just. It's a science. It's art, too, but it's really a science.

And I think when you get, from a consumer perspective, different than a company perspective, but the companies that understand their metrics and are looking to grow, they find this to be a nice little avenue for themselves to do that.

Yeah. And I would argue when people say, oh, I don't get a lot in my mailbox, it must not be something I should be doing.

I'm like, no, that's exactly why you should be doing it. Because people aren't opening up their mailbox and seeing 400 things. You have the opportunity to finally stand out.

So to me, it's like, now is the time and so let's pivot for a second though. So great. We could do direct mail campaigns, fine.

But when we talk about leveraging offline data, that doesn't just mean sticking a postcard in the mail. When you say that, what does it mean to leverage offline data? As a marketer?

Yeah, I wish I had a better term for it. You're using the same as me, right? Like this. These offline derived targeting files, Mail forever has used and benefited from them.

These are the epsilons and the axioms and the wylands of the world that are effectively robust consumer data sets that are all tied to a physical address and on an individual level and pulling in a lot of key information about a prospect, demographics, psychographics, and that's long been the gold standard in mail and mails enjoyed the benefit of that robust targeting.

But I think the real opportunity, and when we think about do this, not that the real opportunity is to bring that audience that may be built and derived from what has historically been direct mail targeting means now we've got the mechanism to bring it into the online platforms and leverage it for even digital advertising.

And in the face of what digital's faced the last couple years, it's proven to be a much more attractive way to get at targeting and ultimately analytics as well. So what we're talking about is not just considering it to be offline targeting is only for offline channels, but offline targeting can be leveraged.

And my purpose today is to demonstrate why it should be leveraged for digital advertising as well as the integration of offline and online marketing.

So let me say that back to another way and then I want to understand exactly how it can be leveraged. So two different paths. Let's say I have a database of people of maybe past buyers or whatever it is with physical addresses.

I could load that into some sort of online platform and target people based on that data.

Or in addition to, I can come to a company like yours or other companies and I can try to acquire physical address information, buyers, donors, whatever, and use that for targeting online. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, it's essentially you go through the full process of identifying your target universe with these offline derived files and then the mechanism to bring it into the digital environment is to use ultimately what's called an identity graph. And a lot of the data providers have their own liveramps, another one that we're fans of.

And what that's ultimately doing is it's leveraging that physical postal address as the mechanism within the device graph. Or identity graph to find the digital identifiers to that record.

So if I end up Eric Koenig on your file that you've built offline now, you're going to leverage this identity graph to try to find my devices, my cell phone, my tablet, my smart TV.

And while the match rate isn't 100%, we're seeing about 50 to 60% highly deterministic match rates, which then enables that audience to push to a DSP or demand side platform that digital marketers can use to execute campaigns against. So it's really the mechanism for tying together the offline and the online and what you end up with on the other side. Eric's on the mail file.

He's also available for all the digital campaigns. And now you can really integrate timing, messaging and rotate a lot of different channels to get the maximum impact.

So I get it if, let's say you're running a direct mail campaign already and then you want to take that database of people that you're mailing to and then be able to do an omnichannel play where you're then marketing to them online as well. Right, Direct mail and then online. But is there greater value? Let's say you're not doing a direct mail campaign.

Yep.

Is it still. Are you better off targeting people leveraging offline data than targeting people just using online derived data?

Yeah, I'm glad you asked that because I. One thing I want to make sure I underscore is that I'm not here to sell mail.

Trust me, we love it, we believe in it, and I think a lot of brands should be doing it. The main point is that mail is so successful because of this data.

And even if you don't want to do a direct mail campaign, you can still leverage this approach to build the files and prospect lists offline. And through the same mechanism I was describing, you can then run digital campaigns only.

And I think that's the big opportunity, quite frankly, today, with all the changes that have come into place on the digital advertising side, with loss of signal certainly creating a lot of targeting and attribution issues, this is a way to circumvent that.

And we've tested that very thing you asked where we test the offline derived targeting files against what's available in the platforms, whether the walled garden or on the DSP or in whatever digital platform is available head to head. And we're seeing twice as good of a conversion rate and lowering cost per Click by about 25% with the offline beating the online available Audiences.

So it's been a really good mechanism for digital only or digital integration on top of direct mail.

Yeah, I don't think marketers are tapping into that at all. I think they hear offline, they zone out, they think they're just talking about sending a direct mail campaign.

It's fascinating to hear that the performance, targeting people online, leveraging their offline data, you're getting a twofold increase in performance is unbelievable. And that's fantastic. So if I'm listening to this, I'm like, this is great. This sounds like some pretty sophisticated stuff. Is that the case?

Is this for everybody or is this. You need to be one of the biggest insurance marketers or some sort of giant player? Can anybody do this stuff?

I think you bring up a good point. And this is something we see on the agency side. Right. There's experts that can be leveraged.

Right.

Whether it's through an agency or reaching out directly to the various data partners. There is some complexity to it. Certainly if a brand is just starting.

Now, if you have an existing digital advertising campaign, which certainly the vast majority have that and only a fraction have mail, I would advocate, especially for initial testing, that you lean on partners, whether that's an agency or a defined data partner or two. Ultimately we'd recommend multiple lean on the experts. The, the cost to do it is relatively nominal.

And if it really takes off, obviously that can become a discussion for the big brands on can we execute this ourselves? But I would say it is absolutely available to everybody.

Just depending on your unique circumstance, you might want to leverage some professionals, some partners to help get it done.

That's super useful.

And I think it's important for people not to be scared because everybody's looking for that extra increase to take marginal campaigns to make them profitable. And this is that thing. The cost is nominal to really be testing this stuff. Super useful information.

So let's move on to the last segment of this crazy podcast called since you didn't ask, we're talking about nonsense. Now I could be wrong, but I believe you are a golfer. Is that accurate?

Before kids I was a big golfer. Now I, I wish I could golf, but yeah, I used used to play 80, 100 rounds a summer pre kids. Now I'm down to one or two charity events a year.

When I can get out there 80.

To 100 rounds in this, that's in. See, this is the thing. So you live in Minnesota, is that right?

Yep. So we got to cram it into about a six month window.

Six months. That means you're hitting your ball. It's definitely going in. Snow. There's no six month window in Minnesota that doesn't include snow.

Yeah, that's fair.

So you're going to the Masters this year. For everyone who's. If you're listening, you don't know going to the Masters is going to the Oscars.

If you like movies, this is like a once in a lifetime thing. So you're going to the Masters this year. Have you been before?

I've not been and so I've always wanted to do it. My dad has not been either and so we're going together, which I'm pumped about. I'm really excited.

I've been to very few golf tournaments in general, but the atmosphere of the Masters is just on a different level. And there's some course rules that they protect that climate. You can't have your phones. They've kept prices historically low.

So it's not the $15 beers and 12 bucks for a burger. It's like a couple bucks. So I'm just really looking forward to the time with my dad and we're going to the Saturday and Sunday rounds.

So hopefully it's competitive with some big names and just soak it in and be without the cell phone which someone forcing your hand to that is such a beautiful thing because if they didn't, you would maybe go in with good intentions but still end up letting it distract you when you don't want it.

Like the last. It's one of the last places on earth with no cell phones. It's unbelievable.

And by the way, all the money that you're going to save from them, keeping costs low on food, you will buy 400 green hats that you'll be giving out to your family and friends. So I promise you, you will not be saving any money on this trip.

No, that's for sure.

That is awesome. Listen, you've shared a lot of great information and SQL is an incredible agency. How can everybody get in contact with you? Learn more about SQL.

How do they do that?

Check us out online. It's SQL DM as indirect marketing.com My email address is erickkqldm.com so feel free to reach out to me. Do a little browsing on our website.

We get involved in in a lot of industry research. We go to a lot of industry conferences. We're excited to go to the delivered conference this fall.

So it's not hard to find us and you can find me on LinkedIn as well.

So just drop me a line whether you're interested in SQL potentially being the expert to try any of this stuff out or you just want some advice and you're going to go it alone or someone else, I'd be more than happy to push you guys in the right direction. There was a couple years of test and learn that we had to go through to get to the other side to say this is the the gold standard.

This is the best practice. Leverage your peers, leverage your experts. And I'm happy to be either if anyone's of interest.

Yeah, and we will put all of Eric's information in the show notes. Definitely connect with him on LinkedIn. And yeah, sequel will be speaking at Delivered Conference coming up in September.

That's delivered conference.com, which is the world's largest virtual direct mail event. And it's free. So go to deliveredcommerce.com you you'll be able to hear from SQL. It's going to be great. Eric, thanks so much for being here.

Appreciate you having me, Jay. All right, take care.

You did it. You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over.

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