From Batch to Trigger:
How High-Performing
Brands Are Rebuilding Direct Mail

Catch the key takeaways

As direct mail evolves into a precise, signal-driven channel, marketers are rethinking how and when it’s deployed. Our recent webinar explored what it looks like to build a direct mail program around real consumer behavior, not fixed batch-and-blast campaign timelines.

Here are four takeaways to help make your direct mail program more timely, connected, and effective.

1. Timing is the new targeting

Most direct mail programs have gotten pretty good at identifying who to reach. The bigger opportunity now is knowing when to reach them.

Even a strong offer can underperform if it arrives after the decision window has passed. But when a message reaches someone while they’re actively comparing options, filling out a form, browsing a product, or showing intent, direct mail has a much better chance of moving them forward.

That timing is what separates high-performing direct mail from average direct mail.

2. You already have more signals than you think

Signal-based direct mail doesn’t always require a major new data investment. Most organizations already have useful information sitting in web behavior, transaction history, CRM data, email engagement, application activity, and other consumer touchpoints.

When those signals are connected, they can tell a clearer story about where someone is in their journey and what kind of message may be most useful next.

3. Mail performs better when it aligns with other channels

Triggered direct mail can be more effective than a traditional batched campaign on its own. But it becomes even stronger when it’s part of a coordinated experience.

A mailer that follows a high-intent site visit, reinforces an email, supports a CTV campaign, or aligns with digital retargeting can make the message feel more relevant and memorable.

The channel isn’t the whole strategy. The moment is the strategy. Direct mail plays a stronger role when every channel is responding to the same behavioral cue.

4. Pick one use case and prove it before scaling

One of the biggest barriers to trigger-based direct mail is trying to do too much at once. Building a full signal ecosystem from scratch can feel overwhelming, and it’s usually unnecessary. A better path is to start with one specific use case, prove the value, and expand from there.

That might be an abandoned application, a high-intent site visit, a lapsed consumer, or another behavior tied to a clear business outcome. One focused test can show what works, what data is needed, and what the program will need to support at scale.

FAQs

Why is the traditional direct mail campaign model losing effectiveness?

Traditional direct mail campaign calendars were built around production timelines, not consumer behavior.

The challenge is that consumers don’t wait for the next scheduled mail drop to make a decision. If someone shows interest today but receives a mailer weeks later, you’ve missed the window of high-intent.

Behavior-based deployment helps close that gap. Instead of sending mail because the calendar says it’s time, marketers can send it when a consumer’s actions suggest the message is actually relevant.

What does a signal actually look like in practice?

It depends on the business, but signals usually fall into three categories.

The first category is hand raisers. For example, someone starts an application but doesn’t finish it, requests information and then goes quiet, or visits a key product or service page.

The second category is behavioral. Engagement drops off, spending patterns shift, browsing behavior changes, or a consumer starts interacting with content in a way that suggests something has changed.

The third category is predictive. These are based on historical patterns that indicate a consumer may be approaching a decision, even if they have not taken an obvious action yet.

All of these signals can help marketers use direct mail with more purpose, instead of treating every audience member the same way.

How does direct mail fit into a signal-driven, multichannel approach?

Direct mail earns its place when the moment is important enough for a higher-impact touch.

Not every signal needs a mailer. Some may suit an email, digital retargeting, or even suppression. But when a signal points to real intent or meaningful risk, such as a likely purchase, application abandonment, or churn, a physical piece of mail can break through in a way digital channels often can’t on their own.

The key is to let the signal guide the response. The channel mix should follow the consumer’s behavior, not the other way around.

How should marketers measure whether their direct mail programs are working?

Measurement needs to be defined before the program launches, not after. That means setting a clear baseline, deciding what incremental lift should look like, and building a feedback loop that helps the program improve over time.

A triggered direct mail program that can’t be measured is really just a faster version of the old model. Closed-loop measurement is what turns it into a smarter, more scalable system.

Dive into the transcript

Welcome & Housekeeping

Jerry Joyce (00:06):

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We’re going to let a few people here trickle in over the next minute or so and then get rolling.

Darcy Hoffmann (00:23):

It’s so fun to watch the participant counter just tick up. It feels like we’re in a contest. I want to win.

Jerry Joyce (00:36):

Performance marketing. Darcy, everybody wants to win.

Darcy Hoffmann (00:39):

That’s right. Everybody wants to be on board.

Jerry Joyce (00:47):

Alright. We’ll give it one more minute as folks are coming in, getting in good motion there.

Darcy Hoffmann (01:04):

Well, while everyone’s joining, I hope that everyone is enjoying a day outside. As pleasant as the one in my faux background, it always makes me feel peaceful when I look at it, but hopefully you’re having a nice sunshiny day. It wouldn’t be a Zoom meeting if we didn’t have a little chit-chat about the weather, right?

Jerry Joyce (01:25):

Sunshine’s few and far between in Northeast Ohio when you’re east of the lake.

Darcy Hoffmann (01:29):

Yeah. I’ll take the sunny days I can get for sure.

Jerry Joyce (01:33):

Got it. Alright. I think we can get rolling now. So welcome everybody. Thank you for joining us today. For those of you who have colleagues who might be interested in this content but couldn’t make it today, we are recording this session, so it will be delivered and out and about afterwards. Just a little bit of housekeeping. Feel free to submit your questions along the way. We have a few minutes at the end for Q&A.

There’s an icon at the bottom of your Zoom screen that says Q&A. That’s where the questions can be submitted and our team of awesome Amsive folks are looking at those questions and we’ll be putting them together and we’ll be answering them at the end. So if you have a thought, jot it down, get it in there, and we’ll go from there. Also, we have some interactive polls today, so we’re going to ask for some audience participation.

There’ll be three of them along the way. They’re all anonymous, so feel free to be as honest as you’d like, and we’ll get going from there. So just to do some introductions today, grateful that everyone is joining us. Today, we have Darcy Hoffman, Executive Vice President of our Marketing Strategy and Innovation. Darcy has a deep experience here at Amsive and beyond, both in business to consumer and business to business with over 20 years of expertise in healthcare, financial services, CPG, retail, technology, insurance, and education. Joining her is Jamie Henley. Jamie is our senior vice president of marketing and strategy and innovation, focusing on the insurance practice. I work pretty frequently with Jamie since much of my business is insurance, and I can assure you that between Darcy and Jamie, you have the superpowers when it comes to these trigger and targeting and performance marketing discussions.

So really excited about what we have for you in the next 50 minutes. We’re going to talk about really how direct mail fits in the performance marketing environment, and that’s across industries and how it’s moving faster and faster and becoming more signal-driven and really demanding a level of accountability that hasn’t been seen before. The core idea here is it’s pretty simple. We’re exploring the idea that performance marketing isn’t breaking because marketers have the wrong channels.

It’s experiencing friction and pressure because too often we’re missing the moments that actually drive the decisions. Most of us have heard some version of the mantra, “We got to get the right offer to the right person in the right channel at the right time.” I think that’s taught maybe now in marketing classes for those of you who are a little closer to college. It sounds obvious, it sounds simple, but really in practice, we all know that there’s a lot there to manage, especially when customers are moving across channels.

When they’re comparing options, they’re raising hands differently, both digitally and terrestrially, and they’re making decisions in very compressed windows. Before we get started, just want to take our first pulse of the group. Our first poll here will come up on your screen. How is your organization currently acting on consumer behavior or intent signals? And we have a range here, everything from not sure to we’re doing this at scale. We’ve got a few programs, one or two maybe, but we’re limited. Maybe we’re focused primarily on batch and campaign-driven calendar-driven campaigns, or we’re just not doing any trigger today.

Darcy Hoffmann (05:31):

And look, we didn’t make anyone do an icebreaker at the beginning, so in return, please participate in our poll.

The Core Problem: Why ‘Right Audience, Right Message’ Is No Longer Enough

Jerry Joyce (05:41):

Alright. I think we can look at the results. Drum roll, please. So it looks like we’ve got a nice split between some trigger program and primarily batch with a few of you focused on you’re doing it at scale today, so great job and a few more in the not sure or we’re not doing it. So that’s great. And this isn’t something that’s meant to be intimidating or anything like that. The spread helps us really understand that that really mirrors what we see in our clients today in the markets that we deal in. Some brands are really triggering communications off of observed customer behavior.

Some are experimenting with it, and some really are not able to really activate it yet. And we’re going to go through different parts today about what comprises that friction, how to handle it, and how to move a little closer to capitalizing on that time.

Darcy, you hear the phrase a lot that I mentioned earlier, the right audience, right offer, right message, right time, but there’s a lot of pressure in the marketing ecosystem. What’s your point of view on the statement? I mean, what do you think the reality is in trying to execute against that whole equation? And where do you think marketers are struggling or falling short today?

Darcy Hoffmann (07:05):

Yeah, it’s a great opening question, I think, because look, as direct marketers, we sort of grew up in this business with that mantra, the right audience, the right offer, the right message. And all of that is still important. But I guess my provocative opening statement for today’s webinar is that in today’s marketing environment at the pace at which things are moving, that’s no longer enough. And to succeed, you really have to also be able to capitalize on the right time or said another way, capitalizing on the right moment.

So I think the biggest challenge for direct marketers today is really that we have to change our mindset. We have to shift from thinking about direct marketing like a calendarized campaign-based sort of addressable medium to the way that we think about digital media. And that’s in much more of an always on continual state of optimization.

And the good news is I do think as direct marketers, we’re in a great position to be able to do that. Direct marketers generally have access to a ton of data. We have access to audience insights that really help us understand our consumer. We do well with things like segmentation and creative testing, personalization, like those sorts of really hard things, we tend to nail that and we do pretty well on having a broad spectrum of channels that we can communicate in.

So all of that is great, but where we see that biggest gap is shifting this medium to being more around capitalizing on that right moment. So the question isn’t just, do I have a good offer? It’s did I show up when that message really mattered? And to do that, we have to shift to more of that always on mentality. But I think it’s important to say that always on doesn’t mean all the time, and it doesn’t mean always relevant. A good example of that would be, think about it. We’re all customers, right? We’re all consumers in some sort of way. If you got an offer tomorrow for a home equity line of credit and it had an amazing rate and you don’t really have any borrowing needs right now, is that enough to compel you to act? It might be for all you financial services folks that have joined us today, it might be.

But how much greater are my chances of converting that consumer if they just decided to remodel their bathroom or just decided to finish out their basement or just decided to put in a swimming pool? And I think we all know the answer is that our odds are infinitely better when we show up in that moment when the consumer is actively making those decisions.

The Missing Ingredient: Synchronization Across Channels

Jerry Joyce (10:11):

So let me get this straight. It’s not exactly like an underutilization of timing. In other words, it’s missed opportunity. We might have the right channels, we might know the right segments or even the right offers, but it’s about capitalizing on that right moment. That’s right. Jamie, you’ve seen the ebbs and flows across the industry over your years. You’ve seen direct mail treated as standalone in its own channel as a support channel for other channels and as part of more omnichannel orchestration efforts.

When you hear Darcy talk about the right moment and where do you see that friction today? How should marketers be thinking about that relative to a consumer or a business who’s trying to make that decision and their timing?

Jamie Hennelly (11:03):

Yeah. So the word I would use is synchronization. I think we all have the tools, the technology, AI, and the ecosystems today are actually really capable, but the thing is that they’re not synchronized around the same customer moment. So what I mean is each channel could very well be doing its job, but it’s doing its job in isolation. As an example, paid media might be optimizing towards clicks or conversions in real time. Email might be following a predetermined journey or some sort of nurture track DM often planned against a production or a campaign calendar, and then you might have sales outreach being triggered by CRM rules or pipeline stages. And so while each channel is technically working, it’s working towards its own goal and it’s on its own timeline.

And I think that’s the problem because the customer experience really shouldn’t be separate channels. It should be one brand. And so if you think about it, a customer raises their hand, shows intent, and the response that they get back, if that’s fragmented or delayed or disconnected, then that’s not a very good customer experience. So going forward, the question I think marketers should really be asking is, when a customer shows intent, what experience do I want them to have in that moment and how can I make the channels work together to deliver that? And it’s a different way of thinking. It really forces you to design around the moment and not the channel plan.

So I feel like from my experience, we do a lot of direct mail in the insurance industry. That’s where DM has changed. Historically, it’s been campaign-based. You would pull a list, you would send a batch, wait for results, but now it really can be more signal triggered and decisioned just like digital channels.

So I think when as marketers, you see those signals come in, you’re not asking, should I send mail or should I use X, Y, Z channel? Instead, you should be asking how strong is the signal or

What is the customer’s likelihood to respond? Are the digital channels, are they underperforming? Or does that moment justify a higher impact touch? We know direct mail has a higher cost, but I think that’s why direct mail- Or

Darcy Hoffmann (13:51):

Does that person, does that person justify a higher- Right. Yeah.

Jamie Hennelly (13:57):

And I think that’s why direct mail can play different roles depending on the answer to those questions. It could be a primary response driver for high value signals. It might be a reinforcement channel that adds credibility and trust to digital, or sometimes we use it selectively where modeled lift justifies the investment.

I think the key takeaway here is that if you’re trying to reduce friction, you’re trying to improve synchronization, you’ve got to pay attention to when the customer gives a meaningful signal and then design the response around that moment because today channels need to work from the same signal set. That’s really what’s going to add up to a better customer experience.

Jerry Joyce (14:51):

Yeah, I love that design around the moment. I just want to make sure that we reiterate that for the group here. If I’m hearing you both correctly, a lot of great activity in the market, a lot of ability for direct marketers to have strong segmentation, effective channel strategies, but that activity, it’s not always anchored in the customer moment. And when that happens, it creates that friction. And like you said, Jamie, it can cause a uncomfortable experience for the client, which is really what we’re trying to prevent. I think that leads to the next question.

If channel is how an action is orchestrated, what is the genesis of that action? What is at the heart of the challenge in the marketplace around building around that moment? Darcy, what is it really about?

Understanding Signal Types: Hand Raisers, Behavioral, and Predictive

Darcy Hoffmann (15:40):

Yeah, look, I know we’re talking primarily about direct mail channel today. I mean, the webinar is about moving from batch to trigger, but I think it’s important to note that really what we’re … The underlying of what we’re really talking about there in batch to trigger is understanding that signal. And I want to talk a little bit few minutes about what that means when we say signal, because it might be broader than what many of our listeners here today think.

So in that context, when we say signal, I really mean it’s any observable behavior, event, data point, pattern, anything that tells us something about that person’s intent or interest or likelihood to act or just generally about a need. And so that might sound complex or technical, but it’s really not. It’s just saying, look, a customer does something, a customer’s pattern changes, something in our model data tells us something about a consumer and their likelihood or less likelihood to need a product or service.

And that’s our starting point. So as we’ve really, we’ve been working with clients for a while now, helping to design what these systems look like and how we’re going to set them up and the things that really matter and journeys and all those things.

And in doing so, what we find is that these signals tend to generally fall into three primary buckets. And so that’s sort of the language that AMSA uses when we talk about it. And the first is the one that probably comes most immediately to everyone’s mind. That’s the hand raiser signals. These are explicit actions. Someone fills out a form, they request information, they book an appointment, they call your contact center. Those sorts of hand raising behaviors clearly say, “I’m interested.” So that one’s easy. The second one that people might not always think about are the group that we call behavioral signals because this isn’t necessarily about a single action, but rather it’s pattern based and it’s rooted in change over time.

So rather than what someone does in a moment, it’s really about how their behavior is deviating from their own norm. So an example here might be a consumer who suddenly increases or decreases engagement with you, who shifts to a different type of content that they’re consuming, who breaks their typical purchase pattern, usage pattern. All of those things are really, while they don’t explicitly say, “I’m interested,” they do indicate that something about that consumer is changing.

And I think this is a really important point. As we all know, opportunity often lies in change. And so that’s just a really important thing to remember. And then the third is this group that we call predictive signals. And this is one that traditional direct marketers,

We feel comfy in this bucket, right? Because these are modeled indicators. We grew up in this data-driven world where we can have access to all sorts of data, historical data, product ownership, life stage, account behavior, all those things, a plethora of attributes that we sort of throw into the mixer and in order to get a predictor about something.

So we’re trying to identify someone that is more likely to do whatever, to stay, to go, to leave, to purchase, to upgrade, whatever those things are. And so when you sort of be doing a mental inventory, I guess, of your current state against those groups and ask yourself, do I sort of recognize what the signals are in each of those three buckets for my organization? And I think our job as marketers is really first to sort of think about, do think broadly about the signals in those categories, and then take what you know about your own business, your own products and services, and then we can begin to make really informed decisions about how we act on those signals.

Jerry Joyce (20:16):

Well, thank you. So it looks a little intimidating. There’s a lot there, but- it’s not.

Darcy Hoffmann (20:22):

Don’t be intimidated.

Real-World Use Cases for Each Signal Type

Jerry Joyce (20:24):

I imagine that it’s not about acting on every particular signal at the same time. It’s really about creating that systematized opportunity to be able to take advantage of that, which is most productive for you as the marketer. There’s certainly scale here. Jamie, taking what Darcy said in terms of these signals, can you provide some reality around these? She talked about the fundamental elements of the signals, the actions, and the patterns that a marketer can observe. In your experience, what are some key takeaways in working across these three signal types?

Jamie Hennelly (21:03):

Yeah, Jerry, I actually have three great use cases, one for each of the categories. And I can also talk about the role that direct mail plays in those categories. So bear with me because I want to make sure I am able to share these examples. I’d start with the simplest category, which is the hand raisers. Darcy had said how powerful those are because the customer is doing something explicit. They’re taking an action that tells you they’re interested right now.

So best example I can think of is a site visitor or someone who’s high intent browsing. Maybe they’ve abandoned the process, whether that meant that they were filling out a quote or an application, they’re engaged. Maybe they started a form fill, but they didn’t complete it. Maybe they didn’t even get there. Maybe they viewed a product multiple times, they compared options. Regardless, it would be clear that they’re in a decision window.

And I work with a lot of brands that would typically respond digitally. They might do retargeting. They could do email too if the individual is known and they’ve gotten to that form fill or that quote’s not sold or application state. But I always recommend to think differently about the role direct mail can play because it does come in differently today. Instead of being delayed, it becomes a speed to market triggered touchpoint based on the signal. So now you can have the digital channels still running and creating immediacy, but direct mail reinforcing the decision with what would be a more tangible high attention experience.

So in wrapping up the hand raisers, I think the key idea is simple. If a customer raises their hand, it’s really our job as marketers to respond before that moment fades. And when you activate on that behavior, the impact can be real. I think we consistently see 2% to 4% response rates and four times ROAS just by retargeting high intent visitors with direct mail.

Jerry Joyce (23:32):

And that’s going to be sort of the table stakes for trigger programs in terms of getting started with something like that?

Jamie Hennelly (23:41):

Yeah, for sure. Those types of retargeting programs across both digital and direct.

Jerry Joyce (23:48):

Yeah. What about behavioral?

Jamie Hennelly (23:50):

Yep. The second category is behavioral signals, and so that’s where you’re not reacting to one action, but again, interpreting a pattern of behavior like Darcy had mentioned. And I feel like this is where first party data and third party data can become really powerful. So not just leveraging the knowledge you have within your own organization, but maybe working with a partner. And I’ll use a financial services example here. So the first party data might show that a customer’s checking count balance is steadily declining. At the same time, third party data might indicate that that same customer is researching loans or credit products. So individually, the signals might fly under the radar. They might not trigger action, but if you recognize the pattern or you can see them together, it starts to tell that very clear story. And in this case, that customer has an obvious financial need and they might be entering a borrowing decision.

So that creates a different type of opportunity. You’re not waiting for them to apply. You’re really stepping in earlier with something relevant and helpful. So in that case, I think, again, direct mail can be really powerful, but it has to do with the timing. You’re not personalizing based on what you know about them in terms of demographics or geography or a special offer, but you’re acknowledging the timing, you can introduce that tailored loan offer, frame it around their likely need, and that provides a level of clarity and trust that could compliment any sort of digital as a follow-up.

So instead of reacting late, using that behavioral intelligence to engage at the right moment in the decision journey, I think when brands get that right, the impact is significant. We’ve seen response lifts as much as 95% and triple digit MRI by acting on behavioral signals instead of waiting for that application and financial services. And again, that was just one particular industry, but I’m hoping that everyone here can see this applying in their sectors as well.

Jerry Joyce (26:15):

So really quick, hand raisers, a little bit reactionary, but still really good. Behavioral, a little bit more proactive because we’re kind of distilling out what’s the next action accurate?

Jamie Hennelly (26:25):

Yep, you’ve got it. And I hope everyone else is tracking right along as well. Third category, predictive signals. So this is sometimes where the signals are less obvious, but they’re oftentimes the most valuable using that historical data, doing real-time lookbacks on past behavior, modeling or scoring intent, identifying what’s likely to happen next. Again, I lead the insurance practice, so I’ll use an insurance example here on churn. If you look at customers who cancel, a lot of times there are patterns that’ll show up beforehand. And so if you could recognize them and model them, then you can start to identify who’s at risk before they actually cancel.

And again, that gives you that window to act. Instead of reacting to churn, you’re working to prevent it. And since this is a webinar about direct mail, just as much as it is about signals and timing, the direct mail can play a really intentional role, reach that customer with that retention message, reinforce the value. In some verticals, maybe you could even present an offer that’s designed to keep them.

So I think when you take that direct mail touchpoint that’s highly personalized, you pair it with digital, it becomes a coordinated effort. It’s what is more likely to save a relationship before it’s lost. And in insurance, I think we all know even just a few percentage points in churn reduction can have such an outsized impact on lifetime value, so that’s why these moments are so critical. I’ll just leave the group with a wrap up here because I know … Sorry, that was a little long-winded.

Across the three categories, I’d say there’s a common thread. The signal will define the moment, but the moment is what should define the marketing response. And I think then that makes it easier to have a clearer role for direct mail. It tells us that the moment’s important enough to deserve that touch, that physical touch.

Jerry Joyce (28:49):

Yeah, that’s a great point. Just really understanding that continuum of predictability. And I’ll go back to what you said earlier, designing around the moment and making it a system rather than what we’re used to, which is calendarized, campaignized. So sort of like if then, if customer does this, then this happens, where this is much more individualized and much more predictive. So thank you so much. We’re going to move to our next poll here. We’ve been talking a lot about signals, so this is about the readiness of your organization with signals.

If you are doing some, and there was a large 25% that said that they were doing some signal work, which type of signal is your organization either working with today or most prepared to act on hand raisers, behavioral signals, so those browsing patterns and repeat visits or predictive signals, the churn and the renewal, the propensities, or maybe if you fell into that lower section, maybe there’s not a signal that you’re acting on yet.

Alright. Results, please. All right, we’ve got about 30% doing the hand raisers, 16% behavioral, 30% on predictive and 16% non-acting yet. Jamie, Darcy, any thoughts on those results?

Darcy Hoffmann (30:21):

Exactly what you would expect to see from a group of direct marketers, I think. So those things, that hand raiser, the one that is most explicit that people really understand, I think that’s one that’s often the easiest to act on. And so predictive, right? We’re experts at modeling, we understand that space, so that’s coming in second. I think no surprise there. And then behavioral, bringing up the back.

Jamie Hennelly (30:55):

And I would just add for those that said they’re unsure, that’s okay. And we’re going to talk about how you can get started in just a minute. But yeah, I think that just to me signals an exciting opportunity for some of those folks on the call.

Building the Foundation: Receive, Execute, Measure

Jerry Joyce (31:15):

Yeah. And so moving into that, I mean, we’ve talked about signal types and use cases. Now we can talk about what has to be true to make it real. Darcy, how are you seeing companies leverage these signals well? And particularly, what do organizations need to have in place in order to move this from theory to execution? What’s the foundation of what they need to orchestrate against some of these?

Darcy Hoffmann (31:43):

Yeah, it’s a great question. And look, if you’re on this call today and you’re in a marketing operations role, buckle up, this is your section. But I like things in digestible threes. So I think there’s three big categories to think about when you’re in this sort of activation space, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. And it’s also important that when we talk about, you got to have these three things, that there are enablers to each of these three things.

And enablers are what help you sort of move from theory to execution. So if nothing else, we hope what you’ll take away from today is that understanding what those things are and what are some of the enablers, the partnerships, the platforms that you should be thinking about to help you turn this into action. So the first is you need to be able to receive the signal.

This sounds elementary, but this is often the first challenge. And what I mean by that is a lot of times you might have the data, the data might exist, but it is maybe spread … Does this sound familiar to anyone? Spread across different platforms. We got web behavior over here. We have CRM data over here. We’ve got transaction data over here, and we’ve got all of these things sitting in different places. And if the organization can’t see the signal in a really meaningful and usable way, then it’s harder to act on it. So the first question is, what signals do we have access to today? How quickly can we receive them? Important. You’re probably getting our timeliness message here today. And then some enablers to that, again, doesn’t always have to be boiling the ocean.

So enablers could be really simple to, “Hey, I’m just going to find a way to set up a regular rapid paced daily data feed that’s going to feed my marketing communication engine to something way more comprehensive and complex, like continual monitoring of consumer behavior in something like a CDP.” Then once you sort of … So that’s the first one, receive the signal.

Then guess what? You got to be able to execute on the signal in a timely way. And this is where I think timing really starts to become operational. A signal has a shelf life, and if someone is in market today or showing some form of signal today, a response that comes in a matter of days is really going to meet that consumer in that decision-making moment.

If it comes on a pre-scheduled campaign calendar four weeks later, you’ve probably, at the very least, missed that moment and missed capitalizing on that in a way that’s going to really drive incremental marketing performance. So here, enablers here often come honestly from your agency or your agency partners because they have to be organized and set up in a way that allows them to execute in an always on way.

And so for us, for Amsive, those enablers are things like investing in automations, our connectivity to journey platforms and our strategy around building out these components within journeys and even equipment, manufacturing equipment that supports that highly variable direct mail personalization and sort of real time daily production.

So if your partner isn’t set up to act in that way, it’s going to be harder for you to leverage the timing. And then the third one is really measurement and ongoing optimization. So this is probably to a lot of you sounding like the old traditional marketing circle, but I’m going to go back to my earlier comment, which is we have to evolve to think about direct mail the way we think about paid media. And that means being in this continuous state of optimization. And

In order to be able to do that, you have to be able to understand what is working about that signal. You got to have that closed loop measurement and that underscore here, that is what turns this from being a direct mail tactic into a system driven system, signal driven system. Excuse me.

And I think that’s really important because again, you’re not going to act on every signal, but if you don’t have that closed loop measurement, you could have the most beautiful journey in the world. But if you program the most pristine journey you’ve ever created in your life, and then you think about that in a set it and forget it sort of way, game over. You’ve got to have that closed loop and you have to have the ability to look and see what’s happening within that journey and to be able to pivot and improve and optimize.

So enablers here would be, again, on the simple side, things just like an integrated dashboard where you can go out there and see what’s happening, something that connects the front to the back in simple terms, so that you can sort of see what’s working to obviously much more complex things all the way to something like an enabler here today is most definitely AI and AI-based data and insights. AI is allowing direct marketing to see things and know things and learn things so much faster than we ever could before.

And so that’s a real enabler here too, that I think, again, we should never have a webinar in today’s day and age without talking about AI. So there you go. So then I guess the last thing I would say about those three areas is that we also, this is where reality sets in. Most companies don’t start with the perfect signal environment or the signal ecosystem.

You might have some data, you might have some triggers, you might have some channel coordination, but very few people, as we, I think, saw in the survey results have that full end to end ecosystem all worked out and perfectly plumbed together, and that is okay. The work is to identify where you are today and build from there. And Jamie, I think, is going to talk about a practical way of approaching that, but just know that if you’re thinking, “Well, I don’t have that or I don’t have that. ” It’s okay. There are ways that you can get there in a crawl, walk, run sort of fashion.

Jerry Joyce (39:07):

Thank you, Darcy. What I like most about this is, and for folks who don’t know on the call, my background’s data and identity, that’s what I grew up in. So this connectivity behind the scenes to capture, to activate, to measure, it really does come down to setting that good foundation. And I’ll double down on the AI commentary that you made earlier, just that there’s a lot of tools that we use, that our partners use and that our clients use to help make that a reality.

A lot of acceleration in that space of connecting data across your internal and external platform partners to capture, activate, and measure. So really a good segue to the next section, which is, well, how do you get started and what is the maturity level of the organization? So we’ll bring up our third poll today, our last poll, I promise.

But let’s just talk about the maturity of your organization. Where is your organization today in its ability to capture, to act quickly, and to measure impact? And when you answer these questions, think about that across all three of those. It’s very possible that you’re great at capturing, but there’s a friction or a disconnect in the activation layer, or you’re able to activate against, but you’re not fully measuring it. So I’ll let you answer those questions here while I finish up and we’ll get the results.

Alright. So we’re seeing the similar trend, about 15, 16% not set up today. A good half is able to have some, but there’s still disconnectivity. That mirrors, I mean, everything that we see at the conferences we go to primary conversation is really that connection across tech stacks and data stacks. Limited activation across select users. No surprises here for me. Darcy, Jamie, any surprises for you?

Darcy Hoffmann (41:14):

I think no surprises. The only thing I would say is, especially if you’re in that disconnected bucket, which is very common among clients that we work with, I think just the thing to know is like everything else, there’s more than one way to skin a cat and you can … There are workarounds, so just know that it doesn’t put you out of the game.

The Crawl, Walk, Run Roadmap for Signal Adoption

Jerry Joyce (41:39):

No, of course not. No. And there’s a lot of solutions coming up with deterministic ID matching that are out in the marketplace right now that help accelerate some of that. Jamie, let’s move just to talking about advancing in adoption of these things. We’ve saw that half of the group here is disconnected. Could you walk through maybe how this goes from this discussion to something that’s real? How does a company or an organization start to embrace this mindset of designing around the moment and systematizing their direct mail platforms?

Jamie Hennelly (42:22):

If you’ve worked with me before, you know, I love a crawl, walk, run scenario, and Amsive loves a roadmap. So I’m going to lay it out that way, how to start. First, I just reassure everyone that you don’t have to solve every signal, every channel at once. You can start simple. So the crawl is one use case, and I’ll go back to retargeting. Pick that high intent hand raiser, someone who abandons their cart, someone who is “not sold” or starts an application but doesn’t take that product, build a triggered program around it. And to do that, just define maybe who qualifies, how quickly you’re able to respond, what message they receive, how you’ll measure incremental impact. So again, how are you going to capture, activate, and measure? That’s the foundation and that’s the goal of the crawl is to prove that this model works, prove the framework. And then from there, I think the walk stage is just expanding more signals, more segmentation, more coordinated channels.

When you really start to orchestrate like that, that’s where you’re going to see that mail working alongside email or paid media or sales. I think for me, as a marketer, what is most exciting is when we can get clients from a walk or a crawl to a run, and the run becomes more of that operating model. Having discussions with clients recently about acquisition engines or customer lifecycle engines, in those, the signals are continuous responses are prioritized, the measurement feeds, ongoing optimization. So you don’t have to start there and don’t feel bad if you answered in the poll that you’re still just getting started or trying to get to scale. Start with that strongest use case, prove it out, scale from there. And then I will just add one more thing about direct mail.

With DM specifically, the workflow design matters, but it’s not just about moving faster. I know we’re saying, “Oh, you have to pay attention to the timing, right timing, right moment.” But hyper-personalization needs to come into play too. That mail has to be responsive to the moment. It has to be personalized and contextual and obviously still has to maintain quality or compliance and measurement discipline, but you have to follow those sort of new best practices for DM, not just leveraging the known data, but the signal data as well to create that personalized experience.

Darcy Hoffmann (45:30):

Yeah, Jamie, I think, look, that’s a really important point. So speed matters, but speed without the strategy isn’t good enough. And we are trying to create a system here, but not a system that reacts to everything. In fact, a really good system understands which moments really deserve that action, to your point. And I think it is about prioritizing. Not every signal should trigger a piece of direct mail. I mean, look, we all know direct mail is a more expensive medium.

Jerry Joyce (46:05):

Sure.

Darcy Hoffmann (46:05):

Signals might only necessitate getting a digital communication like an email. Some signals might be indicating that you should actually suppress a consumer from some future direct mail effort. Some might say, “Well, this really warrants more of a sales action.” So there’s a lot of outcomes that come with that strategy and that prioritization. But I think when you think about what justifies that sort of investment in direct mail, which is what we’re really talking about here, the signal is what helps you understand that.

So you identifying it, understanding the moment and then deciding that appropriate response. And Jamie, I’m really glad that you brought up the whole idea of an omnichannel orchestrated program because look, we all know, everyone says a customer journey is not linear. It sort of looks like a piece of spaghetti and we all get that. And so at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do here is not have a beautiful system.

We’re trying to drive improved marketing performance, better response, all the KPIs that we get measured on as marketers every day. And so I’ll just leave you with an example here. I think to underscore Jamie’s point, we had worked with a client recently where we were building a direct mail touchpoint, really smart, sophisticated into their overarching omnichannel journey. It was great delivering profitable, wonderful. We were all very proud of ourselves, but we said, “Okay, what else can we do? ” Again, sort of adopting that state of continual optimization. So we said, there are still people that maybe they’re not as aware of us. And how do we really amplify that message at that time when we are putting that more expensive communication in the hands of the consumer?

So we started testing a variety of things and we ended up pulsing CTV around the time when we knew that direct mail was going to be hitting in homes, immediately a 3X improvement in our return in what was already a really profitable touchpoint in the system, but immediately moved to 3X by including CTV.

So I think that’s just one example. That doesn’t mean that that works for everybody in every scenario, but it does mean that you have to constantly be trying new things because even when you think something is really great, there’s an opportunity for it to deliver even more growth and improved marketing performance.

Key Takeaways: Speed Is Not the Strategy — Recognizing the Right Moment Is

Jerry Joyce (49:01):

Alright. Well, thank you, Darcy. Thank you, Jamie. I love that conversation. It goes to the roots of having that connected infrastructure and that ability to measure, so that it just sort of compliments the ability to receive the signal. So I do appreciate the cylindrical aspect of that in terms of each side being able to contribute to the optimization of the program. We’re nearing the end of the content portion, and I want to ask each of you for a final thought and then we’ll get to questions. What is the biggest takeaway that you have that the folks here who are listening into the webinar can take back to their desks and their works on Monday and be able to begin to explore and potentially activate? And we’ll start with you, Darcy.

Darcy Hoffmann (49:53):

Well, you only asked for one, but I’m going to give you two. I think the number one, speed matters, but speed isn’t the strategy. Remember that. The strategy is recognizing that signal and being able to act on it. And then the second one is just that the thing I was talking about at the beginning, which is if you are a longtime direct marketer, it’s just sort of that personal challenge to sort of shift your chair a little bit and shift our mentality to moving beyond the right audience, the right message, the right channel, to understanding that we need to really now add to that mantra that we’ve grown up with.

And we really need to capitalize on the right timing or the right signal, the right moment, whatever you want to call it because to succeed today, we’re competing with more than ever before. We talk about that all the time, more channels, more touch points, so much digital media, all these things compete for this consumer’s attention.

And so showing up in that moment is a big piece of what success looks like in today’s modern marketing. Jamie?

Jamie Hennelly (51:18):

Darcy, I agree with everything that you just said. I think if I’m going to build on that, for those that took the polls and are feeling a little discouraged, hopefully today’s conversation gave you some optimism and understanding of how to get started, but I think I’d also just want to call out a lot of times you have more signals than you realize. And so when you were going back to operationalizing this and the enablers, you do probably have that data at your fingertips. The opportunity isn’t always to go and find more data. It’s really getting intentional about the signals you already have. Figuring out which ones matter, which one deserves a response. When you start thinking that way and you’re thinking about then the experience that you want to create with that powerful knowledge, that’s how direct mail can become more strategic. It’s definitely not a standalone channel.

It’s something that you can deploy selectively and when the moment is important enough to warrant that touch.

Jerry Joyce (52:32):

All right. I want to move quickly to questions here. I think the big idea is that direct mail is very powerful when it’s not treated in a static campaign structure, but becomes part of a environment that’s designed around the moment that’s systematized to take advantage of the signal. We talked about hand raisers, behavioral signals, predictive signals.

We talked about the importance of showing scale of possible triggers, but simplifying that framework, like how do we bite off what we can chew now so that we can have more later? And then we talked about the practical path of receiving the signal, acting on it, and measuring what happened. So before we jump to Q&A, I want to just let everybody know that we have a playbook coming out called Mail the Moment. You can scan the QR code on the screen right now and you can download that.

It’s also going to be sent out after the webinar with the webinar, so you’ll be able to get those in the post-webinar communication.

Darcy Hoffmann (53:43):

Great stuff, building on our conversation.

Q&A

Jerry Joyce (53:46):

We’re going to invite Sarah to offer us some questions that came in during the discussion.

Sarah Gray (53:52):

Yeah. We’re still taking in a few questions, but we got one from Lauren about when we react to signals that are more middle of funnel. What are some maybe top of funnel strategies for reacting to signals?

Jamie Hennelly (54:07):

I can take this one. So when I think about signals, I don’t just think of them as mid or lower funnel. They absolutely exist at the top of the funnel, but you just tend to define them a little bit differently. Top of funnel signals are usually more broad, more predictive. It could be life stage changes or changes in your financial situation. You might be doing category level research, engaging in content. They could be modeled or third party intent signals. I know what Amsive is doing is a lot of lookbacks on the behavior that we want the person to take.

Those who’ve already done that, what are we seeing leading up to that moment? And then can we model that and find those that are doing similar things? When you identify that emerging intent, it just allows you to move earlier to get in front of the customer before they’ve raised their hand directly.

And so I would say the signals aren’t going to replace your top of funnel strategy, but they can, if you get in front of folks before they raise their hand, make it smarter, make it more targeted, make it more timely.

Darcy Hoffmann (55:29):

And I actually think signals have sort of helped direct marketing move up the funnel a little bit because if you think about that top of the funnel stage where people are just deciding who’s going to be in their consideration set and they’re just educating themselves and they’re not really ready to make a purchase yet, for example, by being able to recognize those signals and sort of understanding who’s worth maybe that more expensive outreach, you actually can start to use direct mail to influence earlier in that consumer journey than you could before.

Jerry Joyce (56:10):

Yeah, there’s a lot of data out there. When Jimmy mentions lookback, there’s great data companies that are out there that will look back over successive months. So for example, I know that there was one study that people reduced the amount of spend at restaurants and reduce the percentage of tipping three months before changing their cell phone provider. So just things like that little- That wouldn’t

Darcy Hoffmann (56:38):

Necessarily connect. Yeah.

Jerry Joyce (56:39):

Correct. That’s the upper funnel performance marketing utilization of signals that can be put in place. And then of course, if that individual warrants direct mail, then they become a direct mail target. If they warrant a less expensive outreach, they become a less expensive target. Sarah-

Darcy Hoffmann (56:58):

We’re following along earlier, modeled behaviors.

Jerry Joyce (57:01):

Yes. Yes. Next question, Sarah. Sarah?

Darcy Hoffmann (57:05):

Yeah.

Sarah Gray (57:07):

No other questions yet from the group, but I know a common one that we do get that you guys might want to talk about is how we measure success of programs like this.

Darcy Hoffmann (57:19):

I can start with that one. I think a couple of things I’m going to reinforce what I was talking about earlier, which is having a closed loop measurement process. If you have a lot of data in a lot of places, that does sound intimidating. However, you can do it and you can do it through things as simple as multiple different datas feeding into a dashboard to something way more comprehensive in real time, but you need to be able to see what is happening in the same sort of time cadence that allows you to make those changes. It doesn’t mean you have to be changing your journey and reprogramming it every day, but you do need to have that optimization loop and you need to be able to be nimble enough to act on that.

Jamie Hennelly (58:14):

Yeah. And I would just add, I think you also have to look at incrementality, like incremental lift, what changed because the signal triggered touch happened. Yeah, I think as marketers, everyone probably understands that. I’d rather maybe if there’s time for one more question.

Darcy Hoffmann (58:32):

And I think it just comes down to the thing we always say or that I always say, if you are going through all this effort and you can’t define on the front end how you’re going to measure it on the backend, you really should ask yourself why do it. So just make sure that you do have a really clear understanding of how you’re going to measure it when you’re building.

Jerry Joyce (58:58):

All right. Anything else there, Sarah?

Sarah Gray (59:01):

That’s it for today.

Jerry Joyce (59:03):

Alright. Well, I just want to thank everybody for joining us today. You can connect with us on LinkedIn, Darcy, Jamie, myself. We’d love to connect. Yeah, we hope that you’ve able to take away from this webinar that it’s not intimidating.

It can be, if you’re in the middle, you can move quickly to full adoption. If you’re at the beginning, you can take a few key steps to move to early first adoption for your organization. We thank you for your time and we look forward to seeing you in the marketplace.

Looking for more direct mail insights? Explore our takeaways from this quarter’s Mailers’ Technical Advisory Committee, or let’s talk about how Amsive can help you future-proof your marketing strategy.