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The Umbrella Marketing Podacst : Episode 03 – Mailers’ Secrets to Increasing Sales ft. Devin Herz

By Itamar Shafir on May 20, 2021

Hi … and Welcome to The Marketing Umbrella Podcast! If you the owner of a local marketing agency who is looking to grow your business, OR maybe you are an entrepreneur looking to build an agency, then you would love The Marketing Umbrella Podcast!

In each episode, we interview leading digital marketing experts and sales gurus – and I’m talking about LEADING … They will share their story and provide advice in the form of practical tactics you can put in place to grow your sales … break the noise … scale … and provide better value – OR in short, grow your agency. I’m your host, Mr. Itamar Shafir, CEO of UMBRELLA, the technology platform, and brand that is powering thousands of marketing agencies globally. I have built my business by learning from super-successful people, and I want to introduce you to other people who can help YOU, too.

And as our guest today, I am excited to be joined by Mr. Devin Herz who is a two-time addy award winner. He is the host of the DMC Marketing Nugget podcast, a best-selling author, and the creator of InstaVizionvideo on print technology. So without further ado, let’s dive right in.

Itamar: Welcome to the Umbrella Marketing podcast, where we talk with successful marketing experts, about ways to build and grow your digital marketing agency. Our guest today has 25 years of marketing experience. He has won two Addy Awards. He is the host of the DMC Marketing Nugget podcast, a best-selling author, and the creator of InstaVizion video on print technology. I’m excited to say hello to Mr. Devin Herz. Hello Devin.

Devin Herz: Hey, it’s very good to be here. Excited to talk with your audience and other ad agency owners. It’s always exciting to see what they’ve got to say, what they’ve got going on, and also give some advice that we’ve been dealing with through these past years.

Itamar: Yeah. And I’m going to ask you a lot of things today. I know you are doing everything in marketing but, correct me if I’m wrong, you have a specific expertise where it comes to print related marketing. Can you expand a little bit on that?

Devin Herz: Yeah, sure. So getting into marketing way back when I was in the college days, really ramped things up on my graphic design level, and being able to develop unique marketing materials that ended up as a print product to go out and promote, whether it be local restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. So that’s really how I got started, was developing outrageous types of designs that are going to stop people when they actually get a flyer on their car, and their dorm room, whatever that marketing may be. Move forward a few years, we really wanted to focus on being able to help our clients out. And the way that we did that was from developing very unique, direct marketing through print and mailers. A lot of times, these weren’t just your standard postcards. We did postcards of course, but we really liked to do what we call lumpy mail, three-dimensional mail, I’m sure you’ve heard of that as well.

Itamar: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Devin Herz: Things that are just going to stop people when they get it in the mail and go, “What the heck is this?” was really what our goal was.

Itamar: Yeah. Lumpy mail. Do you know, I forget his name from GKIC. One of the well-known copywriters was talking about lumpy mail all the time?

Devin Herz: John Goldman, potentially.

Itamar: Jack Kennedy? No, Jeff Kennedy?

Devin Herz:  Dan Kennedy?

Itamar:  Dan Kennedy. Thank you.

Devin Herz: Yes. So Dan Kennedy, that was a big part of, I would say, early career. We were involved in, actually, a lot of Dan Kennedy events through GKIC, and I even got to speak on a couple of stages with those guys. A great group of people, a lot of unique marketing tactics that really helped fuel our business back then, and direct marketing and direct mail was our forte. So we did have a lot of clients that were big Dan Kennedy followers, absolutely.

Itamar: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s still working today, even Russell Bronson is speaking about it today still, and obviously you were doing it very well. And today we want to focus on that, right? Because every time we bring in an expert, and obviously you have a lot of marketing expertise, but we want to focus on how agencies can harness print both as to sell and maybe to bring clients, to basically grow their agency. But before that, I just have to ask, what did you get the Addy Award for?

Devin Herz: Oh, we done a couple Addy awards back in the day, and the awards thing is something that I haven’t really done a lot of, but when we had a lot of the print marketing stuff, we did a beautiful, direct mail piece for Dairy Queen that won an Addy Award, and that was just a unique, very personalized piece. We integrated the person’s name and a local neighborhood onto the actual postcard, and then there was a perforated discount card that you punched out, just a creative design. So that won us one Addy Award for a direct mailer. The next Addy Award that we got was for a beautiful travel magazine, a very, very high end travel magazine. One of our designers on the team, as a collaborative effort, helped us develop this catalog that just went out to very… I mean, we’re talking travel that was hundreds of thousands of dollars. So the brochure itself had to really be top-notch. So the design and the print of that product got us another Addy Award.

Itamar: Okay, excellent. So, you talked about those big clients, and a lot of our listeners are smaller agencies. They have small clients. Do you think mailers print marketing is relevant for these small clients?

Episode 01 – Breaking the Noise: The Evolved Marketing Agency ft. Yanik Silver

Devin Herz:  I would say it’s huge. Even if you have a small client, it depends. If you’re neighborhood marketing, we have over here in the states called EDDM, every door direct mail, that allows you to saturate the market. We’re seeing restaurants go out of business because people don’t even know they exist. So there is definitely something very valuable this day and age to get back in the mailboxes. There’s thousands, if not millions, of marketing messages that people are getting bombarded with. I know I say that repeatedly, but it’s true. I mean, even myself as a marketer, I get hit up on LinkedIn… I don’t know, five times a day of people that want to help me with my marketing. It’s just insane.

So, being able to do something different, being able to do something unique, is what we preach, and direct mail allows you to do that, whether it is just a simple postcard, coming up with engaging graphics, a headline that’s going to grab them, compelling offers that are going to help them take action, but then even stepping that up and, for agency owners out there, if you’re trying to get more clients, I would say that direct mail could be your best friend as well.

Itamar: Oh, okay. So let’s touch on that. That’s actually very important, because one of the things that our listeners would love to know, is how do you grow your agency? And are you using mailers for that?

Devin Herz: Absolutely. Mailing will always be, as far as I’m concerned, part of our marketing method and part of our omni-channel marketing approach. Of course, we’ve got to stay relevant, things like you’re doing with the podcast, so we have our video show called the DMC Marketing Nugget. These are things that help build credibility and authority, and I highly recommend for agency owners to do anything they can to put out tips and tricks and advice so they become that trusted authority in their industry. But there is something when you’re sending something out and you’re able to add a personal touch to that mailer, and your competition probably is not mailing them, so I would say you have a better advantage if you’re really able to hit on those pain points that your clients are experiencing, and then showing them how you can help them using testimonials, case studies, things of that nature, putting that in a nice package and a nice mailer is definitely going to help get you on their radar. And then also give you that opportunity to just walk them through that sales process that you have.

Itamar: Okay. So, I want to dive a little bit into that because we want to give them practical advice. Let’s say you had to plan a campaign for a small agency. We’re not talking about a big budget.

Devin Herz: Okay.

Itamar:  They want to get a few more clients, let’s say, working with home service businesses, HVAC, roofers, cleaners, lawnmowers, they’re… a good customer for them would be a thousand dollars a month retainer or, give or take, a bit more.

Devin Herz: Yeah, I would-

Itamar: Build a small campaign for them, please.

Devin Herz: Yeah. I mean, there’s definitely different levels of that, right? So depending on the client’s worth, but a client that’s a thousand dollars a month is $12,000 a year, right? If they’re on a recurring revenue stream. So, are you willing to spend $50 to prospect someone? And I’m not saying find a hundred people, a thousand people to spend $50 on, I’m saying find 10 people that you feel would fit your agency the right way that have similar core values that you have. You can see they need assistance, but they’re doing all right. They’re already successful. They’re not using you as kind of their last chance to stay in business. Right? We want to work with people that are already successful. At least I do. We’ve tried to be the savior. I love charity cases and things like that, but typically they end up taking more time and energy.

So I would say that building a direct mail campaign, figuring out that exact avatar, the audience that you want to go after. So if you have case studies in a certain industry, being able to use those to target a specific individual in that industry would be recommended. And then I would always go with the approach of sending out a lumpy mailer up front. I mean, I did some videos on this and it could be something that’s very planned out, or you can go to a dollar store or your local grocery market and find some things like a can of nuts. You know, you got to be nuts not to hire us for your SEO or your marketing campaigns.

Itamar:  Nice one.

Devin Herz: There’s so many different things that you can do, and then higher level gifting as well, if you’re going after some of these well clients, and that’s going to get you on their radar, that’s going to give you that much more of an opportunity to convert them into a sale versus picking up the phone, doing a cold email, a cold LinkedIn InMail, sending something out that gets in their hands that they go, “Okay, this is interesting. I got to see what this is all about.”

Now, you have the ability to then follow up, picking up that thing we call a phone, it’s not just a camera for social media. Pick up the phone. You call them, “I’m the guy that essentially the can of nuts.” They’re going to remember you. Or if you step it up, I’m going to bring into something additional, that I know you want to talk about, that’s exciting, is video in print.

Itamar: Yeah.

Devin Herz: So we’re now doing video mailers. So here’s an example, White Label Chats. They’re a great company out there. They do actually live chat, so instead of the box… but it’s a pretty high end service and they sent this out to prospect high-level clients and inside you’ve got your video message.

Speaker 3:  Did you know that 85% of visitors leave your website-

Itamar: Wow.

Speaker 3: to never come back? You paid a lot of money for that fancy-

Devin Herz:  So, when you send something like this out, again, one, you’re able to get the video message hitting all sensories, different senses. You’re hitting the sight, the sound, the touch, and then you’re able to convey the message that you want in there, and you can even personalize them. You can even have the case studies, video testimonials in there. And I’ll tell you just this one solution here, which could cost you anywhere from $30 to $50, depending on how you package it, would be the one go-to direct mail piece that I would recommend for any business owner, any agency owner, to really help get on the radar.

Itamar: Wow. So we’re talking about price and that’s very important. So you’re saying between 30 to $50, depending on what?

Devin Herz: Yeah. I would say the value of the client, right? So depending on your packages, what you’re selling, what they could potentially be worth. If I’m spending $50 and going after 10 whale clients, I’m spending 500 bucks. I know if I land one of those clients, I’m getting that $500 back and then some, so it’s very easy math, very easy to figure out. And I know it’s like, “Oh man, I got to still spend $50,” but if you’re doing any kind of pay-per-click, social media advertising, Facebook boosting, you know, 500 bucks has gone in a second.

Itamar: Yeah.

Devin Herz: So knowing that she can put a really strategic campaign like this together with the follow-ups with the social media, that omni-channel approach, I would say is going to get you the best bang for the buck.

Itamar: Okay. Perfect. And how much does it actually cost me to buy that vista print? Oh, excuse me, I said vista print. Print vision. InstaVizion.

Devin Herz: [crosstalk] Yeah. Vista print. That’s… don’t go there.

Itamar: Yeah, yeah, no, no guys, don’t do that. [crosstalk]

Devin Herz: Yeah. I mean, there’s all different levels. There’s everything from a small business card to big coffee table sized books. When you’re talking about a custom piece, anywhere from $30 to $50 on average, again, size of the screen, this is a five-inch screen. We have seven-inch screens. If you’re looking for something more on demand, we developed InstaVizion and that’s where we have a set. They’re just blank, video brochures, either black or white, they have a pocket on the inside left. So you can put your collateral material in here, business card slit so you can put your business card in here. And these are right around $39 a piece, you can buy as little as one. And that’s at instavizion.com with a Z. This has a seven-inch screen as well. So, 39 bucks, by the time you’re said and done, sending it out in the mail, 50 bucks, let’s call it. This is something that I would recommend that anyone really test out for themself and just see the reaction that you get with that.

Itamar: Yeah. Guys, I learned about this today and I’m going to be a client very, very soon of Davin. Of Devin. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on with me today. Vista print, Davin. Words are just going away from me. I think it’s… I have a new puppy.

Devin Herz: Okay.

Itamar: And he keeps… yeah, the kids want a new puppy. He keeps me up at night nonstop for three days. I haven’t slept well. So guys, I’m sorry. I know it’s a podcast, we’re supposed to be very eloquent, but you’ll excuse this one. But I am going to be a client of this because this is insane. I have not seen anything like this today and I’m sure… I know, having sold to many, many clients in digital marketing, this will get interest immediately. So I love that. How did you came up with the idea? You’re the creator, right, Devin?

Devin Herz: Well, there there’s… the technology really was out there. I mean, we were sending, we were talking about lumpy mail. We were going crazy. We were sending out DVD players to companies. So that’s the background of this. We were sending out a DVD players with a custom DVD. You got to open up the little portable DVD player, hit the play button, and our message would appear. Being that we had printing presses and we were doing thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of direct mail, we’re like, “Video’s becoming more popular.” And this is about 10 plus years ago now, how do we integrate video screens into print? So I can’t take full credit for the technology and the creation of that. I can take credit for going through the ups and downs of the technology when it first came out, because it definitely was not fun the first year or two, just knowing that there was no consistency with the technology and the components.

I would say over the last eight, nine years, the technology has stepped up. We are partners in the technology that’s being built and then handle all the production, and our internal team is here based in the U.S., doing all the creative, whether that’s the design for the video brochures, the videos for them, the strategy behind it. So that’s really how our heads for coming together, my business partner at the time, was like, “How can we get video into the print and materials?” Because the element of surprise, the wow factor, the endorphins that flow when someone sees something different, just gets you that much better of a chance of getting that client on board.

Itamar: I agree. I agree. I love it. So we talked about… up until now, we talked about how can agencies get clients? And I think it’s very understandable. We’re sending the mailer, we’re following up with the phone call, and obviously everything regarding authority and branding on digital. But if I’m an agency, and I decide to start selling mailers, whether it’s print or whether it’s InstaVizion or similar solutions, what’s my margins? How much money am I making on those campaigns?

Devin Herz: Yeah. I mean, you can make some good money on campaigns. Of course, if you build the fact that the return of the investment of that client… it’s more selling the value of it versus you’re sending out X number dollar apiece. So what is that return that they could be generating? So you got development, so the dollars coming in, if you’re doing the design, is one place you can profit. If you’re on a recurring retainer, this is adding value by designing direct mail pieces for them. And then on the printing end, absolutely, there’s definitely other printers out there that are set up for reselling. We have done millions of pieces of mail through the years, tons of printing, tons of promotional items, really understand the packaging and how things should be sent out. So people like myself could definitely be the same way that you have services for other agencies.

We do have a lot of agencies that are coming to us for PrintAVizion, InstaVizion, and also our direct mail campaign capabilities. So, you’ve got choices out there. We’re definitely here. Even if you wanted to talk about strategies behind direct mail or how this could help you with your clients, I’m always available for other agency owners as well.

Itamar: That’s amazing. I’m sure they’re going to take you up on that. Guys, you’re tuning in to get some advice and now you’re getting a coach. So that’s going to be… no, that’s really… you know how it is probably, you probably remember starting up. It’s not the same as you are today? Like when you… right?

Devin Herz: Yeah. It’s definitely, it’s wild. Of course, the technology, staying up to speed with all the social media networks, what the younger generations are looking at, what the older generations are still looking at. And there’s people like ourselves out there that have failed several times. So you can learn from us. You’re not reinventing the wheel here. There are marketing agencies out there. There are people like yourself that are offering services that can help pull the stress off of their shoulders, that they don’t have to do it all themselves. So by outsourcing finding alliances that you can really trust, will help you scale, and I’m here. Always. I just feel that people shouldn’t have to go through some of the things that I went through early in my career, and if I’m able to give some advice to people, that just makes me feel more gratified. It’s gratifying to people and that’s really why I’m in this business in the first place, is to help our clients succeed.

Itamar: That’s a major point. And I’m sure a lot of the listeners would agree with you, that consulting and helping other people grow their business is basically helping them with their livelihood and vocation, which is what we do. And that’s an excellent point. One of the things that I want to ask you is, when you are looking at the future, right, because you know the past, you’ve been in doing this for 25 years, you know the present, you have managed to evolve. And when you’re looking five years into the future, even maybe 10 years if it’s not too exaggerated, what do you see? What’s going to win? Is Prince still going to be with us? Are we going to be digital only? Is it going to be augmented reality? What are we going to see?

Devin Herz: Yeah, I would say that print, I’m thinking, is still going to be with us for a long time because the, the digital marketing just gets saturated. I still think that catalogs being sent out during the holiday times, the numbers on those, and I don’t have specifics, but just people buying from catalogs is still very big these days. So I would say print still will still be around. The technology, we’ll probably have these and we already are starting to do these with hologram lenses. So there’s actually holograms that come up off of the screens. You’re going to have different types of thinner versions of this, more of the clear versions. So I would say to any agency owner out there, don’t be stuck with what you’re doing right now. Always be looking ahead to see what’s out there, what’s coming around the corner, staying up to speed with the technology.

I always think that the strategies that are implemented, the tried and true strategies of direct mail, personalizing, figuring out who your target audience is, solving their problems, that’s always going to be there. It’s just, what’s the vehicle going to be that you’re getting that information out there? And I would say another thing that I’ve learned is, and still trying to perfect, is being scalable. You know, a lot of us get some great clients on. We’re small agencies, it’s very hard to scale because we’re just servicing those clients that are very hands-on. So having a couple of different modules within your business, maybe that’s your core of 10 clients that you’re doing all the heavy lifting for on a monthly basis, but having another scalable module to your business that you can build once and sell to many, would be another recommendation out there, so you can scale your business without having to necessarily scale your team or scale your clients that you’re always working with.

Itamar: That’s a great recommendation. So, just to sum it up, because I do want to give them practical advice on the mailer, would you say their first stop, the first stop is talking with you, right? If they, tomorrow, want to start reselling mailing… reselling mailers, they can resell from you, right, Devin?

Devin Herz: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I mean, we do always make it attractive. So if you’re another agency out there, and printing and direct mail is not your forte, yes. We can make it advantageous for you to talk to us, provide some strategies for you, help you out with the planning of a campaign. And that way, you’re able to put your best foot forward to your clients, give them some creative ideas, and then you don’t have to worry about the, you know, “How much does it mail for? What’s the right size? How should I set up the design?” You know, those are things that we deal with. And again, that packaging, it’s not necessarily just the piece.

If you’re doing something with a promotional item, you got to be bananas not… I mean, there’s just, there’s all sorts of things that you can do, but it’s how do you package that so it shows up differently? You know, that’s the first thing, is to get them to stand out in the mail, and you don’t want to show up looking like everything else. So that kind of advice is something we can help with and then see it through all the way through implementation and fulfillment. We have a fulfillment team in-house, anyone that would really help you with that whole entire process we have on board here to help.

Itamar: Okay, perfect. That’s excellent. That’s one of the most practical podcast shows I ever did, when the person I’m interviewing is actually inviting the listeners to come and work together. And that’s awesome. I really appreciate it, Devin, because I know you guys are off the charts and you work with big clients and a lot of the listeners are smaller agencies and you still cater to them and that’s very much appreciated. One thing I would like to do before we conclude this podcast, we have a little bit of a rapid Q&A session that we do at the end of every podcast. Maybe some questions are going to be personal, so you can say, “Pass.” It’s not going to be a lot, but are you ready for that?

Devin Herz: Let’s bring it on.

Itamar: Okay. So did you get along with your parents growing up?

Devin Herz: I did get along with my parents growing up. Yes, I did.

Itamar: Do you have siblings?

Devin Herz: I do not. I’m an only child.

Itamar: Do you have a pet?

Episode 02 – Go Social: Why Facebook is the Ultimate Marketing Machine Ft. Brian Hahn

Devin Herz: I do, four legged fuzzy buddy. Miller is our dog and absolutely love him to death.

Itamar: How old were you when your first kid was born?

Devin Herz: First kid was born? My dog, first dog was born. Since I don’t have any kids-

Itamar: Oh, I’m sorry. Okay.

Devin Herz: Yeah. So I had a fuzzy friend as a child, and then a couple of dogs since.

Itamar: When do you wake up?

Devin Herz: I wake up around 8:30 in the morning.

Itamar: When do you go to bed?

Devin Herz: That one’s a tough one, because if we’re busy, that’s somewhat of my alone private time. And that’s when some of the creativity shines for me. I’m a night guy. So, if I’m working on some projects, I could be going to bed at one, two in the morning. On average, I’ll probably go to bed around one o’clock.

Itamar: Okay. Ideal vacation?

Devin Herz: Ideal vacation? I live in a paradise here in Florida, on the west coast of Florida, so I love the staycation, but I love anything tropical, nature, going to Yellowstone was absolutely amazing. So things like that, national parks, I really enjoy as well. And then going overseas, of course, whenever travel gets back to normal, will be something else that we look forward to.

Itamar: That’d be nice. And the last one is, are you a man of faith?

Devin Herz: I am a man of faith, yeah. So I do feel that there’s… whatever you believe out there, that there is something there to just really grab onto and look. But I really feel that faith really comes within and believing in yourself, and really doing good things to help others out, and some of that karma as well comes back for you. But I think staying positive, loving your family, being there for them, being there for your friends is really where the faith comes in for me.

Itamar: Okay, cool. That’s a great answer. So, excellent Devin. I want to thank you very much for being on the show and for our listeners, how can they get ahold of you, contact you to work together, contact you to buy print vision?

Devin Herz: Sure. I’ll give you my personal email address is Devin, D-E-V-I-N, at yourdmc.com, that’s Y-O-U-R, D like dog, M like Mary, C like cat dot com. That’s my main email. You can always email me any questions that you have. Our main marketing agency website is dynamicmarketingconsultants.com and then PrintAVizion for any of these video brochures that we’re doing, check out printavizion.com, and that’s print, P-R-I-N-T, the letter A, and then V-I-Z-I-O-N dot com.

Itamar: Okay. Thank you very much, Devin. Guys, that was Devon, the print mailer master marketer that you can start working with. Thank you very much, Devin.

Devin Herz: It’s been great to be here. And like I said, we’re here to help and hope all your agencies out there succeed. So we wish you all the best of luck.

Itamar: Thank you.

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